 Hello to you, our lovely patrons, and welcome to episode two in our new exclusive series that we're calling prestigious pints. In our series opener, we brought to you none other than agile legend Mike Cohn. And we haven't lowered the bar at all for episode two because joining us in our virtual pub this episode is the product owner guy himself, Roman Pichler. Yes, indeed. Roman is someone that Paul and I have both been proud and happy to be able to call a friend over the last 15 years as well as work with him. And we've been inspired by his work, as I'm sure most of you have as well. So it was great to welcome him in and we had a chat about all sorts of different things, starting off with how we get empowerment and courage as a product owner, whether product owners should be invited to sprint retrospectives. And the fact that we probably can't rely on our users to innovate for us. Naturally, we look back over the last 20 years and what's changed and a little bit forward as to what might be in the future. And Roman even gave us a bit of an insight into how he feels about being known as the product owner guy. Well, we hope you enjoy it as much as we did. Grab yourself a drink and settle into our virtual pub for episode two of prestigious pints with Roman Pichler. Cheers. Are you all right? Hello, Roman. Lalo. How are you? All right. How are you guys doing? Very good. Welcome to our virtual pub. Thank you. Nice to be in the virtual pub. Although it looks like we're in three, we're going to treat it like we're in the same place despite us having three different backgrounds behind us. But it's as close to the pub as we're going to get, I think. Yeah. Right now. But imagine you've got a 360 camera because we can't be sitting next to each other. So each of us has got a different part of the pub behind us. That's what it is. Yeah, well, I like it. Yeah. Quite a fancy pub. It's a pleasure to have you here, Roman. Have you done a pubcast for this before? I don't think I have. So it's really the first time for me. Yeah. Well, we're welcome. We're excited. It's good to have you here. So, yeah, we're welcoming Roman for another one of our prestigious pints episodes, especially for our patrons. So this is a very welcome guest and Roman goes way back with both Jeff and I. In fact, back as far as the first time I met you, Roman, we were in the same room with Ken Schwaber teaching quite scarily, quite trying to teach your CSM together. That was the goodness knows what year that was probably 2006. I'm going to say, would that be right? I think so. Yeah. Yeah, it probably was sort of Maytime or so. Yeah. And it was 2006. It was what was the name of the hotel in London? For some reason, I came along and you were there. Yeah, you stuck your head in. You were on the ground somewhere. There was no windows. Is that right? I remember the name of the hotel. It's on the tip of my tongue. It's the one. Yeah, Holborn, isn't it? Yes. The Grange Holborn. That's it, what it was, yeah. And there was about, it must have been about 70 students in his class, some obscene number of people that Ken was teaching. And then he'd just say, okay, Paula, where you go? And just throw you in front of the lions. But yeah, that's the first time we met, I think. That was a long time ago. That's right. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, cheers. Yeah, cheers. I've got a drink there. I'll toast it to you, Roman. But I'm drinking, I'm drinking leftover Christmas cider. So that's that's what I've got. I've got fancy today. What've you got, Jeff? Beer with a with a with a wax top. Wine bottles size thing. It's called, it's a ripper. This is a bit of a rip on an IPA. So does the special waxed top make a difference or is that just for show? I think it's part of the marketing. I'll tell you that. I think it was quite expensive. It's 6.8%. Oh, it's a barrel, barrel aged beer or barrel cast beer or something. Well, Jeff's pouring that might our viewers will know that I just drink very sweet, very very samey cider. But yeah, I'm still drinking the pink side I've got leftover from Christmas. Yeah, it's a wood aged IPA. Barrel aged beer with the glass that came with part of the parcel. Yeah, it's part of it. So very nice. Drink the beer with the from the glass. Fruity review it bit pineapples. You just pick it you picked a random fruit then, didn't you just try and try and sound like you knew what you were talking about. I read the back of the bottle. Cheers, mate. It's been a while since we've seen you. Yeah, cheers, Roman. Nice to see you. Have you got a drink now Roman? Are you joining us for a drink? He's a designated driver. Well, it's water. So yeah, that's right. Roman's driving us home. Saves us the taxi money. That's not very nice of him. Yeah, no problem. I stopped drinking over three years ago and drinking alcohol. Yeah. And I don't know, it just never really had the urge to go back or I should put this differently. The trade off for me between starting to drink again and just the impact that it has on me personally. It just doesn't feel doesn't feel worth it really. And now it's been such a long time that I don't really miss it anymore. I mean, first Christmas without alcohol was a bit strange, you know, everybody else drinking, but you know, you sort of get used to it. And there's more alcohol free beer now available. So I still drink alcohol free beer. I enjoy that. And I had an alcohol free wine over Christmas. Sorry. Do you feel healthier kind of lifestyles better better off for not drinking? Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, for me, it was a process that I started winding down my alcohol consumption, sort of, you know, over the course of, I guess, a year, one and a half years or so. I mean, it's sort of in a way fizzled out a little bit. But I just, I mean, you know, I tried to limit having some wine or beer to Fridays and then only to Saturdays. But still, I, you know, typically wouldn't sleep that well. And then, you know, could feel it the next morning and the less I drank, the more I would actually feel the impact of the alcohol. So in the end, I just decided to stop. And yeah, it's sort of, you know, I felt good. But the best thing for me is that I just have, in a way, Friday and Saturday evenings, I can fully utilize. Usually I'd have like half a bottle of nice wine and maybe a beer or two beers and, you know, then I'm a little bit, you know, happy. Yeah, yeah, Saturday mornings. Yeah, you can start at a reasonable time, not not like me. I think we had so we did a quiz, a Zoom quiz with some of our friends. And we haven't done it. We're not half as popular as they were this time last year Zoom quizzes with our friends. But we did want to celebrate the end of January. That was that was a highlight was we're going to send off January on a Friday night. But I only had maybe two or three drinks, but I felt awful in the morning. I think I'm losing my tolerance to it. I must be. But yeah, I know what you mean. It is nice to wake up on a Saturday or a Friday Sunday and not have a big head. I think, you know, just I don't want to sort of, you know, drag drag on and, you know, prolong this conversation. But I mean, for me, certainly because you said, you know, you mentioned the, you know, sort of, you know, you noticed a change there for you. And for me, certainly with, you know, aging and getting older, my body just, you know, couldn't cope as well with alcohol. I mean, I used to drink quite a bit when I was younger and really, really enjoyed it. So, you know, that's certainly a bodily change for me. Yeah, fair enough. No, fat, fat pool. You mentioned that. So this is going to be my first attempt at trying to link what we're talking about to work related stuff. So you mentioned that your first Christmas was a little bit weird when everyone else was drinking. I mean, I'm going to use the term peer pressure, although nobody was pressuring you in that situation, but perhaps an internal sense of peer pressure. Is there any kind of, have you ever come across any kind of peer pressure in the world of product owners? Yeah, I think so. You know, I think, I mean, product owners, like anybody, you know, is susceptible to, I think, you know, is susceptible to comparing ourselves with others. And I mean, we grow up in a competitive environment and organizations are usually competitive, at least to a certain extent. And so, yeah, I mean, I've certainly heard product, product people compare the tools that they use and, you know, the knowledge they have, you know, the products that they've looked after and the companies they've worked for. So in that sense, and, and, and, you know, pressure, I think product owners get quite a bit of pressure from stakeholders to get stuff done, take on certain features, put certain items on the product backlog. I think it can be quite competitive. Certainly in my coaching and companies that I've seen, especially from a product owner point of view, in terms of almost, I'll say bragging rights that between across the company that my products outselling or, or pushing further, more feature availability, whatever it might be. But certainly, that kind of competitive, I think that product owners are naturally, well, I think it's probably a good thing that they do feel a bit of competitive nature. Could you, would you think? I was thinking of something else as well, actually, what you were talking there, in the, I think product owners have got to be prepared to stand out from the crowd. I know a lot of successful products are kind of building on what's already there and making them better. But if you want to build something a little bit different, you can't be worried about what other people are doing. You just got to not copy their stuff, not worry about what features are there in other and competitive products and just think, well, what do I want in my product? What are my uses of my products? Do you get that as well? So I think it takes quite a bit of courage to do it in a way you are in thing. And and you and I do something, try and do something that is truly innovative, that is truly new. I think it's generally much easier if you do something similar to what's out there already, something similar to what the competitors are doing. I think whenever we try and innovate there's a risk of failure, there's a risk that things don't work out. Some people are more comfortable with failure and some people are less. You've got to be a good product owner, right? You've got to be. Well, in theory, you should be. But I mean, I tend to say to the product people that I work with, you know, something like a growth mindset is helpful and, you know, understanding that product management is a very diverse profession. There's so much to it. We can't be, we can't know everything and, you know, we only create value by offering something new. And if we do something new, then we're likely to make a mistake. We're likely to fail. It's something we have to get comfortable with. But, you know, personally, I can get quite frustrated when things don't work out for me and I can be very impatient with my own work. So, you know, it's not always easy, I think, to cope with failure. It's not necessarily easy to innovate. And I think that's on a personal level. And I think that has to do ultimately with how I view myself and the expectations I have for myself as an individual. But then I think, I nearly knocked over my glass here, getting more excited. Talking with my hands. But I don't think it's also the organizational context. People are in right. Some organizations are more open to innovation and change. But I mean, you know, reflecting on my own career, I've worked for large organizations where, you know, I was essentially told not to ask so many questions and just get on with the job. Do as you're told. Come on. And if that's the environment you're in, then it can be tough to do something new and, you know, experiment and try things out and risk failure. I think I was talking to a company just this week. And they were, I mean, I was talking to product owners within their company. And they were, I mean, really switched on, really, really passionate about their product, really very an absolute experts on the domain, on the user base. But they're very much held, almost held back, but they feel like they are, there's a bit of a fight, a conflict between the company owners, really. So the company has delegated an area of responsibility to product owners within the company. But they still feel like the exact level of the directors, the owners of the company could still potentially overrule them, which I, and very much very quite nervous about challenging that and presenting an argument against the director of the company that, well, whatever they say, we've got to do it. And I felt quite sorry for these particular product owners because they clearly knew what was right and knew that maybe no was the right answer. But just, it's quite paralyzed by not being able to challenge the very top of the company. Yeah. And I think empowerment generally is a big deal for product people, for product owners. And it's, it's kind of ironic, isn't it? But, you know, I think one of the reasons why Kentroy ever chose to term product owner over product manager, instead of product manager, is to emphasize the level of authority and empowerment product people need, particularly in a natural context where, you know, we value a collaboration that we want to pull in the stakeholders and development teams and maybe even have selected users and customers in sprint review meetings and sort of a little crowd there, right? So, you know, there has to be one person who can then make a decision if no consensus can be achieved to keep the product moving forward. But I think that message got lost in time and often product owners, product people aren't adequately empowered. They don't really have the authority to make the necessary decisions and stand up to senior stakeholders, including, you know, the managing directors and say no and push back. Yeah. So, I'm going to, I'm not challenging you here, Roman, but I am challenging something because I think one of the biggest complaints that people have when they're talking to me is that my product owner is not empowered and equally, my product owners, the product owners would say, I don't feel empowered. But when I speak to their bosses, they say, why don't they just make decisions? They have the, they say they want autonomy, but they're not using it. And yeah, there is an element of perhaps those bosses aren't aware of how overly influential and undermining they are. But equally, I think there's an element of self-sabotage of the product owners who, when we talked about bravery, they don't actually want to risk. And so they'll hide behind supposed lack of empowerment. They don't feel that failure. Have you seen that? Yeah. Oh, no, I mean, you know, that sort of resonates with me. And I guess, you know, it takes two to tango, as they say. And it sort of reminds me of a conversation I had with a product owner a little while back. And she complained to me that her management, that she felt her management didn't really allow her to take ownership of the product roadmap and make strategic product decisions. And that's fairly common complaint I hear from from product owners. So, you know, we got talking and I said to her after a little while, well, have you created a product roadmap again? You're comfortable to create a product roadmap now for your product and present it to your boss. And she looked at me and said, no, why? So I said to her, well, you know, it's a tricky one. It's sort of a bit of a chicken and egg problem, it seems to me. It's kind of hard for your boss to trust you to take ownership, full ownership of your product, if you may lack some strategic skills, product management skills. And at the same time, of course, I understand that you want the support from your boss, but maybe given the situation you're in, the best thing might be to try and, you know, look up, read up on product roadmaping practices and create a roadmap and show it to your boss. And that way, you're being proactive and you demonstrate that, you know, you know your stuff, you have the skills and also, you know, you really want to take full ownership of your product. But I don't think that was necessarily what she wanted to hear. I think she wanted me to tell her that her boss would have to change. Everyone always expects the other person to change. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah, it's been one of the, I would say that's probably one of the hardest parts of my job over the last 15, 20 years is having to tell people the things that they don't want to hear. I think that's ultimately one of the benefits or the reasons for taking an agile approach is their transparency, isn't it? It's a brutal transparency of, well, let's just deal with reality. Maybe it's a message we're going to have to suck it up, but better we know it now. Did you always, you crafted it, you are known as the product owner guy, right? That's not a, that won't come as a surprise to you, I'm sure. Is that something that you always wanted to go down that track? Is that was always an area of passion for you? I think it's been an area of interest for me for a long time, but there were several developments really that let me down that path. One was starting up my own business and having to take care of the services and products and thinking about them more. So, you know, that sort of really kind of caused me to start practicing product management properly. And then I started first working with product managers back in 2001, and that was also in an agile context. And that collaboration wasn't necessarily fruitful in the sense that the product became a success. It ultimately didn't, unfortunately. But it was very interesting because, you know, until then I had more of a development and technology focus. And then, you know, talking to product people and working with, in fact, it was a small team of product managers for brand new health care product was a very interesting experience and something that kind of stuck with me. And then when I started my own business, I was more focused initially on development processes and scrum and agile frameworks. But, you know, partly due to the two factors that I just mentioned, that that interest and the necessity to learn more about and practice more product management within my own business. And then the developments within that space, I felt that actually specializing myself in going for what was back then a niche, I viewed it as a niche market, at least. You know, that product owner piece, that might be a smart thing to do. We spoke to Mike Cohen a few weeks back, Roman, and he was, he talked quite frankly about how he's changed and how his views on certain things, he would be a lot more strong on certain subjects now than he was, perhaps, back 10, 15 years ago. Do you think has your perception of the product owner role changed since you've mentioned 2001 or that 20 years ago? Do you think it's moved on since then? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think so. And, you know, I think, you know, as I change my outlook on things changes. But I also think that, you know, our understanding of, you know, how agile practices, how agile concepts, techniques, and practices can be applied has changed as, you know, I mean, I'm sure use has changed. And I think as a community, as a group of people, it has changed. But yeah, so it has changed. One thing that stands out, you think that you just think completely differently about now than you did 20 years ago? Yeah, I think, you know, sort of for me, a big area in the last few years, certainly. And that's sort of something that, you know, is sort of, I don't know if it's new, but I mean, when I first looked at product management and started working with product people, it was really all about the hard skills and in a way that the core practices and initially also more, you know, tactical practices and development related practices. I remember, literally nearly 20 years ago, sitting down with one of the lead product manager and looking through use cases, you know, piles of use cases that she'd written and talking to her about the needs to prioritize them so that, you know, we could run some iterations. And so, you know, initially, I focused a lot on these hard skills. But I think over the years, I learned that while the hard skills are important, and that expertise is extremely valuable for product people, without a doubt, the people skills, the soft skills are just as important. And I mean, you know, Jeff, I mean, that's an area you've worked on as well, right? Definitely. Yeah. That's the trend I think I've seen in more recent product owner training and coaching is that the area of agile change agency or kind of, it used to be back in the day, you know, back in very much a scrum masters remit. And I think, whilst that hasn't changed, but I think a lot of product owners that I speak to now are becoming a lot more agile aware, rather than something that's being inflicted on them. It's now something that they're intrinsically part of. So I think the question always comes up in my classes about who is an agile change agent within a scrum team. And I think more people now are more willing to listen and to respond as product owners, because product owners can have a huge amount of influence on the agility of a company. It shouldn't just always come from the scrum masters remit, in my opinion, certainly. I got them. I mean, the word for me over the last 20 years, for a product owner space is the word empathy. That's, that's what stands out for me. Now, when empathy for who for the product owner for that for, well, this is where I'm going with it. I think historically, if you go back to 2001, the empathy needed to be developed from the product owner for the development team, and from the development team for the users. I think those were the two glaring sort of gaps, if you like. The product owner was traditionally very hard-nosed, as I saw it, business focused, profit focused, return focused, market focused. Very, in many ways, rightly so. And the development team was seen as a cost to try and achieve that as quickly as possible. And that awareness of actually engaging the team and their creativity and iterating and collaborating, that developed a great sense of empathy. And I think that had a massive success. But then where I think it shifted is actually, and I'll say this with a flippancy, but there's a seriousness beneath it, is that there's been a, become an appreciation from the development teams that I work with, that their product owners are actually human beings. And so in empathy, that the product owner has a ridiculously difficult job. And that shift there, coupled with, actually, product owners have developed a greater sense of empathy for themselves, because they realize that they are humans themselves. And actually, they don't have to be the hard-nosed robot looking for profit all the time at any cost. That sense of, well, let's take our time. Let's have a think. Let's work with people. Let's show some vulnerability. Let's ask the questions. Let's not think that we have to have all the answers. Let's test things that are imperfect. And that sense, that for me has been the biggest shift that I've seen over the last 20 years. Tumbleweed. Cheers. No, I would say, I was going to say something else there about, this is the perception as well, I think that has changed over the years with the one that always comes up for me is retrospectives. And I always ask the question, who should attend a retrospective? And there's this, there's someone will always say, well, should the product owner attend a retrospective? And I think that's, yeah, that's something that has changed quite a lot over the years is that whilst it was, and some teams, what companies will still say, oh, no, don't divide the product, don't, yeah, definitely not. We wouldn't want to air our dirty laundry with the product owner. But I see it more and more now that it's just they're part of that team. They're part of that. They need to hear these things as much as if not more than the development team themselves. So I think that's changed over time as well, the retrospectives become a much more inclusive event for those people as well. Do you encourage product tenants to go to retrospectives? I do, yes. Yeah, no, I like to ask when I run a product owner workshop, who attends the retrospective and ask those individuals who don't attend, why not? And when people say like, oh, my development team doesn't really want me to be there and say, oh, how interesting. Maybe that's what you should talk about in the very next retrospective, because it seems that the collaboration and the connection with the development team members isn't quite as good as it could and maybe should be, and might be even a trust issue. You can guarantee they're probably whinging about you and that person in that retro as well. So it's kind of a whinge fest. But yeah, I think it's a strong sign if that product owner feels the first person sat down in that meeting rather than the last person to be invited. It is tough for product owners and sort of striking that balance between building a close and trustful connection with the development team members, but at the same time also engaging with the stakeholders, the key stakeholders, and keeping an eye on the market and talking to users, maybe observing users using the products. So combining that inward and outward perspective and with regards to the inward work, the work inside the business, attending not only to the development team, but also sufficiently to the stakeholders. So it's because I'm saying this, because sometimes when I suggest to product owners to attend the retrospective, they look at me, roll their eyes and say, oh, yet another meeting I've got to go to now. Have things changed over the last year? So obviously it's impossible to have one of these podcasts now or have a conversation with anybody without talking about the pandemic. But have you seen product owners pivot their techniques? So having the customer observation you said there, just observing your customers, you can't do it. Certainly as easily as you could. You can't get your focus groups as easy as you could. How have you seen product owners pivot to this new way of working? Well, I think, I don't know. There's obviously only so much experience and insight I have, and it's quite limited in a way. But I think there's been a massive shift anyway in the last five to 10 years away from qualitative to quantitative, ultimately, market and user research and more and more product people using more and more powerful analytics tools. And, you know, like 10, 15 years ago, I think, interviews and observations and even things like, you know, I remember reading in the Harvard Business Review, way back a story about, I think it was researchers at Lego moving in for a few months with families in the US, Japan and Europe, sort of the main target markets back then to understand back to how the kids would play and not only with Lego, but generally. And so that sort of really intimate level of research and that real immersion into your target audience. I think that in a way has been replaced to a certain extent with using analytics tools for various reasons. One is because it's easier and it's quicker and it's way cheaper. It's less subjective in a way, isn't it? It can be, yes. It can be, yes. Yeah, I mean, we certainly generate way more data. We just don't have to be careful not to be too biased when we look at the data and interpret it. But I mean, so I think for many product people, you know, that's just literally continues. And I do think that, you know, we can still interview prospective users or existing users and customers through what we're doing right now, right? Assume, call Assume Session and, you know, you can still observe by asking people to share their screen and see how they would interact with the app or hold up their phone if it's deployed on a handheld device. But I mean, for me, it's as valuable as it is to use analytics tools. And I mean, I use analytics tool in my own work, as I'm sure you guys do. I always feel that, you know, if there's, if the qualitative element is missing, then it's kind of hard to empathize going back to what you said earlier, Jeff, I can't empathize with data. I can only empathize with human beings. So for me, it is important to make an effort to still occasionally, you know, I like to suggest once a month as a rule of thumb meets selected users and customers and at least talk to them. So to really understand what's happening for them. And I think that then helps me make better decisions as the person in charge of the product, rather than just relying on anonymized data. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's quite an old school perspective. I don't know. I mean, I'm getting old. No, it's one of those things where I think the pendulum's kind of swung one way. You know what I mean? I mean, it'll be started out with lots of qualitative and, you know, quite time intense research and it's kind of swung, I think, nearly a little bit too far towards. Let's use this analytics tool and more data, more data, more data. Did you ever watch that? This is bear with me on this one. Did you ever watch that TV show House with Hugh Laurie as the doctor? Yeah, medical thing. No, what's that? I'd recommend it. It's one of my favorite things ever, ever, ever. It's absolutely fantastic. So I wouldn't put any spoilers out of it, but basically, Hugh Laurie is an incredibly intelligent, talented doctor, but he's a bit of a dick. And he basically doesn't have a lot of time for human beings. And he's one of his premises. People always lie. People always lie. So trying to get a diagnosis from a patient is pointless because they will never tell you the truth, often because of embarrassment or whatever. And users often don't tell the truth, not consciously, but they will tell people what they think they want to hear in a way and also what they would like to believe about themselves. And so actually what people say they do and what they actually do can be two very different things. Is this link to the story about the Walkman? Yeah, definitely. Go on, you have to tell that, because that's a good one. Well, I always get it wrong, but the essence of it is, I can give, did some, Sony did some, I'm not talking to you right now, because you know what I'm going to say, but the research on the color of the Walkman, the boombox or whatever it was, and people say, yeah, yeah, we love yellow, yellow's great, red's great, yeah. Oh, thanks for your input, Custom Focus Group, please take a Walkman of your choice on the way out and everybody took black. And what you say you're going to do and what you actually do can be two very different things as a product. And you've got to be really careful of that, right? Absolutely, absolutely, right. And I don't think we should expect that users and customers innovate for us and tell us what our product should do, what it should look like. The same is true for the stakeholders, I don't expect that stakeholders tell product people what that product should do or look like. I think that's really the job of the product owner together with the development team to figure that out. At the same token, when we look at a process like Scrum, then I always like to think the product owner and the team should be empowered to take the first step and build a product increment, but then we validate the decision. We validate the product decisions essentially that we've taken by putting it in front of the stakeholders and selected users and customers and carefully listening to what they have to say. And then we think about it, we analyze their feedback, we analyze any data that we've gathered, and that hopefully will help us to make the right decisions and adjust essentially the product backlog and therefore then drive the next product increment. And so of course we can say, oh yeah, it's not a big deal. I mean, we just release product increments on a regular basis and so we collect the data. And that's cool. But the drawback with quantitative approaches is that it's very difficult to find out why somebody did or didn't do something. So the intention, the motivation, the underlying need is kind of hard to uncover. I think that's where at least selected qualitative measures come in. So I always like to think quantitative and qualitative approaches shouldn't compete but they should complement each other and it'd be kind of nice to mix and match. And maybe the standards way that somebody operates a team of product owner users is to release product increments early and frequently. That's cool. But maybe then once in a while, every two months, every three months, you still do some direct observations, you still do some usability testing, you still do some interviews. Yeah. And it's always every product, you're going to need a different balance and even for a particular product, the state that product is in and its maturity and lifecycle, your balance is going to be different between qualitative and quantitative. I think a lot of product standards that I work with, they find that really difficult, the fact that they can't just follow a blueprint, if you like. There's no right answer that they can actually calculate and then check at the back of the book. And so this brings us all the way back to that sense of being comfortable with failure, if you like. But I'll tweak the wording slightly and say just be comfortable within perfection because you'll never have perfection as a product owner. You just can't get that. And if you're aiming for it, that's not necessarily about the thing, as long as it's a healthy ambition. But it's potentially quite damaging if you're hoping for it and you know you can't get it. Yeah, that's right. That's absolutely right. There's no blueprint. I mean, the techniques that people can use. But it's, you know, I sometimes think a product owner, a good product owner is somebody who has a little bit of an entrepreneurial spirit, you know, and is in that sense then willing to take informed risks and stick her or his head out a little bit. Still may not be nice then, you know, to sort of experience some form of failure or setback. But again, that'll be part of that process. But really sort of that sort of, you know, the wish, the motivation just to move things forward and maybe bring about some change and do something different. There's a lot to be said, isn't there, for almost, and this comes a little bit back for me to the kind of the CEO kind of stakeholder here is that I can think of one company where the CEO is quite resolute on the fact that our users don't know what they need yet. You have to trust me. You kind of, we should go, we should gamble on this and we should kind of, we should back that horse, we should go with that because users don't really, they're going to love it when they see it and they just don't know they want. And it's balancing that what's our data telling us compared to what is our data not telling us. It's the gaps, it's the stuff that we're not testing for yet. It's the stuff that people don't even know that they need that feature yet. And that's, I think, where that sense of gambling as a part of that. I'm not saying that that guy's wrong, right, because quite often those CEOs they're right. But you need, I think you need that element of risk taking, Jeff, that CEO that's being awkward. You do, but there is a good way to take risks. And what often happens in those situations is that person is letting, they're not crafting a scientific experiment. They're crafting experiments to prove themselves right. And their confirmation bias will see that. And okay, maybe it's at some point the money will run out, people won't buy it. But it's too late, man. But those people need to be humble enough to be able to say, okay, I've got this hypothesis. But I don't know if it's right yet. I want to find out rather than I know this is right. I'm going to keep going until everybody out there proves me right by buying this goddamn thing. I wonder if it's about more of having a sandbox to play in about about having a something a continuous experiment to run that then it's not all riding on one decision that we've got multiple decisions like this, you're being played around with all the time that it gives almost giving that CEO that that license to, you know, you want to play with your toys, go and play, go and play with this team can build some toys for you and then see if anything sticks to the wall, rather than is distracting. Take the distraction away from a product that's trying to grow and whether it needs to be something separate anyway. I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. There's a big balance isn't there between having because a product and it does need confidence. They do need to have a point of view and give it a go and stick with it in the early days because experiments take time to come up, products take time to land and grow but equally knowing when to walk away. You mentioned Jeff that empathy, you're trying to build empathy and I think the level of empathy between development teams and product owners has grown. I would agree with that but I think there's still a lot of development teams that I speak to that I coach that want a sense of certainty from a product owner. They want a product owner to be able to stand up in a planning session and say this is the right thing to do now trust and I want you to go with me on this. So I think if that's a facade that the product owner has to wear even if they don't know it but I think the team does still need some sense of authority around that and direction certainly. I think what I hear you say Paul is really that product owners should offer some leadership in the product space and I would certainly agree with that. I do think it's important that product owners have an opinion about where to take their product and I do think it's important that product owners articulate this opinion to the development team and to the stakeholders but I also believe that it's equally important to take the opinions, hold the opinions lightly and not forget to cultivate an open mind so it's sort of that balance right between I you know ideally as the product owner I understand the market, I understand the users and customers, I understand the competition, I understand trends and dynamics in the market and I've got an opinion and I've got an idea, I've got maybe even a strong idea and vision of where I want to take my product but then you know I might be wrong and I'm willing to admit that and I'm willing to be vulnerable in that sense and I'm willing to listen and humble enough to listen to the development team, listen to the stakeholders and particularly listen to the users and customers and you know try and look at any data and any feedback that comes in as objectively as I possibly can and I try and be aware of my attachments, my biases, we know how this works right I mean the longer we work on our products the more energy and time we've invested in it, the more it tends to be our baby and the more we tend to be attached to it and the less open we tend to be to negative critical feedback. I'm interested Roman, this comes up in courses as well that I teach product owners so we talk about stakeholder management, we talk about trying to kind of classify and categorize stakeholders. What should we view on the scrum development team as a stakeholder? Well firstly should you think they should be a stakeholder in product backlog decision making? Is that a risk? Is that a benefit? What should we view on that? So when I use the term stakeholder I always tend to think of the internal business stakeholder so for commercial revenue generating product that be somebody from marketing sales support maybe finance operations for those guys so marketeer sales rep. I always look at the development team more as a for whatever reason as a separate so typically don't subsume or classify the development team as a stakeholder but more as I guess I don't know a partner even so I'd also argue that ideally the stakeholders that I mentioned a marketeer in a sales rep should also become at least over time a partner and as a product owner ideally I'd like to establish effective and trustful working relationships with those individuals. Sorry what was the question? I'm wondering if development teams should have a say in terms of backlog prioritization because I think they have certainly have opinions in my experience. Yeah I think so I mean I think it's good practice really to work on the product backlog together so product owner and development team and I think there's a mutual benefit here the benefit for the product owner is to leverage the knowledge and expertise of the development team and understand you know where technical risks often as the person in charge of the product that's not something that I fully understand that I'm fully aware of and by doing prioritization together by maybe refining product backlog items together working on the product backlog together I ensure that there's a shared understanding that people understand what those items what those stories mean and and by inviting people to make product decisions I usually increase the chances that people support those decisions that people buy into those decisions. Yeah and the benefit from a development team perspective is that you know as developers we can be more proactive and we can influence and we can contribute to decisions and we can shape the product and we also learn more about the product and you know we're not solely dependent on the product owner all the time yeah over time we may be able to answer you know some of the questions that we have amongst ourselves because we just pick up appropriate domain and market and product knowledge. I've seen it massively I wouldn't say transformed but in terms of moral and motivation I think there is a if you want like you said the words buy in there and I think team's feeling part of that that decision-making process or at least understanding the decision-making process there's a lot of teams that and unfortunately for them work on a very boring product which actually generates their company quite a lot of revenue so it's like yeah it's not great and we're not working on the sexiest function at the moment but we've this is kind of the stuff that's keeping our company afloat so we understand but we understand it's part in that process and developers may not get what they want all the time but I think certainly involving them and I used to work in Nokia music where I'd say 70 to 80 percent of the development team members were all musicians so they had a real passion in developing a music product so why I used to ask the question why wouldn't why would we ignore that feedback and ignore those opinions we can't may not take them all into account all the time but you certainly want to have that voice heard as a as a recognized voice Roman I we um this is sort of stepping outside of the public class the little benches going back to the three of us but normally at the start we would say something like we just talk and see where it goes and if anything you say you don't want in the final cut we cut it out um at what point did you realize that you you'd become the product owner guy I don't know if I'm the product owner guy you are you are you're the product owner guy everyone says to me right we need some stuff on product owners uh we're going product going to Roman go and read go and read this book it's going to go and read this book and we're the product owner guy I mean I know it's very humble of you to say so I don't know I think you know the do you enjoy it I mean let me ask you a different question do you enjoy being the product owner guy so I mean it's kind of nice what is really nice is to see when people recognize the work and the efforts that that I do I mean that that is that is generally very rewarding and I think it's rewarding for anybody um it's also rewarding when people recognize my not only recognize but recommend my work and yeah that's great but I try I honestly try not to get too um to attach to a specific view of what I've achieved of who I am um because you know things things change and um as much as I enjoy what I do and I I generally enjoy my job I really do um and I'm grateful that I have the job that I have I know at some point in time it's it's going to stop it's going to end so you know um yeah so you know I don't want to certainly think of myself as the the the mega product owner go and if people feel I've got something helpful to say that's great but I mean the other people obviously out there including you two gentlemen you know that have very valuable um you know things to say and very valuable advice too so you feel the pressure of people maybe taking uh too much or reading too much authority into what you say do you know what I mean by that yeah oh I I do yeah and you know it's certainly it's certainly the case that I've sort of become a little bit more careful over the years and I think I've choose I try and choose and I'm sure that it always always succeed but I try and choose my words a little bit more carefully um you know certainly you know when I when I write stuff um and I I have to say that you know I I I did think quite a bit about my my last book and um I you know you know in the process of preparing to write it and then during writing it I I I sort of thought you know but I in a way I have a responsibility because you know people may take notice and they may well you know and so I wanted to make sure that it's a decent book but it's also about something that I really care about and I think that would be valuable for the individuals the individual readers but also for the whole product management community um you know when you would have done that when you were working as seamans I know I remember remember having a drink with you a while ago and it's about it's probably 10 years ago or something and you're saying how frustrating it is when you hear people say but Ken Schweber says like it's like it's an argument that should be listened to you know and he's just a human being um and and over the last 10 years or so people have been saying but Roman Picklers says and and a lot of it is absolute gold right but you know we'll spout a bit of nonsense now and again or people will uh will interpret what we've said in a different way right so right yeah yeah none none of us is perfect and none of us is always right I mean you know all human beings and we all make mistakes it's it's natural and so I I always hope that people um use any pieces of advice that that I offer to make up their own minds and then decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong and I genuinely believe there is no one right way I genuinely believe there is no one right way and it's it's really then you know for us as individuals to take ownership of our own decisions and get the information that will help us to make the right decisions and then see where those decisions take us um oh yeah I I would I would actually that as well I'm I'm now intrigued by your comment about one day my job's gonna end what what would Roman do if if he was not the product only guy what what if you were not allowed to do anything to do with product management lost ground ever again from tomorrow what would you do what would I do um I think if it was right now I'd probably um have too much energy um just to to do what I enjoy otherwise um and playing a little bit of music and and riding my bicycle um I'd probably uh either try and get involved in a in a local business or in a charity and do some work there or possibly start up another business but I you know I do think it's it's important to care for our jobs and and as I said I'm grateful for the job that I have I truly am but I also think it's dangerous to completely identify with uh a role that we play in a job that we have because sooner or later that job is is going to change and I mean who knows you know maybe somebody's listening to this uh you know to this pubcast and and and thinking oh my god you know Roman's really lost it now I mean he's talking a lot of crap and you know suddenly you know uh you know the reputation will be gone it's tarnished we'll blame Paul for the edit yeah I should have kept it out yeah things things changed but you never had that sort of I'm gonna I'm gonna set up a surf school on on the beach or something like that I tried surfing many years ago but it wasn't that good at it and the trouble with water is it tends to be wet and then here in the hey it tends to be chilly as well yeah and then those surf seats oh man they're so tight and the older I get the tighter they become I know they're quite a few you know all the blokes out there and and ladies who surf and sort of really well but I think I just started it way too late um I don't know I I mean why is that something that that you aspire to yeah no I've got no sense of balance but um no I don't you have you can walk you can walk Jeff yeah I do have I fall over now again well he's needs the way I've dislocated my knee playing darts Roman so I don't think surfing is my standing still on an hockey playing darts you've put you there yeah I don't think surfing is my future but you've always been so you're a big skier aren't you I used to ski yes yeah I haven't skied for a number of years though it's partly living in the UK and partly I guess just having a family and and the the effort and the hassle of dragging people then across half of Europe to some some slopes yes not not a simple task is it what do you think the future of agile is what is the future of agile I don't know maybe what's the future of product development um so for me a lot of the the basic ideas of what I view as basic ideas in in agile you know in agile frameworks and agile approaches still hold true I think we can all still benefit you know I think virtually all organizations can still benefit from more effective collaboration and a more focus a stronger focus on users and customers and value creation I mean for product management I really think that empowerment is a big issue and establishing product roles in organizations where people have the skills and people have the decision making authority and then also the responsibility and accountability that comes with it in order to progress products and and and run with their ideas so I think that'd be that'd be really cool to see I certainly hope that's a you know in 10 certainly 15 20 years from now that's not going to be such a big issue I also hope that product people will will maybe continue to be or be even more strategic so I always think it's kind of nice to take care of the product backlog and help identify and write some epics and user stories that's that's good stuff but I think it's even more important to understand and be clear on the strategy that you have in order to make or keep your product successful and maybe be able to set some goals on a product roadmap for the next 6 to 12 months to align everyone and give everyone an idea of where the product is going so I hope that that's gonna that's gonna continue cool not very good at predicting the future I'm afraid of me I'd like to think that startups you know if there's a startup that's could it's that's come out of this pandemic maybe somewhere in 20 years time if these startups are being led by people that really do understand that like you said that growth mindset that product ownership empowerment and letting good people build good product build good products I don't think a lot of the the difficulties product owners are having now will kind of ebb away maybe maybe it maybe that's the false hope but I'd like to think that maybe leadership is viewed very differently in 20 20 30 years time that'd be nice that'd be really nice yeah yeah that'd be cool but then I guess just building on what you just said Paul um I mean it's called product management right but there's so much people stuff in there I mean exactly yeah people always get in the way don't they that's the trouble the trouble are the people if it was only colored if it was I know if it was just robots maybe that's maybe it's AI maybe artificial intelligence will be defining what products we need and building for us that reminds me then of some in banks novels right where the big minds the big massive computers decide what what the people should do across the galaxy or whatever it is it's gonna end the sky net isn't it Jeff terminated to another film you haven't seen but um yeah end with sky net and the terminator's taken over as a minority rapport no no wrong wrong film that's tom cruise wrong wrong actor wrong film wrong decade what was the thing where they're sort of moving the screen that's minority report yeah but what do they call that what was the system oh i don't know what the system the name that wasn't that wasn't sky net it's not sky net no that's that's um wrong film wrong wrong genre yeah very good all right okay message final message then right more do you reckon we've um we'll switch here what's your final message to our last my final message um i love and peace well peace because of that saying yeah yeah yeah um yeah i think i like what you said jeff about um being happy with things not being perfect and so i think i think a common mistake we make um is to put ourselves too much under pressure and expect in a way in a way too much too quickly uh from ourselves and because we expected of ourselves we also expected of the people who are around us the people that we work with and so something that i wish for for myself and for everyone is that we learn to um maybe maybe maybe relax a little bit and in the sense that we we understand that yeah we need to get stuff done and there are things that we'd like to do but you know some things just don't happen immediately and if it doesn't work out immediately either then that's not a not a problem it's not a not a big deal my big deal cool it was it was it was awesome it would have been obviously so much better if we were meeting in person but it's been good to catch up with you thank you for taking the time joining us in our virtual pub thank you for having me it was nice nice to chat with you gentlemen we're gonna warm the car up it's pretty chilly out get the heated seats on and we'll uh we'll meet you at the front we'll meet you at the back of course cheers moment great thanks guys