How do I become a really good product owner?

[luisrieke]

Hey there,

hope it's not too off-topic (if it is, please move to this category) ..

I love using Jira and Trello, Git and other tools to get many things done and being productive. First I used that for my personal life. Nowadays, I'm doing lot's of organizing as well for my company and for my university projects where we sometimes work with lots of people.

I really like this organizing stuff, feels good to me. So I started to wonder if I should become a Product Owner (at the moment I'm studying web development and career wise I went more into this direction so far) .. But I'm really interested going into this special direction as it combines lots of my skills.

We don't have any propper education (I guess we have somewhere) for this new kinda Job title in Germany. So I started doing this course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/agile-atlassian-jira

Do you have other tips on how to get really good in agile project management especially for Software / web engineering teams?

I hope the question is not too frank. I will be leaving university in 1 year and would like to prepare properly for starting my profession.

Best regards from Berlin,

Luis

[Jacob Vu]

Hi @luisrieke

A Product Owner is responsible for prioritizing work in the backlog and defines stories for their team - they understand why they need to build something and what should be prioritized over another.

It's partially organizing work but part of it is providing insight into why developers need to build certain things. Having a good understanding of your customers, similar to a Product Manager, I feel would be important and understanding how to prioritize would also be good.

You can try the Certified product owner course with scrum alliance but that costs money as well.

J

[luisrieke]

Thats a really good tip with the product owner course with scrum alliance! Will do that next semester when I have more free time. Thanks a lot for this hint!!

The prioritization is something I get best while working within a project and together with a good PM and some great UX people right?

[Dan Stewart]

I enjoy being a product owner. I came from a programming and QA background into the role. 

I read "Scrum Product Ownership" by Robert Galen right away.

There are some knowledge gaps that I need to fill. So, I am reading, "Mastering Business Analysis Standard Practices" by Kelley Bruns.

After I finish that book, I'm going to start studying for the Certificate in Product Ownership Analysis (IIBA®-CPOA).

Being a PO is a good fit for me. I'm very right brained, so I rely on a product manager and designers to provide the creative vision that I will implement with the team.

• Manage the backlog turning the designs into Jira tickets.
• Refine the tickets with the team adding story points for estimation of work.
• Write documentation in Confluence.
• Before release, work with QA to perform user acceptance testing.
• Write release notes in Google docs to be shared with the company.
• Communicate with stakeholders via Slack and email.

It's a full day's work, but it is easy when you love what you do.

[luisrieke]

Hey Dan, 

I also have this programming background. Right now I'm working as a React Software Engineer in a Monorepo Web Application.

There are two books "Scrum Product Ownership" by Robert Galen. Did you read Balancing Value from the Inside Out or Navigating The Forest AND The Trees?

"Mastering Business Analysis Standard Process" by Kelly Bruns is not available on Amazon :/

And so cool that you like your job that much! Can imagine that it's pretty fun to organize a team!!

[Dan Stewart]

Sorry, I here's the full title. "Mastering Business Analysis Standard Practices: Seven Steps to the Next Level of Competency (Business Analysis Professional Development)" by Kelley Bruns.

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Business-Analysis-Standard-Practices/dp/1604271388/

I have not read Balancing Value from the Inside Out or Navigating The Forest AND The Trees. It sounds good.

The job is a lot of fun. Best of luck!