Put an inexperienced person in any role, and prepare to be underwhelmed. There is a trend to create junior ‘transition’ titles e.g. Associate Product Manager, Technical Product Manager for people who are entering Product Management. Now there is nothing wrong with these types of titles, but the problems occur when there is a mismatch between the skills and the responsibilities for those roles.
Are you setting up product owners to fail? You are if product owners are junior to the engineers or actually in the engineering group.
Read more on this at That Product Owner (Backlog Manager) debate again. On Product Management.
Author
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Steve Johnson was a founding instructor at Pragmatic Institute, a role he held for more than 15 years before he left to start Under10 Playbook. In his return to Pragmatic Institute, Steve supports the complete learning path for product teams, ensuring they are fully armed for success. Over the course of his career, Steve has helped thousands of companies and tens of thousands of product professionals implement product management processes. He has worked in the high-tech arena since 1981, rising through the ranks from product manager to chief marketing officer. Steve has experience in technical, sales and marketing management positions at companies that specialize in both hardware and software. In addition, he is an author, speaker and advisor on product strategy and product management.