Review: Product Mastery, From Good to Great Product Ownership. Geoff Watts

Any role in which you are expected to navigate successfully through a complex maze of competing stakeholder expectations, collate and prioritise the list of work increments to be undertaken and keep abreast of market developments whilst outlining and then maintaining a product vision that generates value for both customers and business is a challenge. In Product Mastery, Geoff Watts discusses how someone with such a role could work towards excelling at their job.

In discussing the difference between ‘good’ and ‘great’ product owners, Watts provides a variety of well-structured pointers. These include question-style provocations, a number of soft and hard techniques and an implicit reminder of the need for constant curiousity. He talks of the need to be DRIVEN. This is his acronym for the soft characteristics required for a great Product Owner, and stands for Decisive, Ruthless, Informed, Versatile, Empowering and Negotiable.

I love it when complex ideas are expressed in simple English, so it is unsurprising that what I like most about the Geoff Watts’ Good to Great series (at least the two that I have now completed) is his clarity of expression. If I had one wish for improvement, it would be that there was a higher ratio of hard skills to soft. However, it is because the book is low on hard techniques that makes it appropriate for Product Owners of any level of experience. It is also one of the best Product Owner books I have read.

I ‘read’ this book through Audible. It is also available on Kindle and in print.