Advanced Product Owner Training

Practising Product Owners can still learn too

We offer something that experienced Product Owners rarely encounter on the market: two days of Advanced Product Owner training packed with helpful content ONLY for this specific role! We mix solution-focused discussion techniques, visualisation and structuring techniques, and experience reports.

Target group: Practising product owners

Product owners understand the market, the organisation, the teams and the customer. They act as a link between all those involved before, during and after the creation of a product and thus ensure maximum added value.

That’s what you get out of it!

In this Product Owner training course, you are an experienced Product Owner whose needs are at the centre of the action. Together with the other participants and supported by three trainers, we will find answers to the most burning questions from your everyday professional life, such as these and others:

How can I best perform the role of product owner in my organisation?
How do I scrutinise the needs of my customers so that I get the information I need?
How do I communicate my project goals, impact, importance, and planned steps?
How can I formulate a product vision and sprint goals so that my enthusiasm comes across and everyone knows what I mean?
How can I communicate better with the development team?
And how can I communicate better with management and stakeholders?
How can I deepen and improve my knowledge of impact mapping, cutting user stories, story maps or minimal viable products?
…

Training content of the Product Owner Training

Impact mapping is used to visualise company or product goals and the factors influencing them. The connection is established via an assumed causal chain of desired changes in people’s behaviour (organisations) directly or indirectly affected by the product. The impact map aims to identify small project steps with a significant impact. This allows short feedback loops to be established, which can be used to manage the product and product portfolio strategically. In product owner training, you will learn how to create an impact map to maximise the product’s benefits.

User stories tell a user story. This needs to be explored and scrutinised so that this picture of the user can be passed on to the product owner and the team. A good story tells of the benefits for those involved and the environment. The product owner needs skills in listening and solution-focused questioning. It is also important to utilise the team’s expertise – in other words, to perceive them as experts. Ultimately, it is also the team members who carry out the estimates. We teach solution-focused attitudes, principles, and questioning techniques for all this.

Story maps visualise the product backlog along user journeys (chains of action) of the people affected by the system (stakeholders). The user journey depicts the user’s mental model, consisting of individual activities for which behavioural changes identified in the impact map are to be achieved. It is the backbone of the story map and design guide for continuously evaluating solution options in emergent product design.

User stories are assigned to the individual activities in the story map and prioritised vertically for each activity. Releases are identified as horizontal sections of user stories along the user journey. Story maps can also be used to visualise other aspects of planning and documentation (e.g. dependencies between teams or systems, estimates, project progress, structure of specification documentation, …). In the Product Owner training course, you will learn how to create and use a story map for your project plans.

Based on the story map, you, as the product owner, can create and use your product backlog as a list of development options. The product backlog provides a funnel view of the content being worked on – now, soon and in the future. The product backlog is regularly updated, discussed with the team in refinement meetings, and edited. Together with the other participants, you will learn how stories can be broken down into smaller and smaller packages based on various parameters.

We will repeatedly address communication and leadership topics in product owner training. For example, we will introduce the solution pyramid as a tool for discussing goals and effects and finding the next steps. On the subject of motivation, we present Viktor Frankl’s approach. Motivation is created through meaning, which can only be seen by each individual. In the training, we show how you, as a product owner, can support the search for meaning and, thus, motivation and how you can counteract demotivation. We also provide some tools for communicating with the team and management in an appreciative and solution-focused manner.

The trainers can draw on their wealth of experience and provide practical examples. The Product Owner training is accompanied by many practical exercises – during which you will also work directly on your projects/products.

We look forward to your interest, questions and suggestions regarding this offer! Please write to us or give us a call!