TL;DR
This blog explores the crucial role of a Product Owner (PO) in managing the Product Backlog, a central element in Scrum, which serves as a roadmap for the Scrum Team’s potential tasks. Through adept facilitation, a PO can enhance team and stakeholder understanding of the backlog, turning it into a narrative that drives everyone towards a shared vision and product goal. We discuss how the skills of storytelling and workshop facilitation, underpinned by core facilitation principles, significantly bolster a PO’s ability to navigate through backlog management and stakeholder engagement.
Why great Product Owners facilitate
The Product Backlog is the heart of Scrum, serving as the central hub for all potential work the Scrum Team might tackle. It aims to offer a clear and transparent roadmap for everyone involved in the product’s journey. Organizing Product Backlog items – be it features, epics, user stories, or bugs – lays out each item’s perceived value and what the Product Owner’s plan is to maximize value. The objective? Achieve a shared understanding among the Scrum Team and stakeholders about what’s in the Product Backlog and, more importantly, why it is in its current state. The facilitation prowess of a Product Owner (PO) can significantly enhance this understanding, transforming the backlog into a vibrant narrative that propels everyone towards a shared vision and the current Product Goal. Let’s dive into how a Product Owner’s facilitation skills can be a game-changer in nurturing a Product Backlog that reads like a compelling story. When I started as a Product, I was overly focused on Product Backlog Management and Product Backlog Item formats. I would try to apply all the common practices and stay close to the “right” way to write or attribute a PBI. Writing perfect User Stories didn’t help to increase transparency one bit. It was a lot of effort with minimal results. It was a frustrating period. That frustration made me realize that maybe the formats aren’t as important as the story, and that made me shift my focus from being a Backlog Owner to becoming a Product Owner. Storytelling and facilitation were crucial skills that I picked up in that period and helped me drive my own growth and product success.
Workshop Design: A Product Owner’s Must-Have Skill
For a Product Owner, steering the dynamics of a Product Backlog toward achieving a shared vision and the Product Goal is the essence of their role within a Scrum Team. The choreography of ideas, strategic insights, market feedback, and solutions can be brought to life through well-designed and executed workshops. A well-designed workshop can act as a catalyst for value-driven backlog management and stakeholder collaboration. Designing a good workshop is about structuring an environment for collaborative problem-solving and strategic thinking.
My approach to designing a workshop is heavily influenced by the book Game Storming written by Dave Gray. Here’s how I go about it:
Define the Objective: Determine what you aim to achieve by the end of the workshop. Having a clear goal keeps everyone motivated and provides a sense of accomplishment.
Designing the Workshop: Structure the workshop to move from the current scenario (point A) to the desired goal (point B), keeping the objective as your guiding star.
Opening and Closing: Use a mix of small group discussions and larger group insights sharing to keep the dialogue dynamic and foster diverse ideas.
Reflect and Validate: Post discussion, reflect on the ideas generated, looking for gaps or new insights. Validate them with your team’s feedback to ensure alignment.
Timing is Key: Be open to adapting the initial design of the workshop as new insights emerge. Trust your facilitation toolkit to navigate through these changes gracefully.
Are there specific workshop designs that have worked for you? Share your experiences in the comments below!
Core Facilitation Principles: Unpacked
Facilitation is a craft, and mastering it and becoming a craftsman requires understanding and embodying certain foundational principles. Here are some fundamental principles tailored for Product Owners:
Participatory: Encourage active participation, valuing the diverse perspectives in decision-making.
Purposeful Facilitation: Keep discussions aligned with intended objectives.
Process: Adopt techniques to ensure holistic participation so no valuable insight goes unnoticed.
Transparency: Foster shared understanding through clear and comprehensible communication.
Healthy Facilitation: Create a safe space for respectful expression of differing opinions.
Sprint Review: A Workshop, Not a Meeting
Let’s face it: meetings are often not the most exciting part of our day. However, workshops? They promise productive and engaging sessions. Reframe your Sprint Review as a workshop, change the dynamics, and watch engagement soar. Please don’t be shy about making your stakeholders work as well, and let them interact with each other. If your stakeholders can share ideas and interact, it will save you a lot of time-consuming individual meetings and having to act as a human email between stakeholders.
In the Sprint Review workshop, the facilitation skills of a Product Owner can significantly impact the following:
Engagement: Actively engage stakeholders and the Scrum Team, fostering a two-way dialogue that unearths valuable insights.
Feedback Facilitation: Organize and translate feedback into actionable backlog items.
Forward Planning: Reflect on the backlog collaboratively and align on priorities for the journey ahead.
How have you made your Sprint Reviews more engaging?
Delving into Workshops
Workshops aren’t limited to Sprint Reviews. Workshops are great tools for creating visions, strategies, product goals, etc. Embedding the essence of facilitation principles, Product Owners can design and conduct workshops that serve as catalysts for backlog refinement and stakeholder engagement. Below are some workshop examples tailored for Product Owners: Here are some workshop examples for Product Owners:
Product Vision Workshop: Align the product vision with stakeholder expectations.
User Story Mapping Workshop: Create a user story map to align backlog items with user needs.
Product Goal Setting Workshop: Define measurable product goals, ensuring alignment with the overall vision.
Closing Thoughts
The journey of Product Backlog Items from a concept to an increment is a collaborative endeavor between people that can be tracked on a Product Backlog but happens primarily outside of it. The Product Backlog is where the result of that collaboration between the Scrum Team and the stakeholders can be stored. Armed with effective facilitation skills, a Product Owner plays a pivotal role in guiding the Scrum Team and stakeholders through discovery, clarification, and decision-making. Through engaging workshops, the path towards a robust Product Backlog becomes a collective venture, steering the product towards success, Sprint after Sprint.
How has facilitation by Product Owners transformed your Product Backlog management? Share your thoughts and experiences below!