How Product Owners Can Increase Their ROI And Boost Up Sales

Many discussions and talks have been carried out regarding the actual role of a product owner i.e. what makes the ideal product owner. Several suggestions have been put forward explaining the role of the product owner – both ideal ones and practical ones. However, the debate is far from over since client requirements often keep on changing, and there is always a confusion whether a client can assume the role of a product owner, and if so, would it be contradictory to scrum methodology? Actually, it would be more meaningful to consider what type of activities should be undertaken by the product owner, rather than follow the ideal role of being one. As far as real life scenarios are concerned, it is the client who is the most well versed person as regards the developmental requirements and what kinds of functionalities ought to be incorporated in the user stories.
 

Know more about the Product Owner’s role at Quickscrum!
 

Suggested activities for a product owner
For the client and the product owner, it is very important to be familiar with the scrum methodology and its techniques. It is also important to know about the advantages of scrum, and what it has to offer over traditional development methods before tapping the full potential of it. The activities can ideally include:

• Remain present and contribute information as well as knowledge during sprint reviews, sprint planning, and retrospective meetings
• Order and create the product backlog based upon the importance of user stories and ROI
• Be easily available to team members, and provide appropriate feedback whenever they face difficulties or issues during development
• Thoroughly understand the product backlog items, and define the acceptance criteria for the tasks.   
• Define a sprint goal for each sprint
• Not try to influence the mindsets of team members with regards the complexity involved with the development activity, rather encourage them to be productive and “open to problems”
• Respect and adhere to the sprint goal

 

How product owners can make their work easy and more productive
It is very important to correctly define and manage the product backlog items to implement scrum in the perfect manner, and benefit from the advantages offered by the methodology. In addition, the user stories need to be properly stated and identified within the system, and individual tasks taken up by the team members. QuickScrum helps to define product backlog items with a lot of ease and flexibility, and what’s more, the items can be effortlessly rearranged as per choice using dynamic drag-and-drop features. You can save a lot of valuable time and efforts while allotting tasks to individual team members, and check out the project status using highly informative and useful reporting capabilities included within the scrum management tool. QuickScrum supports a host of useful and dynamic features specially developed for product owners, scrum masters, and businesses using scrum methodology to increase their productivity. It’s worth knowing more about this flexible and powerful scrum management tool, and the plethora of time saving and productivity-increasing features specially developed for you.
 

Find out more, and download our free QuickScrum tool which can help you in implementing scrum in an effective and profitable way!

The Origin And Key Principles Of Scrum

Origin of scrum
The terminology "Scrum" was initially introduced by Takeuchi and Nonaka in 1986, in a study paper published in the Harvard Business Review. The paper explained that projects should ideally use small, cross functional teams having complete autonomy in whatever they do, and the teams were supposed to deliver a completely finished and shippable product at the end of the development cycle. In case the product cannot be completed at the end of the development cycle, it could be further extended in the form of another “sprint”. Each development cycle is known as a “sprint”, and typically lasts for two weeks to four weeks. This particular development methodology leads to highly reduced turnaround times, and increased productivity. 

The main advantage of the methodology is that it delivers a completely shippable product at the end of the development cycle, and the development activity takes very little time. This can lead to increased ROI and reduced overheads since redundant requirements or development activities can be curtailed well in time, and replaced by newer and far more important ones in their place. The word “Scrum” is actually derived from the scrum used in rugby football in which the game is restarted again with new or fresh objectives after it undergoes a minor infraction. The game is “reset” to run again with more effective and meaningful objectives after it experiences a setback. That is exactly what happens while using Scrum methodology. Development is carried out in short sprints, at the end of which the results are evaluated, and if required the sprint is extended with the same or newer aims and objectives.  

About scrum 

Even though the concept of scrum is relatively new, it is not the greatest developmental method, or even the most popular framework used in product development cycles. However, the methodology has many positive things to offer in terms of rapid development, higher productivity, and reduced overheads. The main reason why the scrum methodology is so popular is because it is relatively simple to follow and implement, produces quicker results, and is highly scalable – all the factors which can lead to a successful and profitable product development cycle. 

The scrum methodology also empowers the team to dynamically proceed with the development activities, but with added autonomy comes added responsibilities. Each team member is responsible for his or her work, and has to put in the best efforts to provide a completed and shippable product at the end of the product development cycle. It challenges the tradition hierarchical or “waterfall” methods in which the entire development occurs in stages, and it is almost impossible to reverse the stages. One is forced to start from the beginning. Scrum strives to remove this impediment which is so often experienced by development teams. Scrum is dynamic and constantly evolving. It changes rapidly to accept the changes occurring in the product cycle. Even when the objectives or requirements are changed, scrum can adapt to the changes instantly and go ahead with the newer objectives. Very little time is wasted. 

One of the biggest advantages of scrum is that it increases the product owner’s involvement during the development phase. The client, who can also be the product owner, remains apprised to the current project status, and has the option to curtail certain activities which may not be so productive or fruitful in the end. This can lead to reduced overheads. The main issue with scrum methodology is that it needs to be implemented in a proper manner to be successful. 
 

Key principles of scrum 

A key principle supported by scrum is that it takes into consideration the fact that during the implementation of a particular project, customers can change their mindsets about what they really want or require (known as “requirements churn” in scrum methodology). Traditional developmental methodologies cannot support such unprecedented changes pertaining to the product requirements, but scrum can incorporate the changes within its working, and still deliver positive results at the end of the product cycle. You don’t have to start afresh with scrum. Moreover, scrum methodology employs an empirical approach. It accepts that certain problems cannot be properly understood, nor can they be properly defined, but still need to be catered to. It concentrates upon maximizing the team’s capability in delivering a quick solution for a particular development related requirement, and the ability of the team members to respond quickly and efficiently to the changing development requirements and client requests.
 

Working concepts used in scrum:
Ziv's law  

Specifications cannot be fully or totally understood
 

Humphrey's law  

The user does not know what is required or exactly needed until after a system initiates its production activity. The person may be unable to correctly identify the primary objective even in the subsequent development phases.
 

Wegner's lemma   
An interactive or a dynamic system cannot be fully specified, neither can it be fully tested for its correctness.
 

Langdon's lemma 

The software development activity accelerates, and starts evolving more rapidly as it approaches the chaotic regions.
 

Find out more, and download our free QuickScrum tool which can help you in implementing scrum in an effective and profitable way!

An Overview Regarding Scrum Methodology

An introduction to Scrum methodology
For majority of the software developers, Agile scrum methodology does not require any prior introduction. It is widely known that Agile is a comparatively new addition in the field of project management, and was primarily developed to overcome the drawbacks offered by traditional developmental methodologies such as the Waterfall method, which included a linear approach while executing projects. Typically, traditional methods support a top-to-bottom approach of segregating the entire project into main development activities, and tackling them one after another in a sequential method. The Scrum methodology offers a more flexible and dynamic approach of splitting up the entire project into individually executable project parts known as “Sprints”. Each sprint is processed or developed by many team members, who put in efforts to develop an entirely finished and shippable product at the end of the particular sprint. 

The main advantage of the Scrum methodology is that it increases the interaction between the “Product owner” and the team members. Increased client participation (or the Product Owner) leads to enhanced development experience, an advantage that is uniquely offered by Scrum and not other development methodologies. Another advantage offered by Scrum is the highly reduced turnaround time. Each sprint may typically last from one to four weeks, at the end of which a shippable product is delivered. The client is made aware about the development carried out at the end of the sprint by the team members. In many cases, the client can assume the role of the product owner and brief the scrum master regarding the development required. Typically, the sprints are numbered from zero, and proceed as “Sprint 1”, “Sprint 2”, etc. The client can determine the cost effectiveness of each sprint.
 

How the Scrum method works
The Scrum methodology involves three types of roles:
 

Product Owner
In Scrum methodology, the product owner is the most important entity, since the person is responsible for the entire project undertaken and executed by the team. The product owner also represents the client’s interests, and is responsible for providing the vision as well as the idea regarding the product development and life cycle. The person has the authority to decide how the project should proceed, and when the sprints should be terminated if required. It is the product owner who faces the music if the project goes haywire, or fails to complete in time. In many ways, the person acts as a liaison between the product development team and the client, and is required to strike the correct balance between the client interests and demands, and what the development team is capable of offering. The product owner is also responsible for providing all the answers for everything connected with the project.
 

Scrum Master
The main role of a scrum master is to ensure that the sprints carried by the team members properly follow the scrum methodology. The scrum master does not manage the team directly or indirectly. Rather, the person helps the team to remain productive, and removes any impediments occurring during the development process and while carrying out the sprint activity. The scrum master also ensures that the status and completion status are made available to the product owner as and when required.  Another important role of the scrum master is to advise the product owner regarding how to maximize the ROI for the client.
 

Team Members
The fundamental “unit” of the Scrum methodology, the team members combine to form a “sprint” team. Each team member is responsible for carrying out the work and contributes to the sprinting process. Therefore, each sprint consists of some sort of contribution and involvement by the team member. Generally, the teams contain up to seven members. Each team member specialises in a particular discipline of work, or a specialty. Typically, a team may consist of software engineers, programmers, architects, QA experts, analysts, UI designers, and testers. The team members unanimously decide how the particular sprint should be completed. They have the autonomy to decide upon the process employed in the sprint, but are responsible to satisfy the sprint related requirements in totality.
 

Find out more, and download our free QuickScrum tool which can help you in implementing scrum in an effective and profitable way!