gap intelligence is all about continuously learning and evolving in our roles – so much so that we offer every gapper a “professional development budget” of $1,000 to use for classes, seminars, webinars, certifications, and more. All gap intelligence asks is that we connect it back to work and share what we learned. Recently I had the opportunity to attend a 2-day Product Owner Certification workshop led by Agile for All, an agile and scrum consulting firm. We follow an Agile Scrum framework, explained in further detail in Danielle Skarin’s, “The Who’s Who of Agile Scrum”. In order to run a successful Scrum Team at gap intelligence, we needed a second Product Owner…that’s me!
Product Owner Responsibilities
My role as a Product Owner is to ensure the team’s priorities not only align with corporate strategy and drive profit, but balance demands made by either internal or external stakeholders which may include either gappers themselves or our clients directly.
Some of my responsibilities include:
- Inspiring the Team with a detailed visual of what the product can become
- In order to stay better focused on our next product or feature, it’s imperative that the Product Owner provides the Development Team with all the relevant details such as market opportunities, target users, and long-term strategy. It is also essential to remind the team of the “Why” behind the product or feature and what makes it a value to the company.
- Building and organizing the product backlog
- Simply put, the product backlog is a list of all the features needed to be done in order to complete the project. The Product Owner is in charge of prioritizing this list based on added value, costs, and risks. They also ensure the backlog is visible and clear while optimizing the value of the work the Development Team performs.
- Due to the structure and size of our development team, we operate two product backlogs: Roadmap and Product Support, with a Product Owner assigned to each backlog.
- Roadmap: Includes all the features, functions, requirements and enhancements necessary to implement changes to the product in future releases. This is a living artifact, meaning it’s always evolving based on business requirements, technology, and/or market conditions.
- Product Support: Includes all the bugs and maintenance issues related to our internal and external facing software applications. We’re also able to work on one-off features that may not be included in our Roadmap projects. The Scrum Team meets on an ongoing basis to refine the backlog to include more detail, estimates and revisions if needed. Next the Development Team pulls what they believe can be “done” within one sprint to their Sprint Planning which we have every other week.
- Providing feedback to team representing the user and answering questions
- After the team demos any features completed during the previous sprint, we get together for what we call “Retrospective” which we discuss what went well, what didn’t go well, “mad props”, and any final thoughts. This is an opportunity for the Product Owner to listen, answer questions and provide feedback – although they should be available throughout the sprint.
I am so grateful to be given this opportunity to grow at gap and very excited to take on my new role as Product Owner! As our company grows internationally, our Product Backlog will inevitably grow as well, and I am eager to implement all my learnings from this course to ensure we make the best decisions for the company.
For more than 17 years, gap intelligence has served manufacturers and sellers by providing world-class services monitoring, reporting, and analyzing the 4Ps: prices, promotions, placements, and products. Email us at info@gapintelligence.com or call us at 619-574-1100 to learn more.
