The Art of Agile Product Ownership: A Guide for Product Managers, Business Analysts, and Entrepreneurs

Product Information

Achieving business agility requires Agile Teams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to increase their ability to deliver innovative products and services rapidly. This capability requires balancing the focus on execution and customers, ensuring the creation of the right solutions, for the right customers, at the right time.

To simplify this job of team design, SAFe applies four fundamental team topologies [1] which are defined as follows: The ever-expanding universe of cloud capabilities has fundamentally changed how digitally enabled solutions are built, deployed, and maintained. Cloud computing has been one of the most disruptive drivers for changing the delivery model for enterprise IT since its inception. Not surprisingly, the primary reason to move to the cloud is to increase product development speed and agility.These icons can also be used to visualize the likely interactions between the teams through their relative positioning. The names of the specific teams can then be added to these icons for a complete picture. Visualizing the teams on the ART in this manner helps to compare and contrast the merits of competing designs and also provides an indication of how well any particular design is aligned to the flow of value. Figure 5. Applying team topologies to Agile teams on an ART Critical ART Roles While product managers contemplate the solutions and experiences an ART should deliver, POs understand what solutions and experiences the ART can deliver. This practical insight is a valuable contribution to the vision and roadmaps that guide solution implementation. The PO applies this pragmatic insight in the following ways: ARTs include the teams that define, build, and test features, as well as those that deploy, release, and operate the solution. Individual teams have a choice of Agile practices, based primarily on Scrum, XP, and Kanban. Each Agile team has 5 – 11 dedicated individual contributors, covering all the roles necessary to build a quality increment of value every iteration. Teams may be technology-focused—delivering software, hardware, and any combination—or business-focused. Each Agile team has two specialty roles, the Scrum Master and the Product Owner. And of course, Agile teams within the ART are themselves cross-functional, as shown in Figure 4. Figure 4. Agile teams are cross-functional Releasing on demand provides a significant strategic advantage by making value available when customers, the market, and the business need it. In collaboration with stakeholders, Product Management determines when a release should happen, what elements should be released, and who should receive it.

Product Management engages directly with customers throughout the product life cycle. This ensures that the customer’s needs are built into product strategy from the start and remain reflected in released solutions as the customer’s needs change over time.Dedicated people – Most people needed by the ART are dedicated full time to the train, regardless of their functional reporting structure. In addition to these critical ART roles, the following functions play an essential part in ART success: Like Continuous Digital, this book presents its topic in the context of both business issues and software development, rather than only relating to one of the two.

Every product owner faces a complex and unique set of challenges within their team. This provides each individual the opportunity to fill the role with different ambitions, skills, and insights. Your product ownership journey can take a variety of paths, and The Art of Agile Product Ownership is here to be your guide. Know the stakeholders – Product design and implementation must also reflect the needs of non-customer stakeholders. Business Owners, Lean Portfolio Management, Product Management, System Architects, and fellow POs, for example, rely on the cadence and quality of the team’s output. The PO identifies key stakeholders and balances their needs with those of the customer. Stabilize and Operate describes the practices needed to make sure the solution is working well from a functional and non-functional perspective As a member of the extended Product Management function, the PO is the team’s primary customer advocate and primary link to business and technology strategy. This enables the team to balance the needs of multiple stakeholders while continuously evolving the Solution. Details Successful solutions progress through the four distinct stages of the product life cycle: introduction, growth, maturity, and decline. Product Management guides each solution through these stages, ensuring that maximum business value is achieved over the life of the solution.

Key Collaborations

Stream-aligned team – organized around the flow of work and has the ability to deliver value directly to the customer or end user. Development and management of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline are supported by DevOps, a capability of every ART.