The Product Manager / Product Owner AS A Scientist

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Pinterest
WhatsApp

We’ve all heard it before – “Talented technology team builds amazing products!” That… doesn’t create the impact that they wanted, not enough customers end up buying or the users aren’t happy with it, or <some other disappointment>…

This is an especially common problem with companies that have a “brilliant” idea or technology that someone goes developing in their garage (if startup) / innovation product development group (if enterprise). This could be a new product or just a new feature of an existing product. Typically, the Product Owner or Product Manager in the organization specifies what to build. If they’re somewhat Agile, they even work closely with the organization to build it incrementally and hopefully deliver it continuously. But still, even then, too often the product or features don’t provide the expected impact/benefits. Overcoming this challenge is a common theme that is discussed by attendees at our SAFe POPM Course.

The POPM is often SURE they know what’s the right thing to build (aka the “God complex”) – usually this is based on market research, customer interviews, etc.

But too often, the POPM doesn’t know that they don’t really know. Other times, the POPM knows that they don’t know, but aren’t sure how to drive the learning so that more is known.  The Agile approach is to build a working product and engage on an on-going basis with the customer, getting early feedback so that as a result of the customer’s interaction with your product – you will gain knowledge.

Does this sound familiar from another domain/world? Where else do people make concerted learning a matter of principle?

As can be guessed from the title of this article – the answer is in science – a close cousin of engineering. One of the basic pillars of modern science is using the scientific method and specifically its well-known-but-hard-to-pronounce hypothesis.

For those who are a bit fuzzy or unconvinced about how closely the hypothesis fits in here – the meaning of hypothesis as per the dictionary:

  • A supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence is a starting point for further investigation.
  • A proposition made as a basis for reasoning, without any assumption of its truth.  
    [emphasis added]


The famous British Biologist Thomas Huxley (a friend of Charles Darwin) once said:

“The great tragedy of science – the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”

Archangel Michael slays the Devil. Painting by Guido Reni.

Who would have thought there could be such drama in science and the hypothesis 🙂

With this in mind, let’s see how “without any assumption of its truth” and “starting point for further investigation” applies to the POPM roles.

To approach things as a scientist, a POPM should first modestly understand that they have some underlying assumptions, honestly identify them, curiously phrase the hypothesis and openly and bravely seek the truth by evaluating the outcomes and then flexibly adjust based on the learnings.

For example, phrasing the expected business outcome as a hypothesis could be as follows:

We hypothesize that Feature A will generate 30% more transactions (or will cause users to do things 20% faster or to make 15% fewer mistakes, whatever the expected outcome).

It can be much simpler to have this approach as a startup, after all, you typically have to prove yourself quite quickly or the money will run out. In a larger more traditional enterprise, it’s often more difficult to adopt this mindset for various reasons such as the long lead time until reaching the customer to test the hypothesis, on-premise B2B environments, high customization as in professional services, etc. Nevertheless, as a POPM, one must always strive to make the desired impact, regardless of the organization’s size. In fact, the importance of having the right mindset in an enterprise is incredibly important to minimize the waste of developing too many (wrong) features. In large organizations, this is true for both Product Owners and Product Managers.

Once the hypothesis has earned its place of respect, as Konrad Lorenz once said:
“It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps them young.

So, to openly and bravely receive the truth, the POPM must evaluate the measured outcomes and decide whether they must show flexibility and discard their hypothesis or keep it. The Lean Startup movement introduced the terms for this as to pivot (change direction) or to persevere (keep on with the direction).

Applying pivot might feel difficult to the POPM, as it means that we have disproved our hypothesis. On the other hand, we will have learned something and hopefully avoid an “OMG” headline, and as Lorenz said, pivots keep us “young” 😉

Subscribe for Email Updates:

Categories:

Tags:

ScrumMaster Tales
RTE
Lean Risk Management
Scrum With Kanban
Business Agility
Agile Product Development
Achieve Business Agility
Entrepreneurial Operating System®
RTE Role
Engineering Practices
Amdocs
Kaizen
RSA
Lean-Agile Software Development
chatgpt
AgileSparks
Managing Projects
Agility
Pomodoro Technique
Continuous Improvement
ALM Tools
Agile Community
ATDD
Lean and Agile Principles and Practices
AI
Webinar
Continuous Integration
lean agile change management
Agile Development
Story Slicing
Principles of Lean-Agile Leadership
Systems Thinking
Sprint Planning
Change Management
Introduction to ATDD
Self-organization
Agile Israel
Agile Basics
Agile Project Management
Lean Agile Basics
POPM
PI Planning
Program Increment
Scrum.org
Agile Release Planning
SAFe Release Planning
Agile
SA
GanttBan
Agile for Embedded Systems
Tips
Agile Games
Manage Budget Creation
Scrum
speed @ scale
Lean Agile Leadership
Portfolio for Jira
Jira admin
QA
Lean Agile Management
System Team
Kanban Basics
Kanban
System Integration Environments
Test Driven Development
Enterprise DevOps
Nexus and SAFe
The Kanban Method
Software Development Estimation
AI Artificial Intelligence
LeSS
Risk-aware Product Development
ART Success
Product Management
IT Operations
Risk Management on Agile Projects
Agile Contracts Best Practices
Operational Value Stream
EOS®
Legacy Code
Frameworks
Built-In Quality
Perfection Game
Professional Scrum Master
LPM
Retrospectives
Hybrid Work
Advanced Roadmaps
What Is Kanban
Video
transformation
Kanban 101
Kanban Kickstart Example
Software Development
Agile Mindset
Agile in the Enterprise
Continuous Delivery
Value Streams
Slides
Team Flow
Confluence
Nexus
Implementing SAFe
Agile India
Iterative Incremental Development
Lean Budgeting
Spotify
The Agile Coach
predictability
LAB
Agile Assembly Architecture
Rovo
Games and Exercises
Scrum Guide
Sprint Retrospectives
Legacy Enterprise
Quality Assurance
Agile Product Ownership
Agile Games and Exercises
Lean Agile
DevOps
Agile Project
Sprint Iteration
An Appreciative Retrospective
User stories
A Kanban System for Software Engineering
Reading List
Effective Agile Retrospectives
Lean-Agile Budgeting
Certification
ATDD vs. BDD
Agile Marketing
BDD
Professional Scrum Product Owner
Atlaassian
Product Ownership
WIP
Artificial Intelligence
Kanban Game
Atlassian
Scrum Values
Keith Sawyer
Nexus vs SAFe
Implementation of Lean and Agile
Continuous Deployment
Planning
Agile Release Management
Applying Agile Methodology
Kaizen Workshop
speed at scale
Lean and Agile Techniques
Lean Startup
Daily Scrum
System Archetypes
ARTs
Process Improvement
Elastic Leadership
Presentation
ROI
Agile Israel Events
Rapid RTC
Large Scale Scrum
Covid19
Limiting Work in Progress
Nexus and Kanban
TDD
Introduction to Test Driven Development
Jira Cloud
Agile and DevOps Journey
Releases Using Lean
Agile Program
Acceptance Test-Driven Development
SPC
Code
Risk Management in Kanban
Managing Risk on Agile Projects
Scrum and XP
Lean Software Development
PI Objectives
Professional Scrum with Kanban
Scrum Master
Agile Delivery
Development Value Streams
Certified SAFe
Accelerate Value Delivery At Scale
Agile Testing Practices
NIT
Jira Plans
Coaching Agile Teams
Agile Techniques
agileisrael
Scrum Primer
Agile Outsourcing
Scaled Agile Framework
SAFe
Tools
Continuous Planning
Agile Risk Management
Nexus Integration Team
SAFe DevOps
Jira
Scrum Master Role
Lean Agile Organization
Agile Exercises
AgileSparks
Logo
Enable registration in settings - general

Contact Us

Request for additional information and prices

AgileSparks Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter, and stay updated on the latest Agile news and events

This website uses Cookies to provide a better experience
Shopping cart