How to Grow Your Product Management Skills as a Product Owner — Part II Skills and Fokus

The New Approach for a Skill-based Product Owner Maturity Model

Intro — Imagine the following situation:

It is cold outside, it is the beginning of winter, and it is getting colder and colder. You have a problem with your heating system. A technician will come to your house to fix the problem. He arrives at your doorstep. You open the door an greet him friendly. He looks old, with gray hair, about 50 years old, and therefore seems to be very experienced and mature. He searches for a while for the problem and after a few minutes he easily finds the issue — a burned fuse. He fixes the problem by switching the fuse and replacing it with a new one. You are relieved because this weekend your family will visit you for a celebration, and now they can have it cosy and warm.

A couple of weeks after that it is getting cold again. The heating system is broken again. No warm water, no heating. You checked the heating system and for sure you see that the fuse burned through again. You call the company again and this time you want another more “mature” technician. After a couple of hours a young technician, about 30 years old, arrives at your house. Is this the more mature technician? He checks the whole system with his handheld computer and quickly finds the problem — moisture and a small leak led to the problem.

The moral of the story: Maturity is not only based on experience. You can do something for 30 years and do it wrong and gain no additional “experience” but you can also be professional and develop yourself to be more mature after a couple of years.

Maturity is based on the Skills we build, the experience we gain, and the focus we spend.

So who do you trust more, the old technician with silver-gray hair or the young technician?
It is not easy to evaluate the maturity of people in dedicated roles. This is why I am not happy with the current popular Product Owner Maturity Models and why I am working on a better skill-based Product Owner Maturity model. This will help you assess your skills and help you grow as a Product Owner. Or if you are a Scrum Master, Agile Coach, or Developer, it can help you to develop your Product Owner to be more mature.