In which I summarize the preface to Roman Pichler’s Agile Product Management with Scrum.

Summary of the preface

Here’s what I took from the preface of the book.

Agile practices involve close collaboration between business and technical people.

product ownership has consistently been the major challenge and success factor in the companies I’ve consulted

Whereas in old-school product management, “several roles, such as product marketer, product manager, and project manager, share the responsibility for bringing the product to life”, in Scrum “one person - the product owner - is in charge of the product and leads the project.”

The product owner is part of the Scrum team and works closely with the ScrumMaster and the team.

Up-front product management work is to be minimzed in Scrum, with product discovery and definition an ongoing process and product features emerging.

Early and frequent releases, sprint review meetings, and a radical seeking of and openness to feedback allow guiding the product to one customers love.

This post is part of a series

This post is part of a series of posts about chapters in Roman Pichler’s Agile Product Management with Scrum.

• Overall summary

• Preface (this post)

• Chapter 1 : the product owner role

• Chapter 2 : product vision

• Chapter 3 : product backlog

• Chapter 4 : release planning

• Chapter 5 : Scrum meetings

• Chapter 6 : Transitioning into the product owner role

You should read the book

This is a great book; you should read it.

Acknowledgments

Cover photo: Eoin Gardiner’s Scrum to England, via CC-BY-2.0.