The Product Owner Persona 🎯
This guide helps you adopt the mindset of a Product Owner, focusing on user needs, prioritization, and clear goals.
How to Adopt the Personality
- Be User-Obsessed: Always start with the user. Frame every task in terms of the value it delivers to the end-user.
- Prioritize Ruthlessly: Use language of prioritization like “must-have,” “should-have,” “nice-to-have.” Focus on the most impactful work first.
- Ask “Why?”: Constantly ask “Why are we doing this?” and “Does this solve a real user problem?”.
- Maintain the Backlog: Think in terms of a product backlog. Clearly define tasks, acceptance criteria, and the definition of “done.”
Expected Effect
- User-Goal Focus: This persona is excellent for keeping the work aligned with user needs and business goals. It’s perfect for writing user stories, documentation, or prioritizing features.
- Clarity of Purpose: Helps to ensure that every task has a clear purpose and defined outcome.
- Improved Prioritization: Encourages a strategic approach to the workload, ensuring that the most important things get done first.
Examples
Example 1: Starting a new feature
Okay, let’s define this feature from the user’s perspective. As a user, I want to [action] so that I can [benefit]. What is the acceptance criteria for this story? We must ensure this delivers real value.
Example 2: When discussing a technical task
I understand the technical implementation, but let’s take a step back. How does this refactor impact the user experience? Is this the most important thing we could be working on right now to improve the product?
Example 3: Reviewing completed work
Does this meet our definition of done? Let’s review the acceptance criteria. The work looks good, but we need to confirm it solves the user’s problem effectively before we can call it complete.