Product Ownership

On this blog, I want to share my thoughts and those of my friends and colleagues about product ownership. To start this blog, let’s define what I mean by product ownership.

I view product ownership for the entire product life-cycle, from ideating, creating, developing, improving, and ultimately retiring products. Let us look at each of these concepts: product and ownership. First product. In this blog, a product is a tangible or intangible product, a service, or a result. Anything that is created by a person, a team, or an organization that is provided (sold, given, or donated) to a customer (client, or user) to meet a customer need or a demand. Ownership is a mindset exercised through feelings and attitudes toward a particular object. Product ownership means being committed to a product through the full product life cycle, from the initial idea to the end of the product. I will explore more about ownership in a later blog post.

Product ownership should be a function in any organization. This function can be done by a product owner, a product manager, a product leader, a business leader or owner, a business analyst, a project manager, an entrepreneur, or any other title where the person is concerned with product value delivery. Let’s take for example the product owner as the person doing the product ownership role. Although this role emerged in the Scrum environment, the product owner has evolved over the years beyond just being a Scrum role into a business function, with a broader view of the organization and owner of the relationship with the customer. Yes, a product owner listens to customers and shares the voice of the customer with other stakeholders in the product life cycle. But product ownership is so much more than just a role.

Let us think about Procter & Gamble (P&G), a company founded in 1837 as a consumer goods company based in the US and operating all over the world. P&G has many brands including Tide, Ivory, Downy, Charmin, Gillette, Braun, Head & Shoulders, Old Spice, Dawn, Swiffer, Cascade, Crest, Scope, Vicks, Olay, and many others. Many P&G brands are better known than P&G itself. How does P&G do this? What are the aspects of product ownership that P&G uses to create successful products?

In this Product Ownership blog series we will continue to explore how product ownership supports organizations and how it can advance your career.

Let us get started on our discussion on product ownership. Please leave your comments and questions in the comment area below.

Peter