Solution Product Owner
Each DataMiner Solution has a Product Owner (PO) to centralize ownership and ensure that its value is optimized. This role is vital to the success of a DataMiner Solution.
The following delineates the role and principal responsibilities of a Solution Product Owner:
Value: The primary goal and hence the continuous touchstone of the PO is to maximize the value delivered by the solution.
Factual & quantifiable: The PO must render the envisioned value as quantifiable as possible, providing visibility and continuous updates. This could, for example, involve quantifying value through the number of downloads, ratings, and effective utilization of the solution by the target user base in general. Alternatively, a more solution-specific quantification could be defined by the PO to keep everybody focused on the actual goal (e.g. MTTR, QoS metrics, number of workflow runs, etc.). Where possible, these quantifiable metrics can even be built into the solution for live tracking and evaluation.
Vision: The PO must establish and communicate a clear vision, goal, and scope for the solution, allowing everybody to contribute to it with ideas and suggestions.
Agile: The PO must apply Agile principles and methodologies to manage the solution and to optimize its value.
Users & stakeholders: The PO must seek and collect input from users and stakeholders across the entire community and create a backlog of possible use cases, features, and capabilities, which can be drawn upon to shape and evolve the solution.
Note
The PO holds the final say in determining the priorities for the solution's evolution and the selection of backlog items for implementation.
Development: Prioritizing and coordinating development activities, the PO must ensure transparency among the developers working on the solution. Teams that work on a specific solution can also evolve over time, depending on the needs and availability of people. However, the PO is responsible for maintaining transparency across all people involved, at any point in time.
Contributors: The PO must manage their solution with an Open-Source mindset, welcoming any contributions from the community at large (not necessarily members of their core development team), provided they meet the standards defined by the PO (such as quality and relevance to the goal of the app, etc.). The PO always has the final say on whether contributions to the solution can be merged into the official version of the solution. It is therefore advisable for contributors to consult with the PO if they plan to contribute to the official version of a solution. After all, maximum transparency is key to an efficient agile engagement.
Time expenditure: Where necessary and relevant, the PO must manage the time expenditure related to the various activities involved with the development of the solution. Time-boxing activities is a great tool to ensure the efficient, focused, and well-balanced design of a solution.
Transparency & communication: The PO must ensure proactive, transparent, and continuous communications between users, stakeholders, developers, contributors, and all other possible involved parties.
Awareness: Where necessary, the PO must ensure comprehensive consideration of the solution from all relevant perspectives, including but not limited to upholding the standard quality and security protocols, sizing and scaling considerations, the application of common best practices, proper registration and administration of the solution, and more.
Important
The Product Owner (PO) role, in conjunction with the effective materialization of the general best practices and policies defining the DataMiner DevOps Creative Collective, is a crucial component in driving the success of the initiative. This role provides talented and creative individuals with the opportunity to showcase their ability to transform raw data and controls into innovative solutions that actively contribute to achieving the most ambitious goals in a factual and quantifiable way.