How to become a product owner: the guide

What should you study to become a product owner? 

• Master's degree in computer science, 
• Master's degree in business school, 
• Master's degree in engineering school.

In addition, you'll need a Scrum certification from one of the following: 

• Scrum Alliance, 
• Scaled Agile, 
• SME, 
• Scrum.org.

What is Scrum? We'll see that a little later. The only thing to know for now is that this training allows you to master the heart of the profession: Agile project management.

In other words, setting up an evolving project that adapts based on changes in customer or user expectations and external constraints (market, budget, etc.).

What skills are needed to become a product owner?

• Knowing how to use a product backlog (list of information about users and their needs), 
• Knowing how to communicate customer needs to a team,
• Understanding the product life cycle, 
• Include its design, launch, and maintenance costs, 
• Being able to connect a multitude of stakeholders, 
• Read data from Big Data 
• Having knowledge in front-end and UX, 
• Understanding e-business. 

Like the project, which is Agile, its skills evolve according to the product developed. Of these, two in particular should be explained: 

• Using the product backlog, 
• Communication with stakeholders. 

What is the product backlog?

The product backlog is a list of tasks to be carried out in order to achieve the objectives of a product developed for a clearly identified target audience. This list evolves according to market conditions, changes in the needs of prospects, budgets, etc. 

It can be explained by two acronyms, DEEP and PROUVE:

Who are the stakeholders? 

In the design of a product, it is necessary not only to count on the scrum Master and on the team of developers, but also on: 

• The users of the solution, 
• The sponsors,
• The buyers, 
• The investors. 
• The accountants.

Simply put, accountants draw up the budgets related to the product's development, launch, and maintenance (that's the product lifecycle). They then look at the sponsors and investors, who will cover part of this budget, and the product's users, whose feedback they'll summarise. They'll then be responsible for summarising all this information and making it available to the entire team. 

What is the SCRUM method?

The SCRUM methodology is a methodology based on agility. The goal: to build a project quickly, while developing it at the same time as external constraints change.  

To achieve this, the Scrum methodology relies on the ability of 4 entities to work together: 

• The scrum master. 
• The product owner. 
• The scrum board, 
• The squad.

The Scrum Master and Product Owner don't need an introduction anymore. The squad is simply a team of developers, and they work in "Sprints." Each sprint is a phase of project development, limited by a "deadline." At the end of each "sprint," which lasts a month at most, something needs to be presented to the client for them to get to grips with and evaluate. 

A scrum board is basically a dashboard that helps you manage your project, especially to track its progress during a sprint, or at the end of each sprint if you need more than one to finish the project. 

This method is implemented through software like Jira, which allows you to create the backlog, coupled with Slack, to improve communication between team members, or even Google Workspace, for spreadsheets, slides, etc. 

What are the career opportunities for a product owner? 

A product owner can apply for 4 positions: 

• Chief product officer, 
• Scrum Product, 
• Head of product, 
• Product Manager.  

What are the roles and responsibilities of a product owner? 

The product owner isn't a *deus ex machina*. They don't operate outside of a conceptual framework. Quite the opposite! The entire team is integrated into what's called a product development framework, often referred to as a Framework. 

The most famous is probably the Scrum framework, but there are others, such as: 

• Zoho Sprints, 
• Akiflow, 
• Workstack, 
• Gmelius, 
• Etc. 

So, the product owner's job is to make sure the rest of the development team understands what the product needs to be in order to meet customer needs, all through the Product Backlog. 

To achieve this, the product owner must fulfill the following missions: 

• Analyze prospects or users, 
• Understand their needs and expectations, 
• Respect budget constraints, 
• Approaching sponsors, 
• Find investors, 
• Finding buyers, 
• Make all the issues understandable for the team.

What's the average salary for a product owner? 

A product owner earns between €35,000 and €71,000 gross per year, depending on their experience and the size of the company they work for. 

What are the possible career paths for a product owner? 

The product owner relies heavily on the Scrum method for Agile project management. So, the question is whether this framework will stand the test of time or become obsolete for companies. 

Currently, there doesn't seem to be any signal, even a weak one, indicating that the logic of Scrum is going to give way, or be swept away by a competing methodology. The job of product owner, therefore, seems to have a bright future ahead of it.