Skills You Need as a Dev Manager: Product Owner

"The primary role of a manager is to remove impediments for your team."

This is a multi-part series about other skills you can develop as a Software Development Manager. Each skill can remove impediments that keep your team from performing.

Depending on the size of the organization you're working for, you may or may not have a formal Product Management organization. Or, your company may have one but they don't deal with the piece(s) of software your team(s) work on. But, just because you don't have a Product Owner (PO) doesn't mean your software doesn't need one.

One way you can bring value to your team is to give them a clear direction or roadmap and clear requirements when they are not being provided by someone else. In my experience, most dev teams are not great at identifying the most VALUABLE items to work on. They are, however, great at identifying the most INTERESTING things to work on. 🤣 

✔️ A good PO gives the team guidance on how best to add value to the product. (If you think your software isn't a product, you're wrong.) 

✔️ A good PO gives the team small items of work that are easy to complete and ship.

✔️ A good PO communicates the vision of the product roadmap to the team regularly.

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You, as a good Dev Manager, can serve as the Product Owner:

☑️ Organize your team's backlog.

☑️ Direct the team to the features that add the most value.

☑️ Write clear and small stories.

☑️ Plan small, regular releases.

When you provide your team with a clear roadmap and requirements, you'll find they deliver faster with higher quality.

If you want to read more about being a Product Owner, I recommend "The Professional Product Owner" by Don McGreal (link in the comments).