A product owner is a central role in any agile product development. As per the survey done by Zippia, the product owner (PO) workforce has already crossed 5,799 in 2020 and is in rising mode. A product owner is the most complex role in agile project management and a diverse role that requires a mix of several skills and experience for high performance. That is why you can’t expect a product owner to do a great job if he/she has no relevant skills and abilities.
Let’s have an idea of the essential product owner skills in 2021 that can enhance a product owner’s ability and effectiveness to maximize product value. But before that, let’s discuss the actual role of a product owner is?
What is the role of a Product owner?
A product owner plays a significant role in any scrum development and agile project responsible for value maximization, optimization, and backlog management. In an agile project, he or she owns the product plus ensures that the product must meet the user requirement and technical aspects. He communicates and collaborates with the team, which is a major activity in any agile project. A product owner makes the right choices by deciding what to develop and when to develop. He creates, prioritizes, and manages the backlog items daily. As part of his core responsibilities, a product owner is responsible for backlog management, goal and development management, and product vision.
A product owner does a lot of things that are all aimed at maximizing the product value. The major tasks include:
- Defining product goal and objectives and explaining these goals to the scrum team and other stakeholders
- Explaining the product backlog items to the scrum team and make them understand what they’re supposed to do. Also, to ensure there are no ambiguities in the understanding.
- Prioritizing the product backlog.
- Maintaining regular communication with the scrum team members, the scrum master, and other stakeholders.
- Project resource management.
- Stakeholder management. This involves the on-boarding of stakeholders, inviting them for sprint review, goal discussion, and making information easy to understand.
Most importantly, a product owner is a person who is accountable for an agile project. If anything goes wrong in the project, he/she will be held responsible for it. The product owner is the decision-maker and the success or failures of the project solely depend on the decision and action taken by him/her.
Essential product owner skills in 2021
- Communication
- Analytical Skills
- Decision-Making
- Project Management Skill
- Collaboration
- Technical Skills
- Other Skills
1. Communication: This is the critical skill that every product owner must possess because he needs to orchestrate the communication between teams and stakeholders. Unless you have very good communication skills, it is hard to succeed as a product owner.
A product owner must understand the problem that customers are trying to solve rather than what they want. The key challenge of communication here is to identify what is not said to achieving goals. He/she must be well versed in effective communication, which means the product owner must understand:
- Which communication channel is the best for the customer. Whether it should be emailed, oral, or video?
- To communicate with clarity.
- Ready to address issues and feedback.
- Noise minimization.
2. Analytical skill: This is a must-have skill for any product owner. According to World Economic Forum, analytical thinking is the most important skill in high demand by 2025.
This means they should have the ability to collect and analyze information, solve complex problems rationally, and make decisions on time for enhanced productivity. Sometimes the product owner needs to analyze problems to identify possible solutions quickly critically. Prioritization is a primary need of backlog management, and for that, a product owner requires analytical skills. The product owner needs to identify which items to prioritize based on their importance, relevance, and linkage with other items in the backlog.
The analytical skill here involves other skills, including critical thinking, data analysis, logical reasoning, creativity, and research. All these skills are related to logical thinking that helps to solve complex problems.
3. Decision-making: A product owner must have the ability to quickly make a decision, even in the blink of an eye in a tough situation. Taking fast decisions is an important criterion to become a successful product owner. This is because they should not waste time and take at least a decision. Maybe it is a bad one. However, that could be reversible. He/she will be confident about the gut feelings.
4. Project Management Skill: Although a product owner isn’t a project manager but he/she must have project management skills. Since he/she is the agile development team leader, he /she must have this managerial skill. Project management is the ability to apply knowledge, skills, techniques, and tools to achieve project goals and meet project requirements effectively.
It has five processes:
- Initiating
- Planning
- Executing
- Monitoring and controlling
- Closing.
A product owner performs all of the above tasks when working with the development team.
5. Collaboration: Team management or collaboration with a team is an essential criterion of product owner skill. Because a product owner doesn’t work alone and is a part of the software development team, it is essential for the product’s success and its value optimization that the product owner works closely with the development team.
Collaboration may seem the same as communication, but it is actually not the case. Collaboration is defined as working with others to achieve a common goal. In this case, the common goal is to maximize product value.
Collaboration and teamwork require several skills, including communication and emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the key skill that a PO must possess to work effectively in the team. It is the ability to understand other people’s emotions and to have control over one’s emotions. It has several benefits such as:
- Increased leadership ability of the product owner
- Improved team performance
- Improve decision-making of the team
The product owner must have a good emotional quotient and know how to be part of a team. He/she should be aware of the skills of the team members, their strengths and weakness.
The collaboration isn’t just limited to the development team. The product owner needs to engage with the stakeholders too actively. This includes both internal and external stakeholders. So, a product owner is part of several teams, and he/she needs to sit in all the stakeholder meetings.
Having the ability to collaborate, teamwork, and emotional intelligence skills makes the product owner an effective and influential part of the team. It helps him/her get the work done on time every time
6. Technical skills: The product owner must be a technical person too. As a product owner, you must know the ins and outs of development, design, software development, agile framework, scrum approach, and IT infrastructure. As part of technical skill he must know:
- Software development
- Scrum and agile software development methodologies
- Coding and designing
- UX knowledge and principles
- Product development architecture
- Ability to use tools and apps.
- Product backlog understanding and management
- User stories knowledge
Interestingly, backlog management and prioritization is a technical task, so a product owner needs technical knowledge. To understand the development and design process properly, unless the product owner doesn’t possess proper knowledge on software development, it can’t be done effectively.
Final word:
The skills mentioned above are not the limitation. However, there are several other key product skills needed for success as a product owner. Some of them include product development, product management, business analyst, storytelling, time management, domain knowledge, flexibility, etc.
Although you can acquire technical skills with proper hands-on or relevant training, acquiring soft skills is not easy. It needs practice. So, stress on soft skills as mentioned above to succeed as a product owner.