Review with the line manager was about to start. Kate was waiting for “End of Year” appraisal meeting and she was quite confident that last 12 months as Agile Product Owner in new company were really successful. She felt deeply connected with delivery team and she considered that all 3 of her products provided significant business value. “A promotion would be spot on. On the other hand, decent pay raise would be good enough too“, she said in her thoughts.
She wasn’t ready for what was about to come.
Jack, from the moment he entered the room, looked quite nervous. “Kate, looking at your results of last year, I’m not sure if we can continue our cooperation“, he explained his attitude really quickly.
The meeting was long and tough but, in the end, Kate was able to prolong her contract for trial period when she conducted detailed retrospective of her ways of working. As a result, she came up with a list of 5 things that nearly cost her job.
I call this list:
5 deadly sins of Agile Product Owner
1. Being focused on wrong things
I have seen two kinds of Agile Product Owners. People from the first group usually have to switch their context between activities including but not limited to presales / sales, marketing and backlog management. On the other hand, second group of Product Owners considered only that last task as their sole responsibility. However, both parties are utterly wrong. Kate was one of them.
Read more5 Deadly Sins Of Agile Product Owner That Can Cost You A Job