Agile Marketing and the Product Owner
The following is a guest post by Jim Ewel. He blogs about Agile Marketing over at www.agilemarketing.net.
Courtesy of Ken Schwaber, Mike Beedle: Agile Software Development with Scrum Prentice Hall PTR, 2001 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Much has been written about the role of the Product Owner and their role in working with Agile Development teams. But what about the role of the Product Owner in working with Agile Marketing teams? Does he have the same role and responsibilities?
A Primer on Agile Marketing
I’ll reveal my answer below, but first it may be helpful to get a quick primer on Agile Marketing. Agile Marketing takes its inspiration from Agile Development – like developers, marketers face some of the same challenges (changing requirements, insufficient resources, tight deadlines). The goal is to increase the speed, predictability, transparency, and adaptability to change of marketing. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense. If you have an agile development team delivering new releases every 2-4 weeks, why would you want a marketing team executing on six month or yearly marketing plans?
Like Agile Developers, Agile Marketers have values, principles and process. Unlike Agile Developers, we don’t yet have an official, widely agreed upon Manifesto. However, a number of marketers have taken a shot at creating an Agile Marketing Manifesto (see here and here) and Agile Marketers are gathering together for the first time in San Francisco on June 11th to try to hammer out an agreed upon Manifesto. Here are a few of the values and principles that are likely to come out of that meeting:
- Agile Marketers value responding to change over following a plan
- Agile Marketers deliver marketing programs frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shorter timescale
- Agile Marketers favor measurement over opinion, what works over what’s popular with the highest paid person in the room
- Agile Marketers favor many small experiments over a few large bets
- Agile Marketers favor solving customer problems and helping customers buy over shilling and interruption marketing
The Role of the Product Owner in Agile Marketing
To get back on topic, what is the role of the Product Owner when it comes to Agile Marketing?
- The Product Owner contributes to the Marketing backlog, but does not own it – In Agile Development, the product owner owns the Product backlog. He or she creates it, maintains it and prioritizes it. Not so for the marketing backlog, which is owned by someone on the marketing team, and prioritized in the Sprint Planning session, as a joint effort of senior management, sales, the product owner and marketing. The Product Owner can and should contribute to the marketing backlog. For example, the product owner may state that buyers need information about a set of new features coming out in the next iteration of the product, whether than information be delivered on the web site, through a data sheet, or perhaps through a white paper.
- The Product Owner represents the product concerns of the customer – Customers choose one product or service over another for many different reasons, only partly because of product features or capabilities. Perception, brand, service, relationships all play a role. These additional issues are owned by marketing, and all must be addressed in the marketing process.
- The Product Owner participates in Sprint Planning sessions, Sprint Reviews and (optionally) in the Daily Marketing Scrum - Product owners do not participate in the Sprint retrospective, which is typically limited to the marketing team only. By participating in these events, they can represent the product perspective, and ensure that marketing is aligned with the product team.
- The market, not the product owner, is the arbiter of success or failure of a marketing program – in Agile Development, the Product Owner is the final arbiter over whether work is accepted or sent back for re-work. In Agile Marketing, it is the market (the prospects and customers) that determines if a marketing program is successful. I’m reminded of the story Sergio Zyman tells in The End of Marketing As We Know It. Sergio was called into the office of Roberto Goizetta, the then CEO of Coca-Cola, to show him the latest ads for Coke. Roberto told him bluntly, “I don’t like those ads”. Sergio replied, “Look Roberto. If you’re willing to buy a hundred percent of the volume [of Coke] worldwide, then I’m happy to do advertising that you like. Otherwise, I’ve got to keep doing it for those damn consumers.”
What do you think? Are there other responsibilities that you think the Product Owner should have in regards to marketing? What are your experiences as a product owner in working with marketing? Have your marketing teams adopted Agile?
Tweet this: New Guest Post by @jimewel on Agile Marketing and the Product Owner http://wp.me/pXBON-3gl #agile #marketing
Related posts:
- 3 Tactics That Make Agile Releases Easier for Marketing & Sales to Digest
- A new (and better) definition for Product Owner
- My Agile Product Backlog Template
- The Scrum Title “Product Owner” must die!
- That Product Owner (er…Backlog Manager) debate again….
New Guest Post by @jimewel on Agile Marketing and the Product Owner http://t.co/pGPjxgXX #agile #marketing
New Guest Post by @jimewel on Agile Marketing and the Product Owner http://t.co/pGPjxgXX #agile #marketing
New Guest Post by @jimewel on Agile Marketing and the Product Owner http://t.co/pGPjxgXX #agile #marketing
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Agile Marketing and the Product Owner | On Product Management – http://t.co/L8aBlyty
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RT @onpm: Agile Marketing and the Product Owner http://t.co/WIBrj7n3
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I think the notion of product owner here is treating the word “owner” too literally. When the term first circulated in agile development circles, product owner was a representative and advisory role. The product owner was a proxy to the customer or market, and her responsibility was to represent them. Her responsibility was to inform the team and the development of the product, not so much to be an ultimate authority.
Let’s examine these two excerpts from the blog entry:
“The product owner owns the Product backlog.”
Well, sort of. A healthier attitude that leads to better outcomes is to treat the market and the product team as owning the backlog, with the product owner representing the market.
“The Product Owner is the final arbiter over whether work is accepted or sent back for re-work.”
Unfortunately, many people these days seem to buy into this “final arbiter” notion. Yes, as a representative of the market, the product owner has a key advisory role in determining whether the product addresses customer needs. But on the healthiest team, the team is the “final arbiter”, not an individual.
In short, in the healthiest environments, the team owns the product, regardless of the term “product owner” may suggest.
Roger, I agree, in the healthiest environments the team owns both the product backlog and the product itself, although there are many agile development practitioners who would disagree. Here are some of the articles that I researched in preparing this blog post:
http://agilesoftwaredevelopment.com/blog/jackmilunsky/top-10-activities-product-owner
http://www.scrumalliance.org/articles/44-being-an-effective-product-owner
http://scrummethodology.com/scrum-product-owner/
A common thread running through these articles is that it is the product owner’s responsibility to prioritize user stories in the backlog and make the tough decisions about the product. That doesn’t mean they’re a dictator, or that they tell the team how to accomplish their tasks. There are also a couple of mentions that if the product itself fails, it is the product owner’s butt on the line.
However, if the marketing is ineffective, it is not the product owner who will be called on the carpet, but marketing. That’s why I believe that ultimately marketing must own the marketing backlog and the various marketing programs. In well functioning teams, the individual areas understand their responsibilities, and they contribute to each other’s success, rather than assert ownership in an arbitrary way.
Jim
While I have no issues with your article, I personally feel that the title “Product Owner” is probably one of the most incorrectly named roles I’ve encountered in a long time and has lead to a lot of confusion in the industry, much to the detriment, IMHO, of Scrum itself as well as those of us working in Product Management. It’s always an uphill battle after the Engineering team (en masse) has been evangelized to by Scrum consultants.
While the role of Product Owner seems logical from the inside out point of view — i.e. someone who represents the customer/market — the implementation that is advocated by Scrum — co-location with the Dev team, attendance at daily standups, just in time information and decision making etc. — is hardly the only workable solution, particularly in ISVs.
I’ve worked with Agile teams in several companies, and rarely ever had to attend the daily standup or be co-located with the Dev team — try this when they are offshore!
Sorry, but while a portion of my role is focused on working with Dev, it’s hardly my only task. Yet somehow the Dev teams have been able to make stellar progress without my constant presence. Yes, sometimes there are delays because I’m traveling or get bogged down with other work, but we’ve maintained velocity and delivered on schedule.
I’ve written about the problem, and my proposed solution on this blog, albeit with some rather provocative titles.
http://onproductmanagement.net/2011/05/16/the-scrum-title-product-owner-must-die/
http://onproductmanagement.net/2011/05/23/a-new-and-better-definition-for-product-owner/
http://onproductmanagement.net/2011/06/27/good-bye-product-owner-hello-backlog-manager/
Saeed
Saeed, as I read your posts, I found myself nodding in agreement. I had never previously encountered the claim that the product owner had P&L responsibility – that’s absurd. I like your first instinct on the naming – calling the person a technical product manager. You’ve probably seen the work done by the Pragmatic Marketing guys on the product management triad, where they divide product management into three roles: the technical product manager (with basically the responsibilities you outline in your second post), the product marketing manager, with sales support, marcom, in and outbound marketing, etc, and the director of product strategy, who has responsibility for the roadmap, the high level strategy, market segmentation and targeting, etc.
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Commented on the new post by @jimewel on the @onpm blog. IMO, it oversimplifies "product owner". http://t.co/cZmCQR63 #prodmgmt
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