Having worked as a product owner for years, I finally decided to take things to take the next level with a certification training known as a Certified Scrum Product Owner.
A CSPO course is an interactive course that would last for two 8-hour days. During this course, we learned basic things about the scope of Scrum and the functions of a Scrum Product Owner. We were taught using case studies, exercises, and discussions. More importantly, topically treated included how to identify user needs, backlog, how to manage stakeholders, an overview of sizing in Scrum and how to create, maintain and order a product.
The CSPO Training was conducted by Chris Sims. He’s a certified scrum product owner, agile coach and C++ expert that helps companies run efficiently and happily. He’s also the founder of Agile Learning Labs and a co-author for two best-sellers, namely; The Elements of Scrum and Scrum: a Breathtakingly Brief and Agile Introduction.
The CSPO training session was held in Silicon Valley, midway between San Francisco and San Jose, at the Seaport Conference Center. The facilities here were perfect for the setting of the training, and as a bonus, we got to see the towing of a drug houseboat (that was our theory at least).
A Scrum Master works to help an inexperienced team get familiar with the operations and effects of Scrum. In comparison, a Product Owner Owner priority is to make sure that customers are satisfied with the quality of service they get and usually helps to create the product vision or order for a Product Backlog.
At the end of the training, a CSPO is equipped with the skills to serves as a product owner in a scrum team. The role of the product owner is vital to make sure that the product can offer the desired amount of satisfaction to the customer when required. This is possible for him in a number of ways if you consider the resources available at his disposals such as the team, business stakeholders and the development process adopted by the organization.
A CSPO is trained to take on the role of the product owner in a scrum team. The product owner is a vital element in ensuring that the product can offer optimal value to the customer in a timely manner. He can achieve this in a number of ways if you take factors such as the team, business stakeholders and the development process of the organization.
The responsibilities of a CSPO
The first is the development and writing of the product vision. To do this, he’s to work with a clear mind about the functions and benefits of the product to the consumer. It also includes writing a list of product features. Basically, product features are product requirements written from the user’s perspective. These features are usually written as a detailed description of the capability of the product in the hands of the customer.
The CSPO also helps to compile a list of features into the Product Backlog. It’s important that the product owner has the ability to make the team understand the scope of the project and work together to get things done. He also reviews, tests, and assesses the final product. A CSPO can also request changes to the product if there are any issues with it.
Getting a Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) certification exposes anyone to a lot of benefits. Firstly, the CSPO certification will expose you to more career opportunities and it becomes easier to work in different industry sectors that adopt the use of Agile. This will expose any expert to different companies and occupational positions. Also, it shows that your expert in Scrum. This way, it’s easier for you to let your employees and team members know of your capabilities.
On another note, the certification will teach you the history of the Scrum Foundation and the role of a Product Owner. The classes to train you for the certification will orientate you on the roles and duties of a product owner. It also takes you into close contact with Agile practitioners who want to improve their skill level. A CSPO certification is a sign of a product owner’s reliability.
Scrum teams operate at a level of efficiency and speed that may be a problem for traditional product management. Learn about the skills adopted by product owners to lead their team and achieve optimal results. Anyone who takes part in a CSPO training will be a part of exercises and simulations related to Business value estimation, Product strategy, an overview of product owner role, Release planning, Effective communication with stakeholders, story splitting, acceptance criteria, user stories, product strategy, lean product discovery and Artifacts including burn charts.
Working with Scrum for quite a few years now, I have assembled a set of methodologies and syntaxes on how to write good requirements for your team. Below I will share the requirement format and lifecycle I use in my daily work, and I hope it will help you too working in an Agile team.
Epic
Software development teams work on very complicated projects. It is crucial to understand every requirement and feature required by the customer.
An epic is a large body of work broken down into several tasks or small user stories. It always denotes a high-level descriptive version of the client’s requirements. As epic is the description of the user’s needs, its scope is expected to change over time. Hence, Epics are always shipped in the form of sprints across teams. While, Epics often encompass multiple teams on multiple projects, and can even be tracked on numerous boards. Moreover, epics help the team break down a main project’s work into shippable pieces without disturbing the main project’s delivery to the customer.
Format
For a <persona> who <has a painpoint> the <product or solution> is a <type of solution> that <solves an issue in a certain way> unlike <the old solution or competitor> our solution <has ceirtain advantages>
Acceptance Criteria
Success criteria <> Acceptance criteria <> In scope <> Out of scope <>
Lifecycle
An Epic can only be created and moved into the backlog by the Product Owner. When all sub-tasks are Resolved, the Epic can be resolved. When the functionality of the Epic is delivered to the end customer, the Epic will be Closed. It is a complicated task to create an Epic. The following steps should be followed to develop an agile epic.
They are starting with the user Recording / Reporting, which includes drafting the epic for project managers and the team. Second, comes the Description where the process of achieving the proposed project is described. Next is the Epic Culture, which denotes the epic team’s size based on the company culture. Finally, the most important one is the Timeline or Time Frame, where the team decides on how long they take to complete the project.
Feature
When a developer team develops one extensive software system, there will be lots of requirements gathered from the customer to understand what is precisely the customer’s requirement. The customer might not have an understanding of how the gathered requirements are used, but the development team knows that these requirements are finally the features of the system being developed.
A feature is a small, distinguishing characteristic of a software item, which is also a client-valued function. Features are small and typically can be implemented within a sprint. When we describe a feature, we use the same format as a User Story, but with a broader scope.
Format
As a <particular class of user> , I want to <be able to perform/do something> so that <I get some form of value or benefit>
Lifecycle
A Feature can only be created and moved into the backlog by the Product Owner. When all sub-tasks are Resolved, the Feature can be resolved. When the functionality of the Feature is delivered to the end customer, the Feature will be Closed.
A feature can be added to a system as per the customer’s requirement even after development is completed or during the development phase. The user creates a feature, and the features are added to the features inbox. The product team sorts the features and adds them to a feature list for the feature team for elaboration. The feature manager contacts the appointed teams to start inspections. After implementing the feature by the engineering team, it is added to the release tracking page, and once it is completed, the QA team will carry out the final testing. The feedback team starts feedback gathering, and the feature moves to Aurora and Beta. Finally, the feature is released.
User Story
When working on a complex project, the development team must ensure that they have fully understood the customer’s requirements.
In software development and product management, a user story is an informal, natural language description of a software system’s features. User stories are often written from the perspective of an end-user or user of a system. Furthermore, user stories break down the big picture into epics that are more user-focused and in a way that the engineering team clearly understands the product requirements.
Format
As a <particular class of user> , I want to <be able to perform/do something> so that <I get some form of value or benefit>
Acceptance Criteria
Given <some context> When <some action is carried out> Then <a particular set of observable consequences should obtain>
Lifecycle
A User Story can only be created and moved into the backlog by the Product Owner. When all sub-tasks are Resolved, the User Story can be resolved. When the functionality of the User Story is delivered to the end customer, the User Story will be Closed.
The stakeholder gives the idea in the form of a change request or new functionality, captured by the product owner as a business request, and creates the user story. Then the user story is added to the backlog, and with the help of the sprint team, it is groomed by the product owner. The user story is then broken down into acceptance criteria for prioritization. However, whether the owner accepts or rejects the story depends on the acceptance criteria. Finally, the user story is recognized as complete and closed and returned to the backlog for future iterations.
Task Story
The Task Story work item is more technical than an agile User Story. Instead of forcing the User Story format, it is better to use a Feature-driven development (FDD) process, describing what is expected more technically. FDD blends several industry-recognized best practices into a cohesive whole. These practices are driven from a client-valued functionality perspective where its primary purpose is to deliver tangible, working software repeatedly on time.
Format
<action> the <result> by/for/of/to a(n) <object>
Example: Send the Push Notification to a Phone
Acceptance Criteria
Given <some context> When <some action is carried out> Then <a particular set of observable consequences should obtain>
Lifecycle
A Task Story can only be created and moved into the backlog by the Product Owner. When all sub-tasks are Resolved, Task Story can be resolved. When the functionality of the Task Story is delivered to the end customer, the Task Story will be Closed.
Bug
Any software development team can come across faults in the product they are working on, and these faults are identified in the testing phase.
Errors, flaw, or fault in a computer program or system that causes it to produce an incorrect or unexpected result or behave in unintended ways is called a software bug. The process of finding and fixing bugs is termed “debugging” and often uses formal techniques or tools to pinpoint bugs, and since the 1950s, some computer systems have been designed to also deter, detect or auto-correct various computer bugs during operations.
Format
Found in <module> summary <short description> reproduced by <reproduction steps> result <what happened> expected <what was expected to happen>
Lifecycle
The Bug work item can be created by anyone but is usually made by QA or Operations via a customer. When the bug is fixed, it should not be closed until confirmed by the creator.
There are six stages in the bug life cycle. When the bug is created and yet to be approved, it is in its New stage. Next, it is Assigned to a development team. Now the development team starts to work to fix the defect. When the developer fixes the bug by making necessary changes to the code and verifying them, it can be marked as Fixed. When the code is in the fixed state, it is given to a tester to retest until the tester tests the code in a state called the Pending Retest. Once the tester has tested the code to see if the developer has successfully fixed the defect, the status is changed to Retest.
Spike
Although we have epics and user stories to break down complex projects and make it understandable to the engineers, there can still be confusion.
A Spike aims at gathering information to sort out the unclear sections the team comes across in the user stories. A spike can be known as research, architectural, or refactoring spike. When the group comes across such confusing situations, they have to create a functional or technical experiment to evaluate. It can be any type of research the team does, the final goal is to solve unclear requirements.
Format
In order to <achieve some goal> a <system or persona> needs to <perform some some action>
Example: In order to estimate the “push notification” story a developer needs to research if Azure services meets the requirements.
Lifecycle
A Spike can be created by anyone, but can only be moved into the backlog by the Product Owner. The print team has the responsibility to create acceptance criteria. When Spike’s goal is met, it can be Resolved or Closed, depending on the owner’s decision.
Task
Stories are written in a way that is easy to understand by the customer, and there are no technical terms or instructions related to development. Now the story has to be converted to a detailed instruction list that is easy to understand by the developer.
A Task is a piece of work for the developers or any other team member. It gives the developer an idea about what should be done during development, such as creating tests, designing something, adding codes, the features that should be automated, etc.
Format
There is no specific format for a task, it can be written in the format of a note or a todo list.
Lifecycle
A task can be created by anyone, but it is typically created by a developer as a child to a User Story or a Task Story.
A New task can be Created as a user action or part of process execution, and Candidates are set to groups of people. Next, individuals are directly Assigned as a part of process execution or if requested by API. Sometimes an assignee might want to Delegate a part of the work. Once the requested work is resolved the assignee will want to pass the work back to the original owner. Finally, the task is Completed.
Issue
An Issue is a description of an idea or a problem. It also can be outlined as an improvement that should take place in the product. If resolved, it would increase the value of the final product or reduce waste in development time.
Format
There is no specific format for an issue, it is more like a note and can be written in the format of a User Story or Spike.
Lifecycle
Anyone can create an Issue, but only the Product Owner can convert it into a User Story or a Spike and put it into the backlog. The life cycle of work can be defined by setting an issue workflow as follows:
When an issue is created, the time is taken to resolve, it will be decided to depend on the issue’s size. When an issue is created, it is in its Open state. Usually, a QA will create an issue and assign it to a developer who can solve it. When the programmer is working on resolving the issue, it is in its In Progres state. After the issue is solved, it goes to the Resolved state. An issue can go to its Closed state only if the creator is happy with it. However, when an issue goes to its closed stage, it does not mean that it is completely solved, but there can be chances for it to arise again. Then the issue is Reopened, and the same process takes place to figure out the issue and fix it.
Concluding this post, I want to say that Chris’ training skills were at the top level and all of his stories about Silicon Valley, how he started Agile Learning Labs, and his career as a product owner, engineering manager, scrum owner, software engineer, musician, and auto mechanic – and there were impressive lunchtime discussions.
To learn more about the role of a product owner, you can contact me at bjorn.nostdahl@nostdahl.com.
There’s more information about agile in my articles on Social Agility and Agile and Scrum Methodology Workshop.
