Top 3 Questions To Ask In Your Product Owner Interview

A job interview should be a two-way conversation.

A job interview should be a two-way conversation in which both the interviewer and the interviewee ask questions. During your product owner interview, the hiring manager is there to determine if you are a good fit for the position. Meanwhile you, the candidate, should use ask questions to help you figure out if the company is somewhere you actually would like to work.

It is important to asses the company and see if it is a good fit for your personal values and career ambitions. Asking questions also demonstrates that you've prepared for your interview and can emphasize your interest in the role.

Below are three key questions that can help you decide if the prospective product owner job will empower the candidate to make desiccation and be effective in their role. A lot of companies attempt agile and scrum frameworks but fall short of allowing their agile teams to be self-managed and efficient. These three product owner interview questions will set you up for success on your next agile job interview and help you asses your future job to ensure you find a role that you enjoy.

Questions #1: What is the span of accountability and authority that I would have in this role? 

The effectiveness of the product owner, and of the overall Scrum implementation, depends on how much accountability and authority a product owner has. Let’s look at four situations where you might be called a product owner but have different accountability and authority:

Ordertaker - You’re primarily going to administer the product backlog, collect the requirements from the stakeholders and translate them into product backlog items and user stories for the people doing the work. You’ll be more like a business analyst. Your authority and accountability is very limited. This is NOT a type of product owner the Scrum Guide describes.

Middleman - Similar to the Ordertaker product owner, the Middleman product owner has more authority and responsibilities than an Ordertaker product owner. You’ll be more like a project manager. You can expect that the major decisions, such as the business goals, scope, and desired outcomes, are still determined by the principal stakeholders such as the business owner, sponsors, or steering committees. You’re the middleman. You’re going to get frustrated daily. 

Cat Herder - This type of product owner is well aware of the business context, market, and customers. A good example of this is when a traditional product manager is expected to step into a product owner role. This type of product owner will have limited autonomy since the sponsors have the real authority and the final say. Managing sponsors with competing needs is like herding cats. Expect that for sure! 

Real Product Owner - Contrary to the authority bestowed upon the Cat Herder product owner, the real product owners have their own budget to spend and much more authority. This is the type of product Owner described in the Scrum framework

This type of product owner role has the maximum impact on the product, customers, and organization. They own the product and are fully accountable for maximizing the value of the product. Those wanting to change the Product Backlog can do so by trying to convince you, not the other way around. 

Here’s a visual way to look at it. 

Question #2: Who are the customers and users of the product and what are their needs? 

By asking questions related to the needs of the customers and users, you will get a better understanding of what problems the product is trying to solve and for whom. You want to get a sense of how your role or position fits into the rest of the company. The main accountability of a product owner is to ensure that the product brings value to its customers and users. Customer and user can be the same person, but don't have to be.

This is important because as a product owner you often need to show different value to customers than to actual users. For instance, when my wife buys a bike for herself, she’s both a customer and the user. When she buys a bike for my five-year-old son, she’s the customer, and my son is the user.

My son cares that it’s a spider-man bike with awesome graphics. As a customer, my wife cares about the price, his safety, the quality, etc. As a stakeholder, I make sure that they’re both happy and that they’re not spending a crazy amount of money on things they buy.

The main accountability of a product owner is to ensure that the product brings value to its customers and users.

Question #3: Who are the main people and groups I'd be collaborating with?

This helps you understand your place in the organizational structure better than titles do. Position titles vary so much from company to company and entity to entity. This question has the potential to expose the dependencies and help you get a sense of how work gets done at this company as well as what your agile team will look like.

Bonus - Pro Interview Tips

Write notes during the interview, taking care to note the answers to the three questions above. This will serve two purposes, you can also review these answers to asses the company and decide if it's a good fit for you. If the interview goes well and it looks like the role is a good fit for you, you can use the answers to these questions in a follow-up thank you note you'll write later to assure your strong candidacy.

Learn more about how to make your interview a two-way conversation here.

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About Miljan Bajic:

Miljan is a prolific agilist and author of an upcoming book Wicked Leadership - a book on how to lead and thrive in a wicked problem space. He’s one of roughly 60 professionals in the world to hold both Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) and Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) designations from Scrum Alliance. He’s spent two decades helping teams succeed and organizations reinvent themselves. Miljan’s career has spanned both technology and business. He coaches organizations, teams, and individuals to collaboratively design systems that combine lean thinking and agile approaches to deliver maximum organizational effectiveness. Miljan is also a frequent speaker having participated in many international conferences and Agile events in Europe and the United States.