Last blog post I asked the question "Who is sponsoring your ITSM enhancement project?"
I posted a presentation that you could adapt and give to your Product Owners who will be representing the voice of the users in your ITSM enhancement process.
Choosing the right Product Owner is essential - this person will be responsible for defining and prioritising your backlog of enhancements; without which you won't be able to deliver the right enhancements at the right time.
I've personally made the mistake previously of asking the wrong people to be Product Owners. A PO that isn't engaged with the team or that doesn't have time to fulfil the role will mean that your stories will be poorly defined.
Essentially you are looking for the "Goldilocks" Product Owners - not someone so senior that they don't have time to dedicate to the role, or so junior that they don't have the authority to take decisions.
The Product Owner should be comfortable in gathering requirements from the business and translating those into User Stories, but they don't have to have the ultimate authority in all of IT (don't choose the CIO for example)
The Product Owner should:
- Be the voice of the customer
- Be managing all of the stakeholders
- Have delegated authority to make decisions
- Have enough time to dedicate to writing stories and maintaining the backlog
Identify the stakeholders in your ITSM enhancement project, but don't necessarily assume they'll make the best Product Owners
