The product workers: Why do product owners fail?

For this episode of the podcast, product workers Tim Klein and Dominique Winter have compiled topics that can cause problems for product owners. In conversation, they critically examine the pitfalls, discuss the background and the underlying problems.

The result is an episode in which they put their fingers – or rather: both hands – deep into the wounds of organizational, methodical and personal inadequacies. The podcast can certainly be used for self-reflection:

• Which of the points applies in my context?
• What have I already experienced?
• Where can I still change things myself?

Many of the challenges discussed occur only occasionally or in slightly modified forms, but in some way the product workers have all encountered the phenomena here and there before and can identify with them.

Tim Klein and Dominique Winter first look at the organization and the context in which product development takes place. Then they look at everything that has to do with interaction and communication with others – like the stakeholders and the team. After that, it’s about your own behavior in the role of product owner, which can lead to problems depending on how it develops. Your own understanding of your role can also stand in the way. Finally, it is about a lack of ability, i.e. a lack of knowledge or incomplete training.

In short: Product owners can fail for a variety of reasons. However, the product workers want product owners to be successful and want to put a whole series of warnings along the way with this episode so that product owners can recognize the shallows of their own learning journey early enough.

As always, the episode concludes with tips on how listeners can delve deeper into the topic. The podcast episode on the challenges between product owners and developers and the episode “Saying no as a product owner” fit the topic.

In the podcast, Winter and Klein cite a blog article by Roman Pichler that is worth reading as the source: “Be a Balanced Product Leader, not a Feature Broker or Product Dictator”.

The episode and further information can be found under “The product workers: what causes product owners to fail?”.