Initially, I provided a brief introduction to the role of a Product Owner (PO) and described the typical tasks and areas of responsibility involved. Then I delved into how you can handle user needs and requirements, followed by some concrete tips on how to effectively manage the product backlog. After that, I discussed how you, as a PO, can improve communication and collaboration with various stakeholders. I also talked about streamlining ongoing work and listed some tips that you can utilize. Now, I would like to focus on how you, as a PO, can measure the team's performance and optimize product development.
Define clear measurable goals and key performance indicators (KPIs)
As I mentioned earlier, having clear and measurable goals makes it easier to track progress and ensure that we meet the needs of stakeholders/customers. If you complement this with defining a set of KPIs that can be measured or calculated, you will have another tool that provides you with concrete results.
But hold on! It's not always easy to find good KPIs that are relevant to your team. Before I delve into that, I want to give you a valuable piece of advice, which is not to constantly change the KPIs you use. As soon as you make changes, you ruin the possibility of having statistics over an extended period.
Therefore, carefully consider which KPIs you should use and stick with them for a longer duration. If you find new metrics to study, you can always add them without replacing the old ones.
Here are some examples of KPIs you can use:
- Activation rate - Measures how many users activate and use the product. It helps assess whether the product meets users' needs and if they find value in it.
- Conversion rate - Measures how well the product converts visitors into paying customers or users. This can help identify potential bottlenecks in the conversion process and optimize the user experience to increase conversion.
- Churn rate - Measures the number of users who unsubscribe or stop using the product within a certain period. This can provide an indication of user retention and user experience. A high churn rate may indicate that the product's value does not meet users' expectations.
- Average time to resolve issues - Measures how long it takes for the team to resolve users' problems or questions. This helps assess the team's efficiency and ability to provide prompt support and solutions to users.
There are also several KPIs you can use to measure customer satisfaction, but my experience with them is that it can be challenging to gather qualitative data and obtain a sufficient amount of data to make it useful.
You might recognize this yourself with all the websites you visit or service desks you call, where you are asked to answer evaluation questions immediately afterward. Honestly, how often do you respond to these questions?
Also, remember to regularly follow up and analyze the KPIs. There's no point in collecting KPIs if you don't use them...
Measure progress using agile methods
Just like with KPIs, there are numerous agile methods you can use to measure the team's progress. If you use tools like Jira, there are predefined charts available that visually and clearly show the team's work and progress.
You can use burndown charts that illustrate the closure and completion of user stories during a sprint or different types of velocity charts that show how many story points (SP) the team closes during each sprint.
Apart from these, there are many other methods you can utilize. However, just like with KPIs, it's not ideal to jump between different methods because you lose the ability to compare over a longer period and see how the team evolves. Decide on a few methods and use them for an extended period, and you will find it easier to utilize the results you obtain from them.
Gather user feedback and analyze usage
A more concrete method for monitoring products is to collect feedback from users and stakeholders. You can do this through interviews, workshops, demonstrations, user surveys, user testing, and more. This way, you can gather valuable information about users' experiences and needs. In addition to these more tangible manual methods, there are also digital methods that analyze user behavior in various ways.
From simple analytics tools that track where users click, how long it takes, and which paths they take in the application, to more advanced tools that study usage over an extended period and for different user groups. Some tools even analyze eye movements to see where the user looks and what catches their interest and focus.
As a PO, you can assemble user groups to evaluate different aspects of the product and determine the direction to take with various ideas in the team. It can involve things like design choices, menu layouts, color options, graphical elements, image selections, and more. These types of tests are called A/B tests. Also, consider assembling user groups with diverse user profiles, including age, gender, ethnicity, professional background, etc.
Another interesting aspect is gathering input from individuals with different types of disabilities such as dyslexia, color blindness, visual impairments, hearing impairments, concentration difficulties, and more. My experience with these groups is that they often bring forth many interesting points that the development team might not have considered.
Evaluate the product's financial results
Ultimately, the product's stakeholders also want an understanding of its business results. While this is not straightforward, it's beneficial if you can evaluate the product's impact on business outcomes such as revenue, cost savings, or increased customer satisfaction. Identify how the product contributes to the company's overall goals and communicate these results to the stakeholders.
Sometimes it's easier to derive economic values by comparing the current situation with how it was before the new product. Has the product contributed to a changed profit margin in certain product areas? Have we been able to reduce our service desk now that the need for support has decreased with the launch of the new product?
Now we have made significant progress in developing both the team and the role of a PO. In the next and final article in this series, I intend to discuss further how you can grow as a leader and as a PO.
