A soft skill that serves me as a Product Owner
Compliment your role with these tricks and win hearts
The world of agile, the role of the product owner is still pretty new and not completely defined. In every other company, the role of product owner will look different. There are some core responsibilities defined in the role but the overall expectations and qualities required, differ from small company to big organization to different industries. The interpretation of a product owner is different.
Hence, we fill in the gaps or develop the skill set required to get the job done. But these are all hard skills, and it takes time and experience to learn them. Meanwhile, you can compliment your work and effort with your soft skills.
Not everyone knows everything from the beginning, still, some are quite successful and others struggle with it at times. Experience and continuous learning will get you there. Here is the killing skill that has helped me over the time to establish a healthy relationship with the team, be successful at my job and also be liked by your peers.
COMMUNICATION
The most important and most underestimated skill that any individual can have that will help in every aspect of life.
If you have worked for a while in product ownership roles you will know that 1/2 of the time in your job is consumed by communicating, to the stakeholders, to scrum master, to developers, Ux’ers you name it. If you are new and want to know the trick of the trade is good communication.
Communication for me is not only about informing people about everything that we are working on trying to solve, a big part of communication for me is also listening, observing, understanding and responding.
Have you ever met a person who is just listening to you to respond, before you even finish your sentence that person is ready with a response? Or that person who is blankly staring at you or the screen all the time because they have million other things going on in their head while you are talking. Or that person who is trying to say something but the tone of their voice is so annoying that you can't seem to get on the same page even after trying so hard. Or that who narrates a story and forgets to make a point and leave you feeling like such a waste of time. You get my point. These are all the things one should avoid while communicating.
I have seen colleagues burning out and stressing over the fact that the team is not performing as expected or not understanding the importance of something or simply don't care, but when I dig deeper into the problem I always find out one thing, no one wants to do a bad job on purpose. As human beings, our basic nature is to get accepted and appreciated socially. This is also applicable to our work environment. The real problem is no clear communication. Either a product manager fails to explain the importance of the situation or the problem they are trying to solve, which doesn't actually means that he/she didn't talk, it can be either the tone of voice or the built up or facts behind the situation or explanation where just not clear enough.
These are a few tips I have to offer after years of experience:
Be reasonable: When starting a conversation with anyone don’t start discussing a topic out of the blue, provide context beforehand. Try to reason and connect the dots. Don't leave topics hanging separately try to knit them together while having one conversation.
Value time: This is no news that time is precious. Hence, value your time and others. Don’t get off topic. Don’t switch context without fair explanation. No one likes to feel that this conversation was a waste of time. Stick to the topic of discussion, when a point is made exit it and announce moving into another topic.
Empathize: Applying empathy in the world full of technology is the key to successful and meaningful conversations. If you have a personality to be empathetic toward others you will always be careful with your words. If you know to choose your words wisely and carefully you have won half the battle already.
Be pleasant: The tone of your voice is something you don't always focus on, but it is what can make or break a conversation. I don’t always believe in having a soft pleasant tone, sometimes you need to be authoritative even if you are told you are the servant leader or facilitator. It won’t work
Avoid nagging: There are problems in the world around us and we know them. there is no point in repeating them over and over again. When the other person is aware of the problem don’t nag in front of them, again and again, repeating yourself. Instead, try to figure out a solution to that problem. Nagging is just wasting time, as you know and they know and everyone is aware. Working towards the solution and talking about the solution instead is what will make you different and outstanding.
Listen to understand: When communicating remember that it’s important to have an open mind to listen and understand. It happens so that sometimes people take it personally to make a point and hence go on defending their point instead of understanding there might be another way to look at the problem than yours. Don’t listen to reply, instead listen to understand and respond accordingly.
There is a deeper equation for having the right set of communication skills to get your job done right as a product manager. As one of my friend & colleague rightly says ‘what hard skills actually makes my product shine that I do nothing, but the way I present it to other it what sets the level right’.
