What Does a Product Owner Do All Day? Typical Day For a Product Owner
Co-Founder & CEO
June 13, 2020
Loading...Today, at every junction, digital products are making an appearance. From retailers, advertisers, and banks to bloggers, universities, and startuppers, everyone has their own marvelous product. Behind all the razzle-dazzle stands a commanding officer who backs their million-dollar masterpiece into a promising business!
We designate that officer as a «product owner.» They are the driving force behind a product that not only sells but also supports! In addition to being a dexterous proprietor to a tool, a product owner takes a primitive concept to a fully furnished gizmo through a vast shipment of technical decisions! If I ask you to name the top three products that are indisputably your life support, you won’t take more than a minute to answer. Today, the importance of digital products speaks for itself. But where does a product owner stand?
The common questions are the calling of a product owner limited to just launching a well-to-do product? Or are there a multi-fold of dimensions we are yet to discover? After being a worth-a-million businessperson (quite literally!), does a product owner bid goodbye to his work to simply enjoy and paint the town red? Or, does he adhere to the “with great power, comes great responsibility” motto? Well, if you want to decipher every little thing that goes in a day in the life of an agile product owner, you have arrived at the right page! (No need to ring a stalker alert bell, though!) This article took hours of groundwork. Together, we will unveil the customary routine of a product owner. So, let’s get started!
Table of content
What Does a Product Owner Do?
The most fundamental duty of a product owner is to exemplify the customer to the development team. Additionally, their key activity is to manage and moderate the product backlog. What does a product owner do day to day:
- Setting new features in motion
- Remodelling existing features
- Changes in infrastructure
- Bug fixes
A product owner is typically the pacesetter of a product and prioritizes the list of requirements for subsequent product development. In fact, they are the only ones who can mutate the order of proceedings in the product backlog. Colloquially speaking, these people must be at the disposal of the development team at all times. Also, they must serve as an encyclopedia to their queries and apprehensions regarding a customer’s reviews on how they put a product feature into effect.
Product owners are the center of each development cycle that coerces a product into a flourishing state. Since they are the flag-bearers of their product, agile product owner day-to-day activities involve various roles, including a market analyst, project manager, customer liaison, business strategist, and much more! Above all, it is a product owner’s responsibility to envision what they intend to build. The next step is to impart that vision to the team.
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Book a callThe Fast-Pace Life of a Product Owner
A product owner possesses the rights of the entire product. Subsequently, the individual must focus on sustaining the success of their product. This is done by ensuring a strong value proposition in the market and to the users. In turn, it offers great business benefits.
There is no manual to mastering the art of being an expert product owner. However, a proficient owner is someone well-acquainted with the intricacies of their brand. Since having an in-depth understanding of their model, business, and the market is of paramount importance; these people possess a steadfast life with minimal coffee breaks in between!
The role of a product owner is extremely demanding, with a mammoth of product owner day to day responsibilities at hand! Hence, their job is not only limited to offering a product that users ardently love, but also ensuring that they, along with their development team, deliver the best possible customer value. It is true that product owners recruit a full-fledged team that strives to transform the product into a beacon of success. Yet, despite this fact, they simply cannot levy all the work on their employee’s heads. Hence, product owners pretty much have a full-time job. After all, bridging the gap amid their business and the customer’s needs, and monitoring the development team is not a cakewalk!
A product owner day holds a bag of various responsibilities. So what does a product owner do all day? Let us have a look:
Sequencing the vision
A product owner is accountable for setting product goals and creating visions for a lucrative outcome. Moreover, their breadth of view must be clearly communicated with people who are associated with the product. These include the development team and other stakeholders. In turn, this accelerates the vision while making decisions based on direction and prioritization.
Reigning the product backlog
A product owner is in authority to manage and develop the list of duties to be performed by the development team. Some of these product owner daily tasks are — creating reports of product backlog items alongside the acceptance criteria and pulling the team’s strings to attain the product vision. Product owners also optimize the work performance of their subordinates by demonstrating the backlog to them. Additionally, they also ensure that the stakeholders get the hang of their long-term strategies and the development roadmap. Expert advice: The product backlog is the “chief constituent” of all the work to be done during the development process. If you are a budding product owner, make sure to continually update the backlog in order to assign essential tasks obstinately!
Checking the finances
- Another responsibility of a product owner is to tackle all the economic decisions throughout the development process. They have to learn the ropes of the “Iron Triangle” of any project — budget, scope, and schedule. These are the triple constraints that occur during most product developments. Getting a knack of these provides the ultimate return of investment! As a product owner, an individual also has to determine the expenditure on each of the product backlog items.
Engaging in development events
A Product owner is the main ingredient of development events that include the following aspects:
- Planning the product
- Refining the strategies
- Reviewing the product backlog
- Retrospecting the business model
- The sprint in an Agile process
- Daily scrum
Product owners join forces with stakeholders and assess the plan of action. Also, during the weekly refinement assembly, owners work with the development team to illustrate, estimate, elaborate, order, or eliminate items in the product backlog. A product owner is also accountable for scrutinizing customer reviews in order to move ahead with elicit feedback. Moreover, they also collaborate with the development team and select all plausible improvement actions.
Only a product owner holds the authority to incorporate or annul a task from the sprint process, and cease the overall development process of the product. Additionally, they can attend day-to-day scrums to coordinate with the team and monitor the work within the sprint. Basically, the responsibilities of a product owner are at par with the genius who first came up with the wheel!
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Get in touchA Sneak-Peak into the Daily Routine of a Product Owner
An everyday routine of a product owner is no less than somersaulting on a twiggy rope! Playing along with user demands as they cull, clear, and convey the stakeholders’ requirements is not an easy job. In addition to the plethora of responsibilities to cater to, an owner also has to ensure that the Scrum Team receives the correct feedback to enhance the product at the right momentum. If you still think that product owners have it easy, let us take you to one of a product owner days in the life:
Morning: Churning out the breakfast calories
Imagine me taking you through a visit to the office on a strenuous Monday! After all, as much as Mondays are for fresh starts, they are also devoted to frantically running in all directions to get the work done!
9:30 AM: Beginning with the daily standup meeting
Most product owners adhere to the Agile methodology that emulsifies the product development process into extended work periods, known as sprints. The kickstart to each day is a standup or scrum meeting that sets the day’s itinerary into motion. An owner asks each team member the following questions:
- What did you do last Friday?
- What are your goals for the day?
- Is anything curbing my workflow?
As the product owner is in charge of the system, they ensure that the team is all set to fulfill the vision, in addition to plausible obstacles.
10:30 AM: Refurbish the product backlog
The next task of a product owner is to create and maintain the product backlog. This backlog is like the Holy Bible to the product management team. Therefore, it carries the utmost importance. A product owner does the following:
- Updates the product backlog throughout the day
- Priorities each item on the list before the sprint session
Also, a profound understanding of business techniques is one of the crucial skills for a product owner to ace the product backlog.
11:15 AM: Chit-chatting with developers to govern their activity
In most cases, a product owner is invited to side meetings that discuss the emerging issues from the team scrum. These are resolved by the developers. However, a product owner clarifies a certain feature and its functionality, so that developers can follow their lead to deliver an app that mirrors the product owner’s vision.
Afternoon: Work-a-thon for product owners
On a Monday afternoon, you will witness a product owner on their toes! Let’s see how:
12:30 PM: Meeting with stakeholders
A product owner needs to be available to everyone who wants to have a word with them. This includes everyone in the scrum team to the key stakeholders. It goes without saying that while a product owner tirelessly works to master a sprint, stakeholders have an eye of a hawk, setting goals for the upcoming product release! This session involves a product owner conquering daily issues in the ongoing discussion, and setting eyes on the long-term goal as well! A 30-minute meeting with stakeholders seals the deal!
1:00 PM: Laboring on the product backlog for the subsequent sprint
At this hour, a product owner jots down the impending sprint developments and puts the ground plans into a frame.
1:30 PM: A halt amid the anarchy
Like every other workaholic, even product owners need a while before they can get back to the action!
2 PM: Systematizing second-string tasks like a pro. After a product owner finishes the primary daily grind, they get to work on the secondary duties of substance:
- Reading and reviewing customer feedback and comments on the App store
- Walking through the latest APIs to discuss potential specs and questions
- Swinging by the technical team to weigh out resourcing, solutions, team members, and much more.
- Meeting new team members and analyzing their perceptions for the growth of the development team.
Evening: Ending the day with concrete outcomes
During the evening, a product owner can be seen concluding the day’s work. However, before heading home, they have to:
4:30 PM: Hold a team meeting to summarize testing results The product owner attends a team meeting that focuses on the representation of test results, while the product passes by the development cycle. They flag any glitches and announce the next plan of action. Lastly, it is the duty of a product owner to imbibe a strategic, advanced overview in order to tailor an unsurpassable product!
Our Experience
Interexy is a software development company that has been working with Agile methodology from day one. We understand the daily scrutiny of product owner lives and realize how hard it is to ensure smooth business operations. We have a team of tech professionals, including project managers and product owners with years of experience and expertise to help you build your next application.
Besides outsourcing, we also offer staff augmentation — a hiring model where you borrow one or several workers to fill the missing skill gaps for the duration of the project. This way, you do not lose control over the project as it stays at home under your supervision.
Final thoughts
A responsible product owner rides on the coattails of four prerequisites — strategy, support, sustainability, and service! It is a well-established fact that the role of an owner is extremely challenging and wearisome. As you saw, a typical day for a product owner is chaotic, with all the building blocks maneuvering at once. However, with such brevity and impermanence, these individuals deliver a stellar product. This is how they weld the great results by providing continual support to the team and winning over the stakeholders! Like their name, a product owner truly “owns” the business model!
If you would like to learn more about the duties of product owners or in general about the software development process or nft app development services contact our experts at Interexy and get a free consultation.
