Agile Product Owner

Tell me about how you interact with customers / users?

• ·As the PO, I am actively involved in working with customers by constantly obtaining their feedback, identifying areas where we can provide value, and using their feedback to build quality products.

How do you decide what to build?

• ·Balance all competing inputs: user feedback, business needs, the CEO's pet feature, engineering favorites, time to build, cost, and market needs. Prioritize based on business value while ensuring alignment with the overall product vision.

Tell me about your role on your team, who else you work with, and how you work with them.

• ·As PO, I worked with different stakeholders across departments such as marketing, legal, sales, and analytics. The projects I worked on were cross-functional, hence information was gathered from different departments.

What are the most essential characteristics of agile development frameworks?

• ·Scrum is an Agile framework for completing complex projects.
• ·A product owner creates a prioritized wish list called a product backlog.
• ·During sprint planning, the team pulls a small chunk from the top of that wish list (a sprint backlog) and decides how to implement those pieces.
• ·The team has a certain amount of time — a sprint (usually two to four weeks) — to complete its work, but meets each day to assess its progress (daily Scrum).
• ·Along the way, the ScrumMaster keeps the team focused on its goal.
• ·At the end of the sprint, the work should be potentially shippable: ready to hand to a customer, put on a store shelf, or show to a stakeholder.
• ·The sprint ends with a sprint review and retrospective.
• ·As the next sprint begins, the team chooses another chunk of the product backlog and begins working again.

How is Scrum different than Agile?

• ·Scrum is a specific Agile framework for completing complex projects. Agile is the broader methodology and set of principles, while Scrum is one structured way of implementing those principles.

What's your understanding of the Product Owner role? Why does that role interest you?

• ·Ensure the right thing gets built at the right time.
• ·Provide the vision and business case.
• ·Steer the project.
• ·Evaluate the scope to ensure vision is met.
• ·Prioritize continuously.
• ·Provide good user stories with acceptance criteria.
• ·Just in time and just the right level of detail.
• ·Provide feature feedback as often as reasonable.
• ·Be an integrated part of the team.

Why do you think you can be successful in this role?

• ·I have a unique blend of skills with high project experience, strong capabilities, and a well-rounded background based on my past training and experience to handle complex projects. I want to be part of your team to help solve some of the problems you face.

What is the impact of time pressures on delivering software which delights the customer?

• ·In Agile-Scrum, time is key. Iterations are a good opportunity to keep the customer informed about project status at all times. Shorter iterations (1–2 weeks) allow you to communicate early and deliver demonstrable software frequently.

What issues would you expect given our current level of Scrum implementation? How would you deal with them?

• ·A common road block is dependencies from other teams, such as Legal reviewing certain documents. Delays from such dependencies can impact iterations. To avoid this in future, we should not bring dependent user stories into iterations until those dependencies are cleared.

How will you guide the team to success as a product owner?

• ·As product owner, I steer the project toward success, help remove road blocks, help prioritize, constantly groom the backlog as needed, and work on the product roadmap and vision documents.

What are the issues regarding scope, time, budget and priorities? What is most important? Why? When do you bring donuts to the team? Why?

• ·Agile is always about change, and change to scope is always welcomed at the right iteration timing. At all iterations, we deliver shippable software.
• ·The PO constantly prioritizes based on business values.
• ·Budget approval should be fully secured from sponsors before or between projects.
• ·Bring donuts during iteration planning, retrospectives, etc. to motivate the team and foster team chemistry.

Tell me about your last position — List 3 things that you loved doing and 3 things that you didn't like doing.

• ·As PO: Loved constantly prioritizing deliverables, ensuring value to the business, and checking Return on Investment (ROI) both quantifiable and qualitative.
• ·As BA: Enjoyed gathering business requirements.
• ·As Analyst: Enjoyed getting meeting minutes, documenting requirements, and following up on pending information needed for projects.

Define really great product management. What would you look for if you were hiring a new product manager?

• ·I would look for someone with a strong affinity for customer needs, product quality, great collaboration skills, and the ability to steer the project in the right direction.

Run me through a typical week at your last position.

• ·A typical day includes: daily stand-up with the team, revision of the product backlog, follow-up on all road blocks, revision of the ROI document, data analytics review for trend changes, marketing and sales data review, and updating the business owner on the project as needed.

What meetings did you participate in? What documents did you write?

• ·Planning meetings, daily stand-ups, stakeholder meetings, retrospective meetings, demos, and road block follow-ups.

Share 2 examples in which you had to lead others or advocate the cases of key stakeholders. What were those cases? What did you do?

• ·Stakeholders wanted analytics for each product catalog online. The development team indicated it would take significant time. Since it was a top priority to track web and mobile traffic flow but would delay the project, we moved the analytics piece to a different team to complete so we could meet the deadline and remain competitive.

What obstacles did you overcome? And how?

• ·A legal requirement needed for a project delayed delivery. I took it upon myself to go to the legal unit to get the documents reviewed. Once I realized the delay would impact the go-live date, I recommended adding all possible legal requirements to the site and scaling back the unnecessary pieces once legal responded. This enabled the product to be delivered in a timely manner.

Tell me about yourself.

• ·Depending on the organization, the vision is passed on by the business or sponsor of the project. Once the vision is communicated, the Product Owner (PO) will wait on management to provide the team to execute the project and fully attain their role afterwards, except if the role of staffing is also placed on the PO.

What are your greatest weaknesses?

• ·I tend to spend so much time at work that I sometimes forget personal commitments such as my daughter's dance class. I am getting better at this by consistently setting important personal alarms on my company calendar so I can maintain a healthy work-life balance.

What are your career goals for Agile product owner?

• ·As a Product Owner, I intend to advance to senior management, becoming a manager in 3 years and a senior manager in 5 years. In the long term, I see myself becoming a Director or VP in the field.

Do you think you are overqualified for Agile product owner?

• ·I enjoy and embrace any opportunity to deliver value to clients and deliver quality products. I believe any product is a potential gold mine that can become great, so I embrace those opportunities.

What have you done to improve your knowledge in the last year?

• ·I have taken many Agile classes and obtained the CSPO (Certified Scrum Product Owner) Certification and PMI-ACP.

Why do you think you would do well for Agile product owner?

• ·Customer satisfaction on product, quality deliverables, ability to collaborate with stakeholders, and strong prioritization of product values.

What have you learned from mistakes on the Agile product owner role?

• ·I have learned to always involve stakeholders at an early stage, maintain effective communications at all times, and consistently foster open communication throughout the project.

Why are you leaving (or did you leave) this position?

• ·I have been blessed to have worked at my current place but it is a contract role, and/or I travel a lot and would like to have more time for family.

What kind of salary are you looking for Agile product owner?

• ·I am very open to a competitive salary and trust that you will make a fair offer based on industry rates. Contract: $50/hr – $80/hr. Full-time: $90k – $105k.

What tertiary qualifications have you attained that relate to Agile product owner?

• ·I am a Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO) and hold a PMI-ACP certification.

How to measure job performance of your position: Agile product owner?

• ·Performance is measured by timely delivery, KPIs met, values added to the business, and constant collaboration with the right stakeholders to deliver value.

What are key duties for Agile product owner?

• ·Ensure the right thing gets built at the right time.
• ·Provide the vision and business case.
• ·Steer the project.
• ·Evaluate the scope to ensure vision is met.
• ·Prioritize continuously.
• ·Provide good user stories with acceptance criteria.
• ·Just in time and just the right level of detail.
• ·Provide feature feedback as often as reasonable.
• ·Be an integrated part of the team.