Professional Product Ownership Capabilities Series - Engage with Vision

In this series, we will be exploring the key tenets of the Capabilities and Skills of Professional Product Ownership. This first episode focuses on the "Engage with Vision" area. PSTs Fredrik Wendt and Paul Kuijten emphasize the importance of a shared vision for product development, highlighting that a clear, inspiring vision aligns the team towards a common goal. They share examples stressing the need for vision clarity and its practical application. The conversation also covers the importance of goals, roadmaps, and stakeholder engagement, as well as fostering innovation and creativity within the team. The discussion underscores the role of leadership in creating an environment that empowers teams to deliver value.

Transcript

Lindsay Velecina  0:00  
Music. Welcome to the scrum.org community podcast, a podcast from the home of Scrum. In this podcast, we feature professional scrum trainers and other scrum practitioners sharing their stories and experiences to help learn from the experience of others. We hope you enjoy this episode.

Dave West  0:20  
Hello and welcome to the scrum.org community podcast. I'm your host, Dave West, CEO here@scrum.org today's podcast is actually going to be focused on the capabilities and skills of professional product ownership. The professional product ownership capabilities and skills provide a view of what we@scrum.org believe are important skills and capabilities for product ownership in an organization, they describe the things that a product led company or organization needs to think about when improving their capabilities and how they do product ownership. This talks up super interesting subject. But luckily, it's not just me talking, because that would be awfully boring. I'm joined by two of our PSTs, Paul kaijan and Frederick went who have been heavily involved in its development and use it every day. Welcome to the podcast, Paul and Frederick.

Fredrik Wendt  1:19  
Thank you. Thanks, Dave, happy to be here.

Dave West  1:22  
It's great to have you. This is actually the second podcast we've done on this subject. You, if you're listeners, you may remember the first podcast where we discuss the overall model. So today we're actually going to zoom in on one area. We're going to deep dive on one area, and that area is really important area for product ownership, which is engage with vision. It's one of the three. So you've got engage with vision lead to value and involve evolve with validation, which is hard to say this time in the morning, evolve with validation. So, but today we're going to be talking about engage with vision. Frederick, can we start with you? Can you provide our listeners an idea of the purpose of the area of this area? Engage with vision? Yeah,

Fredrik Wendt  2:11  
absolutely. For miss. For me, this is the most interesting one I because I think product development comes down to being a team sport, and that means how you collaborate has a huge impact on the actual value you create. So for So, for that sole reason, I think this is the most interesting for me, it's if you have this product owner role or product manager role, you're being some type of leader here. How you engage people. How you get people to be engaged is super critical and influential on how much value you at the end of the day, you're going to be producing. So

Dave West  2:50  
hang on. Can I just get this right? So engagement and what tell me about the vision element, though,

Fredrik Wendt  2:58  
so obviously vision is a central part of how you engage. If you all share the same vision, you will drive towards the same outcome. All of your micro decisions that everybody makes throughout the day, they're going to lead to the same outcome. Goal and vision, you know, the long term thing you're aiming for. So we need to have that alignment set up. And vision, obviously, is a to have a shared vision is the central piece here.

Paul Kuijten  3:26  
Yeah, so maybe, maybe, to give an example, because I've been working a lot with, with the energy company over here in the Netherlands, and they're 100% green energy. That's, that's what their mission is. They actually changed it to 100% green energy, 100% of the time, you know, to address some more of the challenges. But it was such a beautiful thing to see, because everyone in there was in it for that vision. And it's, it was, it was so awesome to see all those people super motivated to actually make the world a better place. So I think as a striking example that I recently encountered around that,

Dave West  4:15  
yeah, I mean, I mean we, we all know the opposite, right? I've been to many organizations, and maybe you have as well, where the clarity of the goal is a little bit is a little bit gray and shaky for lots of good reasons. One, because, you know, they don't actually know what it is and what they're really doing. They've sort of been told to do something. Or secondly, that nobody really wants to say no, because that's an important part of a vision, right? What is out and what is in the out bit is almost as important, absolutely.

Fredrik Wendt  4:53  
And so I think the we call it the sub area here is called a stab. Product vision and put it to use. So it's not enough that you know the vision right. It has to be everybody. Your job is to get everybody to understand the vision so that everybody can act on it, essentially put it to use, so that when you're making your decisions, you're having a conversation, as you're talking to your market and customers and users, you have that front and center thinking about, how will this have an impact towards our vision, our mission?

Dave West  5:27  
So, so ultimately, that clarity, you know, the detail, as it were, the devil in the detail, and that clarity of what's in, what's out, where we're going, is is a key part. It's not just writing a vision document. That isn't the only thing, right?

Fredrik Wendt  5:43  
No, that might be super valuable to clarify it. You could do that by, you know, story writing, or using a document or some format, whatever it is, but get people to talk about it. I have, I have a product owner called Tobias. He is working in a 50 people company, and I love it. Every sprint review, he almost everyone. He has prepared a short section where he has tweaked the vision so that it is incorrect in some way or another. Sometimes it's very obvious, but he tried to do it in a small way so that you have to really think about, what is it that he has changed? And he just says, Hey, I prepared this. Go out in Paris, see you back in two minutes, and you tell me what I changed in our vision, why this is inaccurate. It's a small thing when you know, but they get people to start thinking about, why are we here? And everybody needs to connect back to it. So it's a small, clever, little trick that he pulls off that I just love. It's so great to establishing the vision.

Paul Kuijten  6:47  
And I think sometimes there's also it's not clear what the vision could be about. At the end of the day, I think a good vision needs to be about the change you want to make in the world. So, so if you have a vision that says, make more money, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, right? But a whole lot of those are, are around there. But it's really, it's really about your users, your customers, and the positive change that you want to affect for them. I think that. I think that's what a really good vision is about, and that's also what inspires people. You know, you could do a whole lot better than just implement these year tickets.

Dave West  7:32  
Yeah, that isn't very compelling. You know, my I think it was my grandmother, who was a very important part of my life who said to me that the most important things you do aren't for you, they're for others and and so that sort of sticks in mind whenever you describe something, if you can describe how it helps somebody, if you can describe something about an end view of a human being or A series of human beings, or, you know, a group of people that has that is a lot more compelling than the than the thing that you're doing. It's not about building a car. It's about a creating a way for people to get to their work every day in a way that's affordable, that's a way, that's practical, that's reliable, that's safe, that they can put their family in, you know, those are things that compel, it's like SpaceX, right? Their vision is to for the human race to be multi planetary. I mean, wow, that's that. I mean, that's a big vision, and might be a little impractical when it comes to to, you know, obviously each element of their, of their business needs to, needs to take that and make it real in for their products, right? So that brings me to, so there's, there's four elements underneath, right? Can maybe Paul, you want to talk through those four just quickly at the highest level and how they all fit together. The first one

Paul Kuijten  9:07  
is establishing a product vision and putting it to use. That's, that's, that's the main thing. Everything departs from your product vision, basically. And like you said, you know, interplanetary humans becoming an interplanetary species. It doesn't really matter whether you're actually going to achieve that. It gives you direction. So that's, that's what a good product vision, I think should do. It gives you direction. And it's more like the North Star. You use that North Star for navigating, but you may, you may never reach North Star, right? So, so that's more what a vision is about than than like some end goal that you would actually achieve. Of course, that's not enough. So if you have only a vision, well, it's, it's going to be a long ride. It with no success in between. So what you need is some goals, some some, some, some meaningful steps that you can make in moving towards that product vision. And that's why the second one is provide direction with goals and roadmaps. And so from that vision derives goals and roadmaps, and we want those goals to be about customers as well, or about your users. They might be about some company impact that you're aiming to achieve. So they might be about cost savings or x guys revenue, but still, you know, the those are not the most inspiring goals to strive for. But we're not as harsh on that not being the case as with product vision, I think so that's, that's ideally what goals are about, not output, not implement these widgets, but some meaningful goal that has an impact for the business or impact for your customer or your user. So that's, that's what flows from that product vision. Now the next one is about, hey, can we shift the dialog towards value and outcomes with our team and with our stakeholders? I think with the team is often even easier than with the stakeholders, because you have a bunch of people around you that just want something, and then they may or may not be used to conscious, to consciously thinking about, Hey, what is the value that I'm representing here that I want to see expressed in the product? But at the end of the day, a lot of stakeholders, they represent a piece of the value or the outcomes that you're trying to deliver for your customers or users. So can you shift the conversation a bit more towards that? That's that's what the this one is about. And also, can you bring some data on that value to your stakeholders. So we want to shift the conversation a bit more towards the outcomes. And of course, if you have data and results, that will greatly help. And then the last one is about maximizing innovation and creativity. And I think, I think that's closest to to Frederick's heart. So, uh, so I'll hand it over to Frederick. Yeah.

Fredrik Wendt  12:26  
Okay. So, so the thing about maximizing innovation and creativity is that, again, it's not enough if you know what to do, if you the product leader is the only one who knows it. I had a team like seven years ago at part of Boeing, actually. And I remember one day I walked into the office and just at the whiteboard, I had my friend Anders, he was kind of, he looked like Dennis the Menace, like, you know, he had just done something that he was supposed to be scolded for something. But To cut a long story short, he had made commitments to a stakeholder, he and other people on the team, and I remember that was like two years after we started working together, and inside, I was like, yes, yes. They now know where we're going, and they feel empowered. They understand what we need to do, where we need to go, when and when and where to So essentially, they made a decision that I was super happy about, and that just felt like yes, now they know it. So I had this coaching question I send to myself and other people that I coach, which is essentially, how happy and confident would you be letting your team work without you for, let's say, two sprints or two months or six months, and that that, to me, is a gay way to gage how well the vision is established and the level of innovation and creativity that your team team can bring to your product, because if they always rely on you, then it means your brain is the only one that is driving innovation, and that's a tough match to beat. In that competitive world these days, we want to enable a lot of people. So how we lead and how we engage with people is super Central. One other example, at the start of every week, when I'm a product owner, I'm feeling that accountability, I start the week by saying, Hey, these are the people I plan to meet this week who's joining me. And I don't expect the full team to join. That's going to be a waste of time, but at least someone that needs to be more than one person, more than me, who knows what the customers cares about, what they're struggling with, what is actually working really well, what they appreciate, and all these things so that we can, you know, get more people to be engaged and empathize with our users and customers. So enabling innovation and creativity means step away from solutions. Is think about problems to solve and invite your teammates to just step up to it, but you have to provide that access to people, let them meet their customers and users walk in their shoes as much as possible, and you as a product leader, that's your job to enable them so that you increase and maximize innovation and creativity. Does that make sense? Paul,

Paul Kuijten  15:24  
yeah, awesome. Yeah. I

Dave West  15:28  
mean, it makes total sense. And obviously, you're, you know, you're you, you're playing to, you know, to your biggest fan. Here I'm at the front with my, you know, Frederick t shirt, waving it because, you know, the reason why I love Scrum, it isn't because of the name, though I do like quite like that. It isn't because, you know, one of my best friends happens to be Kenny Schweber, the creator of Scrum, though, that has had some impact. I'm not going to lie. It's because it's about empowering teams. The biggest thing that I hate in the world, not just in software development, not just even in product development, is people that just think themselves as a cog in a machine and that they don't have the ability to deliver on the potential that they have. And so ultimately, what you both have described to me is that engage with vision is all about creating these guardrails and pointing this rail, these guardrails in a direction, and inspiring and engaging the people that are involved in this journey, and ultimately building the art helping build with the team or teams, the artifacts that make these things transparent, so that we all on the same mission. We all know the direction that we're going. And by creating these guardrails, you you provide a space for innovation and creativity that that you don't have. If you just tell people you got to do this, you don't have. If you hold all of the customers. You know, you you use that as a as a power in the in the organization. No, you can't talk to customers. That's my job. You know, if you if ultimately, engage with vision is about creating the environment for us to deliver, to maximize value in a very humane and, I hope in enjoyable fashion, is that really what this what this capability is all about? Yeah,

Fredrik Wendt  17:30  
at least it is for me, make sure that people are engaged, provide the time and space, provide direction, and you can still lead here by telling these are the customers who want to talk about these are the problems we're solving. So it's still leadership. You're still going to point, but you're going to make sure that when you do that people are engaged, they have an opportunity to interact. You know, we agile people talk about individuals and interactions, and that is the thing that creates great products, right? If people have great interactions, great ability to interact and play together. We're going to create great stuff.

Dave West  18:05  
Yeah, I do have, I and we are coming to the end of this, but I do one question, one one challenge. So one of the things that I see with with vision, and maybe we can use a SpaceX example, actually. And as you mentioned, Boeing. And obviously Boeing, at the moment, are very famous for not having a very successful space program, and SpaceX the opposite. So that's that's interesting into itself, but SpaceX is mission is exactly that. It's about creating human allowing human beings to be a multi planetary species, which is, which is amazing, but I would argue, and then they have a series of products, I would that's the the launch products, such as the they started with a small rocket. They went medium. They now, they're now got one that takes humans. They've got this huge one that they're building. All of them have products, you know, and they, have individual visions a part of that broader roadmap levels how how to be engaged. It has to be tangible. It has to be usable. So what advice would you give? What level should your vision be? Because, you know, and I wrestle with this@scrum.org you know, some days I want our products to have these very long term, big change the world, Vision type terms, and then the next day I'm like, Well, maybe, let's be very practical. And I wrestle with that so I don't know, you know, you're Frederick. You're bouncing around a little bit there. What? What do you think about that is, how do you you know is this capability? Is all about giving advice to set it at the right level, right?

Fredrik Wendt  19:49  
So my simple is, answer is that you need everything that depends on the people around you. You need that long term that you also need your intermediary. Goals. You know, Paul talked about providing direction with goals and roadmaps. So you have to make it transparent and clear. You know, what are the steps we're going to take next? It doesn't have to be about the buttons and trinkets and, you know, the small details, but it could be about, what are the properties, what are the product properties we're looking for right now that is going to help us move in the right direction, and to what degree you're figuring out all the people around you. I don't have the perfect answer for that, but you have your job as product leader, and this thing about engaging with vision is to get people to understand each other and be on the same page about it, and how much work you have to put in to make that happen. Well, that's the job figuring that out.

Dave West  20:46  
That's why it's leadership. That's why you have human beings and not chat. GPT doing it. Yes, I appreciate that. Frederick, anything to add to that? Paul,

Paul Kuijten  20:55  
so, yeah. So looking@scrum.org It's helped people solve complex problems, right? Yes, that's, that's it, that's it, yeah, and I think at the at that level, it doesn't have to be practical. There's a bank in in the Netherlands called the Rebo bank, yes, and they're and they're their vision is growing a better world together. That's that's at the sort of the same abstraction level. But what they do is that they they fill that in directly below that. So for for the for the different areas, there's a translation of how that, of how that, how that, how that top level translates into into into more specific, more tangible outcomes for that, for that specific part of the organization. So, so, yeah, you need all levels, just like Frederick said. And, and we, we've been doing workshops, and basically the purpose of that workshop is really to connect with the individual developer was doing on a daily basis, to see we can connect that all the way to growing about the world together in that blank and that was a that was those were really Interesting workshops, because you you you encounter a lot of missing links when you do that.

Dave West  22:25  
Yeah, it is. It is interesting. So obviously, I meet kenebo Every, every few weeks to talk about the business. Though he is, you know, mostly retired. He's still obviously actively interested in everything. And he's a, he's a genius. Oh, it's

Paul Kuijten  22:39  
really cool that he that he asks these questions.

Dave West  22:43  
Says, you, you know, some some days, and this is, this is words from a real product owner, I guess, some days just, it'd be just nice if it's just easy and it is just like, yeah, we're just going to get this work done. It would be, but unfortunately, and I think, you know, I've learned this from from Ken, this empiricism, this this value centricity, is at the heart of who he is as human being. And then, because of that, he he projects it, and he's made me much better. And we've built some good, better products because of it. We've ended the life of other products because of it. We've, you know, it is, it is ultimately good, though at the time, it might not feel quite as good, and that is the challenge, right? And that's, that's why you need the skills. That's why we've got the capability model. That's why we're helping people wrestle with that, because this is ultimately challenging at times which is which is good. So thank you for spending the time talking about the product ownership, capabilities and skills model that we provide, on on on scrum.org and a deep dive into engage with vision. It was I definitely made me, yeah, both happy and sad, because now I've got to actually do work which is always sad, but happy because it we're tracking in the right direction, which is which is good. So thank you for spending the time Frederick and Paul

Fredrik Wendt  24:16  
happy to talk and the time. Yeah, thank

Paul Kuijten  24:19  
you for having us. And

Dave West  24:21  
I think this is just one of several. I think we're going to invite these people back to talk a little bit more. I imagine that we'll be focusing on some of the other, other high level areas. Today we talked about engagement vision, maybe lead to value and evolve with validation. Will will come next. I'm looking forward to those discussions. I always learn something. Thank you for listening to today's scrum.org community podcast. I'm your host, Dave Wester, I've enjoyed hosting today where we talked about this, this very interesting topic of engage with vision. If you like what you heard, please subscribe, share with your friends, and, of course, come back and listen to some more. I'm a very lucky chap because I get to talk to a variety of guests who enlighten me, share their experiences about everything in the area of professional Scrum, product thinking and, of course, agility. Thank you for your time and Scrum on you.

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