1. Knowing the industry
In order to steer the project in the right direction, it’s necessary to know the competition and target audience, understand the community, and how the product will be used. You could argue that anyone can learn all those things about any particular field, but it’s never as natural and valuable as being in it on a daily basis. Product owners that have a real connection with the industry are able to foresee potential mistakes and dead-ends before they come up. As potential users, they also create more customer-friendly software.
2. Empathy, leadership, and interpersonal skills
Being familiar with the specific industry is necessary to understand the vision of the product, but it takes advanced communication skills to explain that vision to devs, designers, and other members of the project. A perfect understanding between all participants ensures everyone is on the same page and going in the right direction. A product owner is in the center of it all, having multiple conversations and giving precise, constructive feedback on the technical, business, and visual side of the project.
Therefore, being a talented leader with fluency in soft skills is a must.
3. Availability
As we said in the beginning, being a product owner is a full-time job. A person in that position should be dedicated to this particular role and ideally shouldn’t have any other responsibilities. Being a Product Owner is usually more than enough.
Of course, that doesn’t have to apply to smaller, straightforward projects or software after a launch and initial bug fixing phase. In that case, it may be perfectly doable to handle 2-3 products or any other side-tasks simultaneously. It also depends on the product’s phase in the lifecycle. For any regular project in the main development stage, we highly recommend having a person assigned to only one product.
4. Ability to make crucial decisions
A product owner is a person that should always have the last say in the project. Someone in that role should have not only expertise and knowledge but also the authority to make them. A situation in which a product owner has to consult and get approval for his decisions is usually time-consuming and counterproductive.
An ideal model for the development process
All the aspects mentioned above bring us to conclude that a perfect product owner is usually on the client’s side. In smaller companies, the best candidate usually is a person who has the most knowledge about the project, whether it’s a CEO, CTO, or CPO (Chief Product Officer), or any other person with Product Owner skills necessary expertise. Corporations, on the other hand, usually have a large number of product owners to choose from.
Most importantly, a project won’t end up being as you wish unless you’re an active part of the process. A product owner on the client’s side assures that both sides are actively participating in the process. Just giving feedback every two weeks after the demo is never enough. The best software is always a result of the commitment and constant communication between an agency and a client. As the instrumental link that connects the two, a product owner plays the most critical role in the software development process.
Of course, the model in which a product owner is on the agency’s side is also possible. It may be a completely valid option for straightforward or short projects with precise requirements. Still, the scenario requires a certain amount of trust for the agency because a product owner will surely have to make significant decisions during the process.
