In Defence of Product Owners

"But it's just a role in Scrum blah blah blah blah blah zzzzz"

Today we’re going talk about an increasingly maligned segment of the product management ecosystem but, first of all, here’s some content for you to bookmark and catch up on:

• My podcast interview with David Pereira about his new book “Untrapping Product Teams”.

• May Wong’s hot take interview about how product management is a team sport, and we have to succeed together rather than concentrating solely on what PMs bring to the table.

• Here’s a recent interview I did on Henry Latham’s podcast about building a podcast and an audience from scratch.

• Saeed Khan and I have opened a new cohort of “Working with Sales - Masterclass for B2B Product Managers” that starts in September - if you’re a B2B product manager looking to turn Sales from adversaries into partners, check it out (and use code NEWSLETTER for a tasty discount).

• I’m doing an August pub meet-up with special guest Melissa Appel (co-author of the new book “Aligned”). Sign up here if you want to come along! We’ll have freebies!

• Speaking of events, I’m also running a free directory of in-person UK product events. Check it out here if you want to know what’s on.

• Oh, and do remember to subscribe to my YouTube channel

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Why Product Owners Don’t Get Invited to Parties

You don’t have to look too far on social media these days to see some product think-fluencer complaining about “Product Owners”, and you do start to wonder whether POs get invited to parties anymore.

Some of the complaints you might hear:

• Product Owner isn’t a Job Title, it’s a Role In Scrum

• Product Owner work should just be done by Product Managers

• Product Owners are just Jira backlog monkeys

• Product Owners are glorified Business Analysts

• Product Owners are all going to get fired because of AI

Now, to be fair, even I’ve got caught in this loop before (you can consider this article the sound of me refining my opinions in public). And, to be fair, I can certainly understand where some of these sentiments come from. As a product leadership consultant, I work with lots of different types of teams, but if I walk into a company with loads of Product Owners then I’ll definitely notice it and go “Hmm!”

But, the thing I’ve been thinking about recently is that this isn’t really the Product Owners’ fault, and maybe people should stop telling them that they’re useless to their faces.

What is a Product Owner?

So, what is a Product Owner? Well, again, there is some justification that it’s “a role in Scrum”. After all, this is what the Scrum Guide says:

“The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team”

It goes on to say:

“The Product Owner is also accountable for effective Product Backlog management”

A ha! Case closed right? They are backlog monkeys! But, wait, it also says:

“For Product Owners to succeed, the entire organization must respect their decisions.”

Now, to be honest, there are many Product Managers who would love to work for a company that respects their decisions, but there’s definitely an element to the Scrum definition above and beyond just sorting tickets in Jira. And, of course, this doesn’t even go into whether teams are even using Scrum (or using it properly) at all.

Side note: I would follow this up with a definition of “What is a Product Manager?” but, of course, there isn’t a standard definition of a product manager, which is why we all mumble into our drinks when we’re asked about it at parties.

“Product Owner” as a Job Title

Something that occurred to me the other day is that in most domains an “Owner” outranks a “Manager”. If I “own” a business then a manager is my employee, not my boss! By this logic, the “Product Owner” should be the Alpha and Omega of the product, and the “Product Manager” a subordinate charged with day-to-day management duties. Of course, this is not how it pans out in most companies that bother to make the distinction.

The general pattern is:

Product Manager (n) - the person who gets to do all the strategy stuff, talking to customers and negotiating with stakeholders.

Product Owner (n) - the person who gets a pile of business requirements dumped on them by the product manager and told to write them up and put them in the right order for the development team to work on.

In some companies, the PO team doesn’t even report to the product organisation and is seen as an offshoot of the tech team. I’ve also heard of companies that have a third tier of “Product Strategist”, which seems to be a smellier smell than having PMs and POs to be honest.

So, Product Owners suck, right?

Not so fast!

What people are trying to say when they start banging on with “Product Owner is a job title” is something along the lines of: “We believe this should all be one role. Splitting it into two is less efficient than splitting vertically. We need to make sure there aren’t too many hand-offs between commercial and tech teams”.

And, you know, I basically agree with all of those points! But, it often comes out sounding more like “Product Owners suck! They’re all going to get fired and they don’t deserve to have jobs and they probably have poor personal hygiene too. Down with Product Owners! If you’re a Product Owner, I hope you fall into a pit”.

What’s a Product Owner to do in this situation?

In defence of Product Owners

We need to mind our language and consider the impact of our words. Why?

• Individual Product Owners can’t just change their job title or responsibilities on their own, even if they want to.

• Product Owner positions can be a great entry point into a broader product management role… you get to learn how software is made and (hopefully) have a “proper” Product Manager to learn from.

• Companies that hire Product Owners are probably pretty far from “proper” product management practices and there are bigger problems to sort out than people’s job titles.

• These people are just doing their jobs! Blaming Product Owners for being Product Owners is like blaming salespeople for trying to sell stuff.

• Many Product Managers are doing exactly the same “Product Owner” work for their companies anyway while looking down on people with accurate job titles.

• On the flip side, some non-tech Product Managers can suck at doing the product owner stuff, and they need people to do that for them.

Now, I know that (most) people aren’t trying to name and shame individual Product Owners. But going out with blanket statements that demean a profession is not a helpful move given that you have, broadly speaking, two types of Product Owners:

• Product Owners that are quite happy “just” being Product Owners

• Product Owners that aspire to be “more” than Product Owners

We should help to support the latter! This could be a training or coaching thing, or maybe a wider systemic change for the company they work for. Hopefully, these Product Owners can find constructive ways to push for change and take opportunities as they arise.

But we should respect the former. Am I worried that their job is going to get taken by AI? Sure, but no more than I’m worried about anyone’s job getting taken by AI. That’s not even to say that AI would do a particularly good job, but I don’t think that’ll stop business leaders trying and we’re already seeing designers and developers under threat.

All in all, let’s just remember: Words have meaning, people have feelings, and only the Sith talk in absolutes.

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