Product Owners - Leads and accountability
Hello
I am restructing my product function to go from mutliple product owners looking after single/a few products, reporting into their development manager to instead have a head of product and then 4-5 'lead PO's' who will manage a group of PO's (structured based on commonality between products). We have 15 PO's looking after around 20 products. So the leads would report into the head of product and the other individual PO's would report to the leads.
I wanted some input if others have experienced similar structures and if so, what accountabilities do you have for these 'Leads'. They will effectively have oversight of 'their (4-5) PO's and their product set. And they will be line managing them too.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
That sounds like an awful lot of reporting, and not much inspecting and adapting based on timely empirical evidence.
Is there an appetite for trusted Product Owners...ones who are not managed, but who incrementally maximize the value of products they are themselves accountable for?
In addition to what Ian mentioned, what level of authority and budgetary responsibility will be given to the 15 POs? Will the 15 POs be empowered to make decisions and act like entrepreneurs, and spend budget as if it is their own money? Will they be able to say 'no' to a stakeholder, and be respected for that decision? Will they be able to talk to customers and end users, have data to make the best decisions for ROI, and be fully trusted for the vision and total cost of ownership of their product?
Or do you think of the 15 POs as glorified secretaries or scribes, who only write Product Backlog items and specs for the developers, are order takers from stakeholders with no authority to ever say 'no', and have to go ask permission of the 'lead POs'?
If it is the latter, what could be done to empower these POs, break down hierarchy, and allow for quick decision making? Decision latency is one reason why Scrum efforts fail.
Thanks for the replies.
The 15 product owners will be able to take ownership and have freedom to say no etc and work directly with their stakeholders.
The leads are more in place to have oversight of what their function/3-4 PO'S are doing, ensuring consistency and best practice between them in terms of backlog management and dependency management. They will also be responsible for their personal development/career progression. As typically the leads have been put in place as some moof thest experienced product people within the organisation
And also they should feed back to the head of product so they can have insight into what each function is doing both in terms of product functionality and processes.
A little idea : why not use an inspect and adapt approach :
Invite all your current PO in a room, let them know about your plan, and who you have in mind to become lead POs. Then make the lead POs live the room, and exchange with the other 15 POs. You should ask them what they think, what are the risk and benefits according to them.... Then do the same with lead POs.
I think they will give you a lot of insits on things you have no thought about before. That way you will be able to define more precisely each person's role, scope and responsabilities.
Good luck !