Its mission is to influence the team’s work and inspire a mindset of constant improvement, capable of resulting in frequent and valuable deliveries and highly desirable products. However, exerting influence among groups of experienced and qualified professionals is not an easy task. Moreover, to positively impact the behavior of a product team, there are a series of skills and specific characteristics that must support the Agile Coach’s management and leadership model. 

Therefore, in the following article, we will explore some of them. We spoke with Raphael Rodrigues, Agile Coach at SoftDesign, to understand the role of this professional in the development of digital solutions. 

The Evolution of The Agile Coach

The role of the Agile Coach is constantly changing. In the past, its performance was based on frameworks such as Scrum and Kanban, for example, people worked with a greater focus on the functioning of the team, helping everyone to understand the phases and status of development. The objective was to propose evolutionary changes through a process of thinking and improvement, capable of increasing the delivery of value.  

However, with the maturation of the processes, it was realized that limiting the Agile Coach’s performance only to the product team was not enough, because people are part of an organization. It was concluded that this role needed to transcend the Discovery and Delivery process. When Agile Coaches stopped working only on development teams, their collaborations began to help reduce noise within companies. One of the results is the execution of tasks in an agile and less expensive way. However, when we talk about Agility in the business world (Business Agility), this role is more focused on strategy, guiding people to share information through micro-interactions.

Wanna Be Agile?

Having the power to influence others is not necessarily everyone’s gift. With that in mind, Agile Coaches must have specific skills. According to Raphael Rodrigues, resilience is perhaps the main one. “To play this role, it is necessary to be a resilient person, since we do not directly execute the actions, but we influence the team to complete them. In addition, it is necessary to encourage the search for problem-solving through individual and group conversations”.

Horizontal management and leadership are also key characteristics.

“Good Agile Coaches have great communication skills. After all, knowing how to communicate well is essential to guide teams, and this leads us to empathy, something crucial to understand one’s work process. At SoftDesign, we operate with Management 3.0, a movement that renounces command/control to make room for the trust and autonomy of employees”. 

Another important skill is facilitation. Agile Coaches are responsible for facilitating conversations, ceremonies, schedules, and group dynamics. “Our day-to-day is based on processes and people, and these are constantly changing. Our journey is continuous, that is, there is no actual end due to the current business model. Therefore, Agile Coaches must be attentive people and very focused on improving things around them”, highlights Rodrigues.

Influencing Product Teams

In a diverse world, influencing product teams can be quite a challenge. Each company has a culture and a set of people with the most varied characteristics. Therefore, getting the best out of each one involves a lot of strategy and dedication. “In my daily life, I need to be connected to what is happening, to what people are talking about, and, above all, to what they are not communicating. For this, we hold one-on-one (1:1) meetings, and facilitate meetings to generate interactions and create agreements”.

In addition, Agility involves management practices oriented to business objectives. To execute them, it is necessary to give everyone a voice, as this is the only way to develop products that simplify users’ lives. “In interactions, we get in touch with people with the most different levels of maturity, experience, and age group. In the end, what keeps us engaged is the purpose of the work and the challenge of winning something together. When we unite different perspectives and experiences, the result is a plural development process. Without diversity, the ability to solve problems is reduced”, he highlights.

Agile Coaches encourage, guide, and help generate paths and options. In summary, Agile does not oblige us to follow a single direction until the end of the development of a digital product or service, on the contrary, it creates milestones for us to navigate, allowing moments of analysis that allow us to measure whether choices are resulting in desirable results. Therefore, to boost team performance, Agile Coaches seek to create awareness between what the group has committed to deliver, and what is actually being delivered. “We look for results, and we help people to do what needs to be done within the agreed time frame. We reduce conflicts to achieve goals through more fluid processes, clearing obstacles”, emphasizes Raphael.

Agility Is Not Just Speed

When using Agile, companies seek feedback as quickly as possible, respecting the nature of what is being developed. After all, everything has a maturation time. This is complex, as we are unique people, that is, each of us has our own task execution time, based on an individual creative process. 

So the key question is: how do we get the best out of each one without getting lost in the process, and without taking longer than expected? Through ceremonies. In a diverse and knowledge-filled environment, replicating processes can be a great challenge, since getting the best out of the group is something that can be achieved with conversation, rhythm, and follow-up. 

With this in mind, Agile Coaches analyze project boards daily to diagnose stages and possible obstacles. Based on this analysis, they interfere and help improve processes, or even assist in completing activities.

“I help connect people and solve problems. In ceremonies, we make it easy for everyone to put themselves in a state of awareness, so we can influence the team to make good decisions”. 

Ideally, each Agile Coach should work on a maximum of three projects, interacting with 15 to 20 people. That way, the Agile Coach can connect and follow up properly. “Expanding these numbers results in a superficial process, and this impacts the essence of Agility. We are knowledge workers: therefore, when we don’t have time to reflect and create, we are not able to innovate. If the schedule is full and we are just completing tasks, the teams become burdensome. After all, the value of our work lies in the ability to think and be creative”, concludes Rodrigues. 

Let’s accelerate the evolution of your business?

If your team is just completing tasks, then it’s time to wake up and put Agile to work. In addition, if problems and bugs are reducing the rhythm of deliveries, to the point that people are unable to reflect and propose solutions, our Agile Consulting can be an important ally.  

To accelerate the adoption of a culture based on Agile Methods, we work with a customized mentorship according to your needs. During the consulting process, we transfer our knowledge in Scrum, Kanban, and DevOps to your team. The objective is to increase transparency and dialogue between people, to generate more frequent and valuable deliveries. Watch the video below and learn more about this service:

Want to know how we can help you more specifically? Fill out the form below and chat with one of our experts.

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In the first article in this series, we explored the profiles, roles, and expertise needed by a product team. In the second, we addressed the importance of Product Owners (POs), followed by content that explored the role of Designers. In the last article published on our blog, we talked about Software Engineers.

Is there a difference between a Quality Assurance Engineer and a Test Analyst?

A few years ago, the professional known as Test Analyst worked focused on the quality of the software product. Currently, this person is expected to act more broadly, as a Quality Assurance Engineer, validating not only the product’s quality but also its entire creation process.

In short, the Quality Assurance Engineer focuses on ensuring that the product has the best possible quality, participating from the discovery to the delivery of digital solutions. In the book Software Quality: The Framework for Success in Software Development, Sanders (1994) emphasizes, “a software product has quality depending on the degree of satisfaction of customer needs in all aspects of the product”. For this, the professional analyzes the creation cycle and the way of working of the squads that participate in the development.

According to Douglas Souza, QA at SoftDesign, this more global view helps to maximize results, as it is possible to find errors at the beginning of the process: “If this professional did not exist, the errors could remain uncorrected until the product is delivered. This avoids wasting time and money.”

What Does a Quality Software Engineer Really Do?

As we have already mentioned, the Quality Software Engineer person has the role of analyzing the entire development cycle of a digital product. This professional is able to guarantee the correct functioning of the programs and review the prerequisites of the software, reporting faults to the development team. To achieve this, the QA uses functional and non-functional tests, carried out through Manual and Automated Testing techniques. It also helps in the creation of strategies, test plans, and assessment of results.

According to Raphael Rodrigues, Agilist at SoftDesign, while in the software factory model, the objective is to find faults to report to the customer, in the agile model it is to build a product and generate knowledge, thinking, and validate hypotheses throughout the process. “That’s why it’s important to understand what is considered value for the customer and the user. Sometimes what appears to be a problem can turn into an opportunity. There is no such thing as a perfect product; after all, we are talking about something that is under permanent construction. Therefore, a more critical look is essential”.

Moreover, the Quality Software Engineer thinks through scenarios that could critically affect the product. This person is responsible for anticipating possible usability problems and system behaviors that could lead to faults, such as the incorrect use of a screen element. Therefore, its role is also to work on reducing possible critical errors. Remember that adversities will always exist; however, they cannot be serious enough to compromise the operation of the application.

Manual Vs. Automated Testing

As the construction of digital products happens faster, the feedback of hypotheses and experimentation also needs to reach a faster pace. In this sense, Automated Testing has become essential to be able to perform all the necessary tasks.

Rodrigues emphasizes that Automated Testing serves to accelerate the feedback of what was built, that is, it verifies the existence of possible problems and impacts. In Manual Testing, the full attention of the person conducting this verification process is required. “After the QA does the manual work, he is expected to automate what is considered repetitive or critical in order to find out more quickly if the application is still working or not”.

Manual and Automated Testing is generally performed by the same person. However, in some cases, this can be a challenge, since programming knowledge becomes necessary. “To work with Automated Testing it is necessary to deal with code. Therefore, considering the volume of work and the need for quick feedback, I believe that Manual and Automated Testing should complement one another throughout the development journey”, the Agilist explains.

Continuous Delivery

With the agile methodology, we seek to develop and deliver new features and products quickly, efficiently, and with quality. To achieve this, the squads are constantly looking for ways to improve the product, in order to maximize the value of deliveries to the customer in relation to the development time. One approach used to achieve these goals is CI/CD, where knowledge of Automated Testing is crucial.

According to Matheus Zanon Nunes, QA at SoftDesign, in a team that applies Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD), it is necessary to present new features to the customer quickly. “Automated Testing is critical for us to fulfill this flow, as it is not possible to automate continuous deliveries if the testing stage is manual and slow. Therefore, in order to make CD viable, we applied the previous stage, which is CI. CI is responsible for integrating and monitoring all changes to the software, as well as triggering automated routines to verify the quality and stability of this new code. That’s where Automated Testing comes in as a prerequisite stage for the execution of CD”.

Therefore, Automated Testing, in its various categories (Unit, Integration, End-to-End, Performance, etc.) has become a crucial stage to ensure that before, during, and after Software Development all requirements are met with quality and focus on delivery.

How does the Quality Assurance Engineer Interact with the Product Team?

The Quality Assurance Engineer interaction with the product team must occur from the initial planning of the construction of the solution because, during the refinement of the functionalities, it is very important to understand its objective. This will help the professional define what types and levels of tests will be required. In addition, that person can also contribute with suggestions for the application’s capabilities.

The main skills of a Quality Assurance Engineer that contribute to the success of the product are critical thinking and a detail-oriented vision, which enable the early identification of different scenarios according to the business context. This considerably reduces the number of faults in the software, also allowing the types of tests to be identified.

Most common and necessary types of tests:

• Functional, which aims to ensure that the developed features correspond to the business specifications made by the Product Owner;
• Usability Testing, which aims to validate user journeys and screens defined by the Designer;
• Regression Testing, which ensures that previously implemented features remain intact after new implementations.

Depending on the application needs, Integration, Load, Performance, and Security testing can also be performed. For Denise Viegas, interactions with POs and Designers are critical when creating functionality and user journeys. “In addition, the partnership between the Developer and the Quality Assurance Engineer is also essential during the specification stage, especially during the delivery cycle. This collaboration is decisive in the delivery of product quality, as it is where all ideas and definitions come to fruition”, she highlights.

Trends for the coming years

The Quality Assurance Engineer role is constantly changing. Currently, this person works between the business area and product development, so in addition to interpersonal skills, this person also needs developing knowledge.

With the Quality Assurance Engineer participating from the beginning of the process and being involved with Software Engineers and Product Owners in defining the solution, this professional can contribute by mapping test scenarios to be used by developers. In addition, the QA can indicate tools for certain types of tests in a simulation environment, among other possibilities.

For Denise, former QA at SoftDesign, the trend is that these professionals will increasingly acquire technical skills, aiming at more automated testing flows in continuous integration environments. “This allows for more agility in the early identification of faults, as well as greater ability when evaluating the feasibility of the technical solutions implemented”, she emphasizes.

QA at SoftDesign

From the moment we started to look more at people’s knowledge, their roles naturally evolved in order to consolidate critical thinking. With Agile Methods, we no longer have a person focused only on the quality of the software to expand this view to the entire process, and it is through this holistic view that SoftDesign Testers work in product teams.

If you need help developing quality digital solutions, please contact us using the form below. Together, we will seek differentiation by launching products that make good first impressions when they reach the end-user.

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What Does a Software Developer Really Do?

• Writing unit testing codes – which is a small piece of software that tests every piece of the original software;
• Creating and changing the structure of databases;
• Configuring support tools – which usually also involves writing code;
• Working together with the team to help come up with the best solutions for the product’s challenges.

So, is learning a language enough to be a Software Developer?

What tools does a Software Developer use?

What are the differences between a Software Developer and Architect?

What are the differences between a Software Developer, a DevOps, and a DBA?

What are the differences between a Programmer and a Software Developer?

How does the Software Developer interact with the rest of the product team?

• Helping the Product Person to assess the feasibility of ideas or think about solution options;
• Actively participating in teamwork planning ceremonies;
• Collaborating with moments of interaction with stakeholders, such as the Review;
• Being a protagonist in the daily meetings, discussing impediments and plans to achieve the Sprint’s goals;
• Supporting process improvement through discussion in Retrospectives.

Why is it ideal to have more than one Software Developer on the team?

What are the main types of Software Developers?

• Mobile Programmer: Specialist in mobile technologies, generally well acquainted with the specific challenges of this platform and its usability standards. This professional can work with native iOS and Android technologies or with hybrid technologies such as React Native or Flutter.
• Back-End Programmer: specialist in building the entire back-end part of the software (the one we don’t see), consisting of business rules, processing, calculations, and validations, among others. Typically, this person works creating services and APIs. Some languages you may know are Java, Kotlin, C#, or JavaScript, and you may be working with frameworks like .NET, NodeJs, or Spring.
• Front-End Programmer: specialist in creating user interfaces (screens) and their validations and interactions, in addition to the integration between these screens and the Back-End. Generally knows HTML, CSS, and JavaScript well. This professional can work with frameworks like React, Angular, or Vue.
• Full Stack Programmer: works building both the Back-End and Front-End of applications. It is also said that a Full Stack Programmer has a good knowledge of the entire life cycle of the product, configuring the environment and Pipeline.

Software Development at SoftDesign

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The first article in this series explored the profiles, roles, and expertise needed in a product team. The second article delved into the Product Owner (PO) universe to understand his role in the development journey. To end the series, in the next article we will address the role of Developers and Testers.

Why do we need Designers?

A decade ago, it was rare to see designers working with technology teams to build software. So, what happened since then that made the role of the Designer become so fundamental?

The truth is that the reality in the IT universe has changed a lot in the last decade. Some of these changes are:

• Popularization of technologies;
• The exponential increase in the supply of digital products on the market, and in competition between them;
• Users easily switch from one product to another and reduced overall brand loyalty;
  The growth of social networks and communities of influence leads people to adopt and “cancel” products quickly.

These changes have made users more demanding: today they expect a better experience. People want quick responses, easy access to information, uncomplicated processes, consistency across a brand’s various channels, and a clear and inspirational value proposition.

In the past, in a market with few solutions, Design focused on UX (User Experience) emerged as a differentiator on which very innovative brands relied to seek growth. Today, in a market full of products and demanding customers, design has become essential for a successful product.

Is design’s purpose to make products more beautiful?

Actually, Design is much more than that. Since the discipline began to develop in the so-called Modern Design, from the Bauhaus period, there is a definition that design should be concerned with two inseparable issues: form and function.

Within the concept of form, there is indeed the aesthetic component, where beauty is part of the concerns. However, design is also concerned with function:

• How will the product be used?
• What is it for?
• Does it meet a real need?
• Is it convenient to use?
• Is it satisfying to use?

In other words, Design is not about beautifying a product, but about planning it so that it is both aesthetically and functionally pleasing. For Mira Hennemann, UX/UI Designer at SoftDesign, “design is understood as a project tool that enhances individual and social development, based on the identification and solution of problems; in the same way that it emancipates users from the use of these digital products on a daily basis”.

UI Designer or UX Designer: What do I need?

This very important question leads us to clarify the different areas of Design. The discipline is very broad and includes everything from designing industrial products to creating posts for Instagram, for example. Therefore, it is common not to know exactly what we need.

In a digital product, the subareas of Design that matter most are:

UI Design – is the part that is concerned with creating the interface. In the most common software, the interfaces are screens, but nowadays there are other types, such as voice interfaces. Within this area, we have:

• Colors, Typography and Composition – everything in the interface needs to be thought out in order to convey the message we want because the elements have meaning and impact! A well-known example is an increase in clicks on an e-commerce purchase button, depending on the color of that button.
• Information Architecture – how to organize the elements and the contents in the interface, with hierarchy, structure, etc., so that the user understands what he sees and finds what he needs.
• Interaction Design – focused on user interaction, including issues such as success and error feedback, the possibility to undo actions, etc.
• UI Guidelines – are guides to be followed so that the user can use the product in a specific environment. For example, iPhone and Android users have very different guidelines!

UX Design – is the part concerned about the user’s experience with the product, including:

• Value Proposition – does the product we are going to build solve a real problem for the customer? Does the customer see enough value in this product to use it?
• User – who is our user and how does the product fit into their routine?
• Journey – what is the customer’s path when using the product, from the moment he discovers the product? What touchpoints does he have with the product on this journey and how do those touchpoints affect his satisfaction?
• Onboarding – how are we going to help customers in their first experience with the product?
• Retention – what mechanisms do we need for the customer to continue using our product?
• UX Writing – is concerned with writing explanatory texts and messages displayed to the user.

User Research – is the area dealing with research and data collection, including but not limited to:

• Interviews – a technique for collecting data through a structured conversation with users.
• Observation – a technique for collecting data by observing users in their real environment.
• Usability Testing – a technique for testing and collecting feedback on the product.

It is worth noting that these areas are not completely independent; they interact and influence each other. For example, UI is a part of UX, and UX is not defined without Research. The separation is more for instructive purposes, to help organize all topics of interest.

In addition to these areas, there are still other areas of Design that can be important for a digital product, but that is not part of the product team. For example:

Brand Design – if you are creating a product, you may also need a branding effort, which includes designing the brand’s symbols or logo.

Design of material for product marketing – if you are going to promote your product in the market, you will also need a designer to create advertising material, campaigns, and sales or product presentation materials.

How does a designer affect the product?

The expected result of the Design work is to improve the following product factors:

• Usefulness: Is the product useful and connected to the real needs of users?
• Value: Does the product offer something of value to the customer?
• Findability: Can the user understand the product proposal and find its usefulness?
• Usability: Can the user use the product to achieve his/her purposes?
• Accessibility: Can users with permanent or temporary limitations also access the product’s utilities?
• Reliability: Do people believe in the product, and trust that it will deliver what it promises?
• Desirability: what emotions does the product evoke in those who use it? Do users have positive emotions that make them want the product?

Can the designer work only on the definition of the product?

This is a question we’ve been asked a few times. Why does the Design person need to be part of the team? Why can’t the Design person act just at the beginning, “create the UX”, with the product team then following the definitions throughout the development?

Well, actually, the design doesn’t “create” the UX. What the Design person initially does is propose a solution that he or she believes is adequate. Experience, however, is what the user actually experiences when using the product.

This is where the iterative nature of product development comes into play: a first version is put to use or tested with a small group of users; feedback is collected, and the product is tweaked to improve the experience.

Therefore, the Design person has a continuous role, iterating and continuously evolving the user experience proposition, in addition to creating the UI of new functionalities. According to Pricila Sales, UX Designer at SoftDesign, among the principles and practices of a designer we have strategic performance, which goes far beyond the initial stage of definition. “We continually seek to identify opportunities, as well as to promote the construction of products that allow a good consumer experience and that provide prominence, generating value for the business”, she emphasizes.

How is the daily life of the Design person in the product team?

The Design person works very closely with the Product Management person. This duo works together all the time in activities such as:

• User research and testing;
• Analysis and proposition of solutions;
• Meetings with the team to refine and debate the proposed solutions;
• Testing of solutions, creating prototypes, improving them through validation, and testing with stakeholders and users.

Each planned solution then needs to be detailed, which requires some solitary work in which the Design person will structure:

• Flows, to analyze and propose the interaction;
• High-fidelity prototypes, which represent the UI, with all the details, such as sizes, spacing, colors, messages, etc.

In addition, Designers work closely with the team during the development sprint, actively participating in day-to-day activities to clear up doubts and, mainly, to reconcile the proposed Design with the restrictions and possibilities of technology.

One designer or multiple designers?

To conclude, the last question that we will answer is about the number and specialty of Designers that should compose your product team. In an early-stage product, when only one team is working and you have up to five engineers involved, one design person is likely able to meet the demand. This number is a proportion that is accepted in the market, according to the NN Group’s survey. Also, at this stage the Design person will probably be a generalist, accumulating UI, UX, and Research tasks.

However, as the product evolves, the team will grow and complexity will increase. Therefore, it is normal not only to increase the number of designers but also to start working with people specialized in each area.

Designers at SoftDesign

In our work process, designers participate in the Conception of new products and throughout the life cycle of Development, performing activities focused on UX, UI, and Research. At SoftDesign, our main mission is to deliver products that will be used, loved and that generate value and in order to achieve this, design work is essential.

If you need help creating useful and desirable products, proposing user experiences, and developing successful products, please contact us using the form below. Together, we will connect technology, design, and strategy!

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Namely: in the first article of this series, which you can check out here, we broadly explore all the profiles, roles and knowledge needed in a product team. In addition to the Product Owner, in the next articles we will talk about the role of Designers, Developers and Testers.

Why do we need a Product Person?

When we work in the construction of a digital product, we are dealing with complexity. We start with (1) a vision of where we want to go (usually a little vague), (2) a handful of market information, (3) a certain idea of our customers’ needs, and (4) a limited budget and time. All of this in addition to the mission to deliver maximum value to customers and users.

Amid this complexity, you have to make countless daily decisions about what to do, how to do it and when to do it. The Product Person can then be seen as someone who understands the constraints of the business (money, time, legal, processes, etc.), and acts to prioritize the team’s work strategically, maximizing the value delivered.

Usually, the creators or sponsors of the business believe they can play this role. However, our experience and modern product development methods show that it is best to have someone specific on the team who masters the techniques in the area and has experience in digital products. This does not mean that the role of creators and sponsors is unnecessary: the Product Person will be in frequent touch with them, jointly co-creating the strategic vision – but will also carry out other activities that require more time and focus.

“We can say, from the experience of several cases we have seen, that without a good Product Person, there is a lot of wasted time and money. The allocated team builds a lot of software, but without connection to a larger strategy. In these cases, it is not uncommon to have to throw a lot of things away and start over from scratch, because what was built works, but it doesn’t meet the needs”, Karina Hartmann, Head of Product and Innovation, points out.

What does a Product Person do?

In the market, there are two main nomenclatures for the role of those who work with products: Product Owner (PO) and Product Manager (PM). In some companies, these roles are performed by the same person; in others, they are divided; and there are still those that have only the first role.

At SoftDesign, the Product Person takes on the responsibilities of Product Owner and Product Manager.

As a Product Manager, the main responsibilities are:

• Articulating the product vision;
• Supporting the company in creating a product strategy that is connected to the company’s overall strategy, using knowledge about the market and users as a basis;
• Creating, maintaining and communicating a product roadmap – which is a visual description that shows how the product will evolve over time – that represents this strategy;
• Aligning the roadmap with the company’s constraints (money, time, etc.);
• Thinking of ways to reduce risks and uncertainties as early as possible through testing, experimentation or research;
• Feeding the roadmap based on product metrics;
• Interacting with other areas that need to be coordinated (sales, marketing, support, operations) to align processes, pass on knowledge, among other actions.

As Product Owner, which is a role of the Scrum method, the main responsibilities are:

• Prioritizing the work that will be done by the team in each Sprint in order to deliver maximum results and achieve the roadmap’s objectives;
• Identifying solution options for each roadmap objective, choosing the best one based on testing, research or other data sources;
• Refining each solution chosen, writing the user stories that will be the basis for development.

From the list above, we can see that this is not simple work. To achieve this, it is necessary to understand the various stakeholders in the product and integrate their views into a cohesive strategy.

Bruna Ricardo, one of SoftDesign’s Product People, values this aspect a lot. For her, her main challenge in a digital product team is to strategically connect all the ends, considering the different objectives of each stakeholder. “The main challenge of my role is to move between different scenarios, connecting stakeholders: customer, development team, and end user. I need to bring everyone into the same world and make these people happy with what is being developed”, she says.

Moreover, for Daniel Olsson, who also works with products at SoftDesign, “the presence of the Product Owner is crucial because, while the company assumes the role of caring about the business, the PO focuses on the product, managing efforts to make it a success. We do this while verifying the user and the market, saving the entrepreneur’s time so that he can focus on strategic and administrative decisions”, he emphasizes.

What is the daily life of a Product Person like?

Working on a team that uses the Scrum method, this person will have to perform the Product Owner’s functions, so in this person’s schedule we will find:

• Participation in Planning; a planning meeting that takes place at the beginning of each Sprint. In it, the PM explains the objective of that work cycle and the team plans what is necessary to achieve it;
• Conducting the Review, when the team collects feedback on what has been done in the Sprint;
• Maintenance, update and prioritization of the backlog, which is the list of everything that needs to be done;
• Daily availability to help the team with questions and decisions.

However, going beyond Scrum, the PO also needs to organize the following in his schedule:

• Frequent conversations with stakeholders, which are the various areas involved in the product, such as Business, Marketing and Sales: the objective is to understand the expectations and constraints that each one brings to the project;
• Market studies, to keep the PO’s understanding up to date on the positioning and differentiators of the product under construction;
• Collecting data about users, including Analytics, and also conducting user surveys with the support of Designers (interviews, observation, usability tests);
• Identification of opportunities based on the data collected;

Analysis of solution ideas, which usually includes the creation of workflows and prototypes, in addition to discussions with the entire team;

• Testing solutions before building, which includes planning and running experiments that reduce the risk of investing in a bad solution;
• Assembling a roadmap and frequently aligning these goals with all those involved, reconciling it with the expectations and constraints of the business and with the frequent changes in the scenario or in the company’s strategy.

Product Person Artifacts. Source: Own image.

What should a Product Person profile look like?

According to Marty Cagan, author of the best-selling book Inspired, the person needs to be very talented as well as smart, creative and persistent. After all, the work requires the ability to navigate from strategic to operational, bringing together business, design and technology. According to Michele Machado, who works with products at SoftDesign, a Product Owner needs to speak eye-to-eye with the stakeholders (discussing what is best for the business) as well as with the technical team (defining what is a priority and possible solutions).

To act in this role, it is not necessary to master the technical part, as would be the case with a person who has been a programmer, for example. In Cagan’s view, it needs to be someone who is curious about solutions and not afraid to participate in discussions about them. This means that technical people, without communication and negotiation skills, are a recipe for failure. “I think that just understanding about technology doesn’t make a product work; it is also necessary to connect ideas and people”, Bruna highlights.

SoftDesign’s Product Owners

In our work process, the profile we call Product Owner accumulates both the strategic vision (Product Management) and the day-to-day operational vision of Scrum. These people participate in the Product Conception and also in the life cycle of Software Development.

At SoftDesign, our main mission is to deliver products that will be used, loved and that generate value. If you need help structuring and validating ideas, understanding audiences and developing successful products, please contact us using the form below. Together, we will connect technology, design and strategy!

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• There is no “I” in “team”: a digital product is not a one-person effort. Since 1986, it is already established that the creation of products requires a multidisciplinary team, capable of contributing to the product with the various necessary visions: business, user, technology, etc. Even in an early-stage startup, where the team certainly needs to be lean, relying on one person alone to solve the entire digital product is usually a bad decision, with a negative impact on the result, on the time-to-market, and in the worst case, even the retention of knowledge.
• Silos or teams? If you work at a mature company, another concern is breaking down silos. A team requires a group of people working together. It is not possible to keep people in separate departments (the quality department, the design department, etc.) and transfer demands between them. This type of pattern generates additional hand-off effort (transfer of the task between departments) and breaks the collaboration that is necessary to deal with the complexity of a digital product.
• Working for Jobs: Another anti-pattern is to hire the necessary people, but not let them dedicate themselves to the product, dividing their attention between multiple jobs or different contexts. Those who work like this will not devote the necessary attention to delving into the context of the product, in addition to losing productivity. The best thing is to have a dedicated team. Are some divisions possible? Yes, and we will mention some of them below. However, if a person can’t even tell what product they’re working on, something’s wrong!

Scaling the Product Team

Assembling My First Product Team

• Product – a key role, which is responsible for structuring the product vision and strategy, planning roadmap, and translating user and market needs to the team. The more this person is connected with strategic decisions, and knows the product’s investment thesis, the better!
• Design – a role that cannot be dismissed these days, when users are increasingly demanding with the product experience and it is so easy to choose similar products. This profile is responsible for knowing the user, their habits, and needs, and with this data, to propose an experience that seeks usability, engagement, and enchantment.
• Programming – is the people who will write the product code, in addition to configuring the environment and infrastructure, and automating processes and tests. A product team always has more than one person in this role. The types of programmers you will need will depend on the product. Maybe you will need Front-End Programmers (specialists in the construction of screens and interfaces); Back-End Programmers (specialists in building business rules, integration services, and databases); Mobile Programmers (specialized in building applications) or even more specific cases, such as programmers specialized in Big Data, ETL, Blockchain, IoT, etc.
• Quality and testing – this is a profile that has evolved a lot in recent years, and which, in general, requires knowledge to plan tests (think about the risks of the product and what needs to be verified), perform manual functional tests, automate tests (write test codes) and also perform other types of non-functional tests, such as load and performance.

• Agilist, Scrum Master – the team will need someone to help adopt a work process/method and get organized. Generally, this role is also concerned with ensuring that the productivity and deliverability of the team are stable and in constant improvement, because, at the end of the day, this is the only thing that guarantees predictability for the business, generating the necessary data to plan a roadmap. It is worth mentioning that it is common for agilists to be in more than one team at the same time.
• Infrastructure Architects – these are roles that probably don’t need to be 100% dedicated. Still, the team needs to have access to people with the experience and knowledge necessary to define an architecture and technology stack and to validate or configure the infrastructure necessary for the product to run in its production environment. These people bring a vision of thinking about product continuity, performance, capability, and security.
• Product Marketing Person – here a whole new universe opens up! If your product has customers, you need to think about how to get it to the market. How to position and advertise? How do I find and attract customers? For all this, there is a professional profile focused on product marketing.

Ready and Qualified Product Teams

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