Succeeding as a Product Owner

Optimizing Your Product Backlog

Great Product Owners create user stories that deliver optimum value, sequence the product backlog to maximize value, and quantify success and share that with the team.

Great Product Owners master these skills

You’ll learn them all in Optimizing Your Product Backlog and why they’re important. You can also review your core skills or go even further in our other programs.

Use story mapping

To visually represent the product backlog and help teams find missing stories, find duplicate stories, identify dependencies, and see the big picture.

Use impact mapping

To clearly delineate the goal for the system, product, or solution, clarify its actors or stakeholders, and make the why behind each feature obvious.

Establish target ranges

To provide a clear, meaningful way to capture outcomes for which binary results don’t make sense, such as quality requirements.

Effectively apply prioritization techniques

To help the team complete work in the order that creates the highest ROI.

Apply the Kano Model

To help the team discover the features or epics that are table stakes, those that provide only incremental value, and those that will delight your customers.

Take advantage of decomposing techniques

To ensure that your features or epics are decomposed in ways that provide incremental value to your users and support early feedback.

Topics at a glance

Before your program starts

Find your Product Owner strengths/weaknesses
Send epics/features from your current backlog
Meet with your mentor and review

Exploring user needs

Impact mapping
Prioritize benefits before prioritizing features
User story mapping
Using user story mapping to find a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or solution
Tips and techniques for creating a user story map

Using measurable goals

Describing measurable goals
Using target ranges to capture successful outcomes
Using target ranges to capture quality requirements

Ordering the backlog for optimal ROI

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or Solution
The Kano Model
Prioritizing with t-shirt sizing
Prioritizing with CD3 (Weighted Shortest Job First)

Incremental value delivery

Decomposing features and epics to support incremental value delivery
Lean Startup and the minimum viable experiment
How do you involve the users and adapt based on their feedback?

See the weekly schedule.

Why are our Learning Programs so effective?

We interviewed more than 400 software leaders around the world and what did they request?

Customized, minimally disruptive virtual sessions that focus on real-world results through a balanced mix of coursework, self-study, and expert mentoring.

Always customized

Built to address the specific areas where your team needs to improve.

Immediate application

Focused on real-world skills you can apply directly to your work.

Personal mentoring

Active mentoring helps you apply your new skills to your actual challenges.

Easy virtual access

More active learning with easier logistics—no sitting in a classroom all day!

Incremental learning

Sessions are short and spread out so that they don’t eat your schedule and break your flow.

Free bonus content

Your Learning Program comes with full access to our library of online courses.

Ready to give yourself or your team state-of-the-art learning?

Get in touch, and we’ll get right back to you!

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