Product owner in the bank - who is it and what he can do
Product Hunter. Product Owner. Productologist. PO.
The position, which is often considered synonymous with the “Project Manager”, is that the range of tasks and responsibilities is quite similar.
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VDavydov, Vladimir Davydov, Head of Digital Channels and Mass Product Development, told us about who a product is in the understanding of Alfa-Bank, what kind of person it is, what it can do and how it relates to its team.
A product must be an entrepreneur, it must burn with what it does; for him, working on a product is not just an employment, for which he receives money a couple of times a month. The product is an integral part of its life, without exaggeration it can be called a brainchild. He burns his own business, is a fan of the team, always wants to be the best. Is always. Everywhere. In all.
This is a unique person - he combines incompatible things, he is a Client’s lawyer, a businessman who constantly thinks about income, a caring but strict leader for his team, and, if you will, an evangelist for the product and the brand of the employer as a whole.
That's what a product and what competencies it should have:
(clickable)
The professional skills of the product owner are closely related to the product creation cycle.
- Ability to conduct qualitative and quantitative research. Product explores everything and everywhere. Clients, market, business, innovations, world experience and best practices, find growth points, come up with new solutions that help people solve their problems.
The key value of this skill is to be able to find what people really need, what will really be in demand, to understand what value this potential product or feature will bring to the business.
- Metrics (they, probably, can also be attributed to the research part). This is generally the basis of the basis of grocery work. Any product owner should be able to build a tree of metrics - it is necessary to accurately understand how any change in the product affects the achievement of the main business goal. The product must understand the cross-influence of metrics, must constantly analyze the data, understand the causes of the ups and downs of any indicator, be able to influence the behavior of each metric.
- Formation and testing of the hypothesis . The logical outcome of any research is a set of product hypotheses. And what to do with hypotheses? Correct - check. Quickly, with an understanding of success criteria. To do something well, you need to know what exactly you are doing and what the criteria for this “Good” is. If the hypothesis has confirmed its worth, you need to be able to quickly bring it to mind.
- Work with the team . Creating a product. We are all agile evangelists here and have chosen the scram framework as, in our opinion, the most effective methodology that allows us to quickly deliver value to consumers. Therefore, we have a fairly standard set of artifacts - dsm, pbr, sprint planing, demo, retro ...
Constant work with the team in this mode allows you to penetrate a single vision of the product, an understanding of values, come together to achieve common goals and, as a result, show a super-result both in terms of speed and quality.
- Product launch on the market . This is a big job that implies a complete scoping of preparatory work - from scripts for a call center to the design of external communications. Why is this also a product headache? Because no one knows their product better than a product, and no one except a product can build a better communication. Product understands who, what and how to say that the product is bought.
- Stakeholder management. A stakeholder is any person in the bank who can influence your product. From top manager to escort officer. On this item, you can write a separate article :) The main rule is to divide the stakeholders into clusters, create expectations for each group, and then manage them. Drive permanently.
For example, for top managers, expectations will be about a specific Value for a business - tell it about Value and tell on an ongoing basis about progress.
For colleagues who want to do something with your product, there should be a transparent, publicly accessible backlog with a clear prioritization model. Then everyone will understand why his “Wishlist” 100,500th I am in the queue, and not the first.
For the support staff, the expectation will be a notification of the planned release no later than 3 days before opening to the Client, with a preliminary training event - do not forget about it.
Product is a businessman who makes money. All questions, all responsibility, decision making, budget, strategy, selection of people - all this is on it.
Now we are promoting this approach - this is the next round of evolution. We have come a long way in the formation of a grocery institute (Alfa-Bank was the first in Russia to begin to use Agile's flexible methodologies, ed.).
It was one thing when we talked about products in the digital products division. Everything is somewhat simpler there - in fact, the guys were responsible only for the front part within the product. So that the client is comfortable and understandable so that everything works. After implementation, metrics were collected, influenced the final result only by optimization of the funnels, and not by processing the product. Although in fact, the product could not buy, because the loan rate is high or too rigid scoring model.
Now, when we speak about the product of the Bank at the level of the Bank, it is more and more difficult - the product is responsible for its product from beginning to end. Manages all expenses for it, determines the conditions for the provision of the product, he is fully responsible for PnL and has all the necessary powers to bear this responsibility. The guys have full-fledged cross-functional teams that can solve absolutely any task in the bank.
The goals of the whole team are uniform (business). The product defines business goals that automatically become its personal and team goals. The team should share these goals, people should be charged for the result. Every team member every day should ask themselves a question - what do I do affect the achievement of the goal? It is important.
I promote the position when the product completely trusts its team and does not climb to much more competent people with tips on testing-design-development. The product has to do business.
This is a question of responsibility.
There is a specialist in testing - so for all the errors that occur during the work with the product, he is responsible. Product must not conduct testing.
If the client has not found any button (or it is inconveniently located) - this is the designer’s problem, his area of responsibility.
Responsibility for each joint within the competence lies with who owns this competence within the team. Otherwise, you can always say the product “well, you saw ... well, you yourself looked” - with this approach, the sense of personal responsibility for what you are doing is completely killed. This should not be allowed.
But we must not forget - with this approach, the head of the product is in the hands of the team, because the final demand for the result is still with PO. It forms a team. In my opinion. This team.
I have described above qualities that I consider important for the product. But there are those who (in my opinion) put a cross on the product. At least for me during the interviews.
- attitude to your team as a workforce, as a resource
Products in Alfa-Bank are the people who form their own special forces team. A team of people where everyone is ready to cover each other. This is the team, not the gears in the mechanism.
- Does not see a difference between the leader and the head
For me - the product should not want to be a leader. He must be a leader. A leader leads people, a leader leads people behind him. This is the key difference.
- Does not share work culture
It is important. We try to select people so that the level of working culture they have about one. To make them comfortable to work with each other. If it is uncomfortable for you to work with colleagues, to communicate with them and to come to the office in general, it will be, frankly, difficult to work.
- Lack of logical thinking
In principle, it is sad at all for any work. But for the product - is critical. He sets the metrics and analyzes them. He must understand how the work of the team affects the business as a whole. Must understand and track all relationships. If this is not about him, it means that he does not really understand what he is doing, why, and how - this is a dead end.
The products have almost zero turnover. If a person is close to us in spirit, if he shares our culture, he doesn’t come to work, try to start a project and leave.
He launches the project, monitors its development. This is his own little business for which he is responsible. And parting with him is not so easy :)
People often ask me how to become a product, because they are not taught? Well, firstly, they teach, and secondly - the main desire. In general, students and beginners PO is a special caste. Really crazy people, with no fear in their eyes, no experience of falls. This is unlimited potential - the future lies with them. I believe in such people, they are close to us in spirit, and they sincerely want to make cool products.
Of course, I will not give yesterday’s student a piece of live business or a whole product. But I will help him grow within the company, and in a year or two everything will work out.
We already have successful examples when a person came to the bank for an internship, and now he is a full-fledged product at the bank, and he is engaged in a rather important product of Alpha.
Today I have about a dozen products, each of them has a couple of teams.
But tomorrow these people can become 20. We are a big bank, we have a lot of products and we always look to the future. PO vacancies are open even now, if our approaches are close to you and you want to try yourself in the role of a product - dare.
The position, which is often considered synonymous with the “Project Manager”, is that the range of tasks and responsibilities is quite similar.
')
VDavydov, Vladimir Davydov, Head of Digital Channels and Mass Product Development, told us about who a product is in the understanding of Alfa-Bank, what kind of person it is, what it can do and how it relates to its team.
A product must be an entrepreneur, it must burn with what it does; for him, working on a product is not just an employment, for which he receives money a couple of times a month. The product is an integral part of its life, without exaggeration it can be called a brainchild. He burns his own business, is a fan of the team, always wants to be the best. Is always. Everywhere. In all.
This is a unique person - he combines incompatible things, he is a Client’s lawyer, a businessman who constantly thinks about income, a caring but strict leader for his team, and, if you will, an evangelist for the product and the brand of the employer as a whole.
That's what a product and what competencies it should have:
(clickable)
Product Quality
The professional skills of the product owner are closely related to the product creation cycle.
- Ability to conduct qualitative and quantitative research. Product explores everything and everywhere. Clients, market, business, innovations, world experience and best practices, find growth points, come up with new solutions that help people solve their problems.
The key value of this skill is to be able to find what people really need, what will really be in demand, to understand what value this potential product or feature will bring to the business.
- Metrics (they, probably, can also be attributed to the research part). This is generally the basis of the basis of grocery work. Any product owner should be able to build a tree of metrics - it is necessary to accurately understand how any change in the product affects the achievement of the main business goal. The product must understand the cross-influence of metrics, must constantly analyze the data, understand the causes of the ups and downs of any indicator, be able to influence the behavior of each metric.
- Formation and testing of the hypothesis . The logical outcome of any research is a set of product hypotheses. And what to do with hypotheses? Correct - check. Quickly, with an understanding of success criteria. To do something well, you need to know what exactly you are doing and what the criteria for this “Good” is. If the hypothesis has confirmed its worth, you need to be able to quickly bring it to mind.
- Work with the team . Creating a product. We are all agile evangelists here and have chosen the scram framework as, in our opinion, the most effective methodology that allows us to quickly deliver value to consumers. Therefore, we have a fairly standard set of artifacts - dsm, pbr, sprint planing, demo, retro ...
Constant work with the team in this mode allows you to penetrate a single vision of the product, an understanding of values, come together to achieve common goals and, as a result, show a super-result both in terms of speed and quality.
- Product launch on the market . This is a big job that implies a complete scoping of preparatory work - from scripts for a call center to the design of external communications. Why is this also a product headache? Because no one knows their product better than a product, and no one except a product can build a better communication. Product understands who, what and how to say that the product is bought.
- Stakeholder management. A stakeholder is any person in the bank who can influence your product. From top manager to escort officer. On this item, you can write a separate article :) The main rule is to divide the stakeholders into clusters, create expectations for each group, and then manage them. Drive permanently.
For example, for top managers, expectations will be about a specific Value for a business - tell it about Value and tell on an ongoing basis about progress.
For colleagues who want to do something with your product, there should be a transparent, publicly accessible backlog with a clear prioritization model. Then everyone will understand why his “Wishlist” 100,500th I am in the queue, and not the first.
For the support staff, the expectation will be a notification of the planned release no later than 3 days before opening to the Client, with a preliminary training event - do not forget about it.
Product Responsibility
Product is a businessman who makes money. All questions, all responsibility, decision making, budget, strategy, selection of people - all this is on it.
Now we are promoting this approach - this is the next round of evolution. We have come a long way in the formation of a grocery institute (Alfa-Bank was the first in Russia to begin to use Agile's flexible methodologies, ed.).
VS Bank number
It was one thing when we talked about products in the digital products division. Everything is somewhat simpler there - in fact, the guys were responsible only for the front part within the product. So that the client is comfortable and understandable so that everything works. After implementation, metrics were collected, influenced the final result only by optimization of the funnels, and not by processing the product. Although in fact, the product could not buy, because the loan rate is high or too rigid scoring model.
Now, when we speak about the product of the Bank at the level of the Bank, it is more and more difficult - the product is responsible for its product from beginning to end. Manages all expenses for it, determines the conditions for the provision of the product, he is fully responsible for PnL and has all the necessary powers to bear this responsibility. The guys have full-fledged cross-functional teams that can solve absolutely any task in the bank.
Goals
The goals of the whole team are uniform (business). The product defines business goals that automatically become its personal and team goals. The team should share these goals, people should be charged for the result. Every team member every day should ask themselves a question - what do I do affect the achievement of the goal? It is important.
I promote the position when the product completely trusts its team and does not climb to much more competent people with tips on testing-design-development. The product has to do business.
This is a question of responsibility.
There is a specialist in testing - so for all the errors that occur during the work with the product, he is responsible. Product must not conduct testing.
If the client has not found any button (or it is inconveniently located) - this is the designer’s problem, his area of responsibility.
Responsibility for each joint within the competence lies with who owns this competence within the team. Otherwise, you can always say the product “well, you saw ... well, you yourself looked” - with this approach, the sense of personal responsibility for what you are doing is completely killed. This should not be allowed.
But we must not forget - with this approach, the head of the product is in the hands of the team, because the final demand for the result is still with PO. It forms a team. In my opinion. This team.
Black list of qualities
I have described above qualities that I consider important for the product. But there are those who (in my opinion) put a cross on the product. At least for me during the interviews.
- attitude to your team as a workforce, as a resource
Products in Alfa-Bank are the people who form their own special forces team. A team of people where everyone is ready to cover each other. This is the team, not the gears in the mechanism.
- Does not see a difference between the leader and the head
For me - the product should not want to be a leader. He must be a leader. A leader leads people, a leader leads people behind him. This is the key difference.
- Does not share work culture
It is important. We try to select people so that the level of working culture they have about one. To make them comfortable to work with each other. If it is uncomfortable for you to work with colleagues, to communicate with them and to come to the office in general, it will be, frankly, difficult to work.
- Lack of logical thinking
In principle, it is sad at all for any work. But for the product - is critical. He sets the metrics and analyzes them. He must understand how the work of the team affects the business as a whole. Must understand and track all relationships. If this is not about him, it means that he does not really understand what he is doing, why, and how - this is a dead end.
Products in Alpha
The products have almost zero turnover. If a person is close to us in spirit, if he shares our culture, he doesn’t come to work, try to start a project and leave.
He launches the project, monitors its development. This is his own little business for which he is responsible. And parting with him is not so easy :)
People often ask me how to become a product, because they are not taught? Well, firstly, they teach, and secondly - the main desire. In general, students and beginners PO is a special caste. Really crazy people, with no fear in their eyes, no experience of falls. This is unlimited potential - the future lies with them. I believe in such people, they are close to us in spirit, and they sincerely want to make cool products.
Of course, I will not give yesterday’s student a piece of live business or a whole product. But I will help him grow within the company, and in a year or two everything will work out.
We already have successful examples when a person came to the bank for an internship, and now he is a full-fledged product at the bank, and he is engaged in a rather important product of Alpha.
Today I have about a dozen products, each of them has a couple of teams.
But tomorrow these people can become 20. We are a big bank, we have a lot of products and we always look to the future. PO vacancies are open even now, if our approaches are close to you and you want to try yourself in the role of a product - dare.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/342768/
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