One of the biggest criticisms when discussing Product Ownership is the sheer scope of the role. The idea that someone is both strategic and tactical. That same person talks to stakeholders, users, and the delivery teams. They also own the financial model for the product. They do not just manage the product for others; they own it. That is why the person is called a Product Owner, not a Product Manager in the Scrum Guide. Of course, the accountability of the Product Owner can be performed by a product manager, business analyst, or someone else, but the key idea is that they own the value that the product provides. They have to own the product because we need someone to make rapid, informed decisions about it, because we are incrementally and frequently learning about it. If we spread the knowledge and decision-making, we will ultimately slow down our ability to respond to the environment around us.
We expect a lot from our Product Owners and encourage them to lean on their teams. This is good for the Product Owner because it helps them reduce cognitive load, but it is also suitable for the teams because it broadens the team's scope. The Product Owners are involved in broader tasks than Developers are usually exposed to. They get involved in strategy, competitive analysis, user work, and not just delivery.
And now Product Owners have a new teammate who never sleeps and always does what they ask of them. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has now reached a level of maturity that means Product Owners can apply it to their tasks. AI can help scale Product Ownership, allowing them and their teams to focus on more complex work.
Today, Scrum.org announced the release of PSPO-AI Essentials, a new instructor-led class that helps Product Owners use AI in their daily work. The class builds on Scrum.org's PSPO curriculum and takes the students through the stances of Product Ownership, showing how AI can help the Product Owner and Scrum Team reduce complexity and create value.
Here are some questions I have been asked about this class.
Why now?
ChatGPT was released in November 2022, and since then, generative AI and LLMs have been very popular. Over these 2 ½ years, many of us have been experimenting with using them with Scrum Teams and learning how they can help us deliver value more effectively. This experience took time, but the learning seems to have stabilized, allowing us to provide a class now. Of course, AI is ever changing, but the benefit of a class based on a solid set of proven stances allows instructors to teach ideas with a continually improving set of tools. It is exciting to see how the tools have improved during the class development without changing the learning objectives.
Will AI replace Product Owners?
The most challenging part of being a Product Owner is sitting at the intersection of three worlds. The users(customers), stakeholders(organization), and delivery team have needs and agendas you must satisfy as a Product Owner. This makes the job challenging but also exciting, and if done well, ultimately rewarding. Current AI can not sit in such an important position and navigate these often different needs since it lacks the human element. AI does not have empathy, which is a superpower for Product Owners. However, AI can be the ultimate partner in supporting the Product Owner and Scrum Teams. For example, AI can be used to create a quick summary of user meetings or helping build a survey.
Do I need to take a class?
Over the last two years, I have experimented with many AI tools. I have shared my experiences with colleagues and the Scrum.org PST community and improved my experience from that learning. The PSPO-AI Essentials course is very similar in structure to my experimentation and learning. It accelerates this experience, providing a great place to learn, share, and learn more. It is also a good reminder of what good Product Ownership is. It encourages the Product Owner to stop spending all their time on tactical work and shows how a Product Owner can leverage AI and the Scrum Team to make that dream a reality.
The future of Product Ownership with AI is fantastic.
Many people are debating the impact of AI on knowledge workers, and I can not speak to the long-term societal implications of AI. However, from experience, I can comment on how AI today can help product leaders do their work better. It does not replace humans, but it provides a great co-pilot, helping me steer the product in the right direction. But AI only helps if you use the right prompts. AI needs you to work, and AI can help you be even more amazing!