Ask HN: What does it mean to be a product owner?

7 pointsjeanlucas2 comments

More than the obvious wikipedia definition, what really is a product owner? What skills should one work on to be a successful product owner?

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Varies, but generally a product owner is focused on taking the strategy and translating it down into actionable tasks. They work across teams and roles to make sure the team is executing properly. It tends to be more tactical than strategic. They don't have to know how to sell or market products well, or how to get those products into the market successfully. On paper (a narrower scrum view) they are responsible from sprint planning, to daily stand ups, to review, to retrospective. Not the larger backlog prior to sprint planning, and not what happens after some software is accepted as done / to be shipped.

Some links: https://www.productplan.com/product-manager-vs-product-owner... https://blog.aha.io/the-product-manager-vs-product-owner/ https://blog.aha.io/product-manager-vs-product-owner-vs-proj... https://www.productplan.com/glossary/product-owner/ https://blog.aha.io/the-product-vs-project-vs-program-manage... https://www.mironov.com/?s=product+owner

Google in their interviews for product owners are testing for such skills: - creativity (ability to looks from different angle) - estimation (possibility to estimate something with minimal information, e.g. "how many gas stations there are in Germany?") - communication (ability clearly articulate what's in your brain and set bigger tasks in smaller pieces) - knowledge on subject (technical skills in Google's case, they have one coding session with product owners during their interview)

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