8 Steps to overcoming Product Owner 'imposter syndrome'

Starting out as a new product owner can be terrifying. You 'own' the product - you're ultimately responsible for it. Yet on day one, you probably know less about it than anyone else in the business! It's easy for Imposter Syndrome to take hold, but these 8 steps can help calm the rising panic, and help you to find your way towards true 'product ownership':

Step 1. Get to know the team individually

With a grateful nod to Ken Norton, I like to get started by meeting each person in the team for a half hour catch up. Use this time to find out exactly what they do, what they like or dislike about it and what they feel you can do to help them. Essentially, you want to find out what motivates them and how they think you can add value. This is a great way to find out who’s best to ask questions about process, systems, users etc, but also who’s interested in getting stakeholder feedback, who’s motivated by solving complex technical challenges and who wants to drive process and make things more efficient. The team as a whole will have its own characteristics, but spending time with everyone individually is a better way to learn about them than judging by what happens in group meetings and catch ups.

Step 2. Start learning the language

Make a note of any three letter acronyms or jargon you don’t understand, and ask what they mean as quickly as possible. The longer you’ve worked somewhere, the harder it is to ask these questions (“what, you don’t know what the XZT is?!”), so getting them out of the way early helps to make each subsequent conversation that much easier as you start to learn the language of your new organisation.

Step 3. Read absolutely everything, even if it makes little sense

Part of this language learning process is to read everything you can get your hands on. Intranets, blogs, support tickets, technical notes — try to read everything and anything. It doesn’t really matter at this point whether it goes over your head. Gradually, the terms seep in and the new information starts to connect itself to other key pieces you learn along the way, until you start to form a clear picture of how everything fits together.

Step 4. Find the people who can help you

In amongst all the info download, you will need to set up some key meetings with people that can help you along the way. By spending time with more technically-minded people in the the business, you can find out (at least from a very high level perspective) how the systems your team work on are connected, and how the deployment process works. This will be crucial for prioritisation, following discussions in backlog refinement and understanding when delivery is likely to happen.

Meeting other POs from across the business is a great way to find out more about the ‘products’ the company works with, as well as who you'll to need to talk to for any cross-team development. They will also help to connect you with the broader business and can be a sounding board or shoulder to cry on when you have a bad day!

Step 5. Find a way to remember what you learn along the way

Most people are more than happy to explain how something works for you, but they may not want to do it twice! Ask them to draw a diagram or take you through any visuals they have already to explain how things fit together and what their part is in that. I personally remember things more easily if I’ve seen a diagram and a quick photo of a whiteboard is a much simpler reminder than pages of notes!

Step 6. Find the people you need to help

As early as possible, find out exactly who your stakeholders are, making as complete a list as possible. Obviously this is helpful because meeting all of these people as soon as possible is crucial, to introduce yourself and start building relationships. It also helps you to start thinking in terms of priorities. If the feature request hasn’t come from one of your key stakeholders, what value will it deliver for them? Are they aware of the request? Should they be? Similarly, it stops any awkward conversations later down the line when you run into a key stakeholder and realise you really should have introduced yourself to them in week one, rather than month six…

Step 7. Find out where to get user feedback

Every company is different when it comes to user feedback. You may be lucky, with easily accessible customers who have a direct relationship with the business. If so, treasure this and make the most of it! If not, look for every other possible avenue to get user feedback and if they don't exist yet, start building them! Whether that's talking to customer service agents, reading through support emails from customers, setting up a customer panel or some remote / in-person user testing - make this a priority, and keep it up!

It's perfectly possible to build a product without any input at all from the customers who will use it - and this is dangerous. You need their feedback to ensure you're providing what they need and delivering true value - without it, you will take a wrong turn, it's just a question of when.

Step 8. Say ‘yes’ to every learning opportunity

Good product owners are well connected within their company and outside it. Training and learning opportunities, both internal and external, give you the perfect opportunity to improve your skills. They also help you to start building the personal relationships you'll need in your role and to gain an understanding of the whole business - not just your part of it. Everyone you'll meet has something they can teach you and while you will need to learn how to say 'no' to product feature requests (a topic for another blog post!), you should say yes to every opportunity to meet others and learn from them. You'll never have a better time to ask all the 'silly' questions, so don't waste the opportunity!

Hopefully these 8 steps will help you to get started in your new role and to start to feel the satisfaction that being an effective Product Owner can bring. It's a hugely exciting role, with the opportunity to make a real difference, so don't let Imposter Syndrome hold you back!