About teammates creating the scope of a startup product.
The scope of a startup product is a living breathing thing, and it is important that the whole team participate in it. However, as a Product Owner, it is rather common for a dev or a designer to discover some hidden task or feature that is not relevant to the big picture.
And that's ok. It is not up to them to have a clear vision about the must-haves and nice-to-haves of a project — that is the job of the Product Owner.
However, since they are so deep into the details it is challenging to go birdseye mode and go back to the ground of battle of the code and mockups. And this is where the PO must shine. It is our part to lead them by asking the right questions so they can make the decision to
• Schedule when to deal with the issue (now, this week, this month, or maybe in the next life — hehe) or;
- Totally ignore the issue.
The inexperienced Product Owner will tell the team:
“This is not important, leave it for later!”
The average Product Owner will ask the team:
“Is this a must-have or a nice-to-have?”
The best POs will invest in asking questions that make the designer or the dev decide themselves if this is one or the other.
• Could we ship without this?
• What happens if we don’t do this?
• Is this a new problem or a pre-existing one that customers already live with?
• How likely is this case or condition to occur?
• When this case occurs, which customers see it?
• Is it core — used by everyone — or more of an edge case?
• What’s the actual impact of this case or condition in the event it does happen?
• When something doesn’t work well for a particular use case, how aligned is that use case with our intended audience?
The best PO will see this sort of question as an investment in their team and project for 2 reasons:
- Because when the team starts doing this sort of question themselves without your help, they know their planning sessions will take less time and effort and they will be proud of bringing up the real issues of the product.
- Also, by asking those questions, you will get the chance to even discover they know more than you thought you knew in the first place.
(Got those questions from Ryan Singer’s great book called Shape Up! — that I highly recommend.)
