Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn)) 1st Edition

What a relief to finally find a concise, coherent, cogent book on the Product Owner role! I sit here tonight working on a wiki page to help introduce scrum to a state government agency which is sorely in need of agile adoption. We've ordered two copies for the IT library, my personal copy is heavily marked up, and our current proxy PO and ScrumMaster both have it in their hands.This book is the perfect length and depth for a new PO coming in from the customer side of the house. The length is right for an executive to read and the content is sufficient to get a new PO up on their legs and interacting effectively with a newly certified Scrum Master and team who are chomping at the bit to engage with a real customer.You can read it less than a weekend; you can read it in a long afternoon. If you're a CSM yourself: read it. CSM training often doesn't say enough about the PO perspective.I look forward to seeing an enhanced edition. But if the author is too busy consulting to update this for a while, we can only thank him for what he's done in giving us this very valuable little volume.

I like this book, but the title is somewhat misleading. It is focused on the Product Owner's role - not the whole spectrum of Product Management. In Pichler's view, the Product Owner should be the single voice - both strategic and tactical. That is often not practical for many organizations, especially large ones. Consider that Product Management covers a wide area responsibilities that includes everything from envisioning the product to preparing the distribution channels. It covers defining requirements, as well as pricing and packaging. This book will help the product owner define the product and work with the development team. It will not help the product manager with their other responsibilities.That aside, Pichler provides valuable advice for Product Owners. One key piece of advice is forming a Product Owner's Council to reconcile differences in a multi-team environment. I've coached a multi-team project where this was lacking -- we couldn't get the client to address this. However, I wouldn't go as far as saying, as Pichler does, that this requires a Chief Product Owner. That is one effective approach; but there are others. I've also worked with other companies who were equally effective using a more collaborative approach. Pichler's key point though is on target -- the product owners must provide a unified voice.My overall take is the book is a good supplemental reference for Product Owners and I will be adding it to Construx's agile seminars recommended reading list. It provides solid advice to Product Managers, or anybody else, who are transitioning to the Product Owner role and the difference they can expect to see using Scrum. I view it as supplemental reference because it doesn't sufficiently cover the Scrum process--Product Owners would also need to have Scrum training or at least read the other scrum references (e.g. Agile Project Management with Scrum (Microsoft Professional)).

The author has seen all of the challenges faced in today’s product organizations. He clearly talks about how a PO can be helped and how he can evolve as a better PO. Must read for anyone who is looking to brush up his/her PO skills or even thinking of learning/playing the PO role.

The book is really great for those people who never worked or just started working in an agile environment. Though having a few years experience as agile PO I enjoyed the reading and would definitely recommend the book both to product owners to be and seasoned PO's if you feel you need to systematize your knowledge.

Here is a synopsis of my review of Agile Product Management with Scrum. For a full detailed review listing both highlights of the book and areas of improvement please see my full blog post at decoding.software [link is provided in the comment to this review].Roman Pichler's Agile Product Management with Scrum is an excellent resource for new Product Owners and newcomers to Scrum!Allow me to start of bring telling you about some of the books strong points. Based on the research I have done it is widely believed that when this book was first published circa 2010 it was one of the only books of its kind providing some guidance and insight into primarily the product ownership role on an agile project and in particular utilizing the scrum framework. Given the time of its release and the content presented I think it does a good job at indoctrinating the newer members into the Product Owner's "club". I believe the author does a very good job in highlighting defining the role, how to play the role well, common mistakes and techniques and strategies for creating the necessary artifacts and participate in necessary ceremonies.

I find this book is very informative from the product management perspective. But this publication is most suited for the users who are moving in to the product management stream. For users who are in the traded for many years with many practical challenges, the guidance from this book is minimal. Though the coverage includes basic framework and examples/cases, it would be wonderful at least some information on the practical cases and typical PO challenges for senior users.

This is one of the classical and impressible book for all scrum master, product owner or agile coach that want to learn more about product owner role. Roman Pitcher is without a dubt one of the world references in Agile Product Development

arrived as stated.