The Empirical Product Owner

Inspect and adapt to a fit-for-purpose product.

A Webcast by Mark Noneman and Scrum.org

Moderated by Dave West

 Mark Noneman
Enterprise Agilist
Managing Partner, Madison Henry Group
Professional Scrum Trainer

mark.noneman@madisonhenry.com
@marknoneman
www.linkedin.com/in/marknoneman

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The Empirical Product Owner
 Product Owner: All About Choices

“We can do anything, but we can’t do

everything!”
Dave Dame, Professional Scrum Trainer

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The Empirical Product Owner
 What is Empiricism
• The theory that the origin of all knowledge is
experience. It emphasizes the role of experience
and evidence in the formation of ideas.

• And what is the most famous empirical

method?...

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The Empirical Product Owner
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The Empirical Product Owner
 In Other Words…Feedback Loops!
Experiment

Hypothesis
Measure

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The Empirical Product Owner
 Empiricism
• Goal

• Inspect

• Adapt

• Transparency
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The Empirical Product Owner
 What’s the Ultimate Goal?
“… we must express changes … in the same
unit of measure. This unit of measure should be
life-cycle profit impact, which is the ultimate
measure of product development success.”
Don Reinertsen, The Principles of Product Development Flow, 2009

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The Empirical Product Owner
 Product Owner as Steward

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The Empirical Product Owner
 It’s All a Trade-Off
maximum life-cycle
value now
Profitable Revenue

profit opportunity

Cost of Delay
(aka benefits forgone)

value later

Time
Release

Discovery

Delay

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The Empirical Product Owner
 Maximizing Realized Return
• Sequencing potential
value-added
opportunities
determines the overall
economic returns to
the organization

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The Empirical Product Owner
 Empiricism In Action

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The Empirical Product Owner
 Empiricism Reduces Risk
For the Product Owner For the Development Team

Of building the
Of doing the
right thing the
wrong thing
wrong way

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The Empirical Product Owner
 Learn Fast…Forever!
SUCCEED

BUILD MEASURE LEARN

FAIL

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The Empirical Product Owner
 The Hard Part

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 Conclusions
• Empiricism is what makes agile
development different!
• Check your ego and experiment
• Use experience to guide you to your goal

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The Empirical Product Owner
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Thank You!
@scrumdotorg

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