Why should Product Managers apply the LS(Liberating Structure) principle to evolve better products and solutions?
When we deal with complex product solutions, there are too many variables and too many unknowns.
Most of the time, individuals grow into ambiguous as the way forward is not so obvious.
Chance is that we may fall trapped into the old habit which is controlling!
Control influences innovation is the negative way
How can we unleash the power of a product owner or product manager in the product development life cycle?
Most of the coaches are employing the Liberation structure principle at their facilitation sessions.
We are also coaching our product owners and product managers, why not the Product Management team use the same to build better products and solutions?
We recommend that this LS principle can be adopted by the product owner during their various meetings to solve the complex issue.
Let us see how these are relevant in the product development context
- Liberating Structures:
- Include and Unleash Everyone
- Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions
- Build Trust As You Go
- Learn by Failing Forward
- Practice Self-Discovery Within a Group
- Amplify Freedom AND Responsibility
- Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See
- Invite Creative Destruction To Enable Innovation
- Engage In Seriously-Playful Curiosity
- Never Start Without Clear Purpose
Never Start Without Clear Purpose:
Most of the product owners invariably start with Product vision and chop down that product vision into sprint vision. The team recognizes the purpose of the product and the same with sprints.
Let the product owner persistently apply the purpose-driven Agile ceremonies.
Engage In Seriously-Playful Curiosity:
The boundless curiosity brings innovation into the work context. Product owners for the best product are immensely curious to know more about the customer requirements and many other product requirements.
They encourage the team to be curious, to get the benefit of the curiosity. I have worked with many great product team members who have this skill. As a Product owner encourage, people, to ask silly questions or guide them to think like children. Allow them to feel like it is ok to fail.
Invite Creative Destruction To Enable Innovation:
Most of the time in backlog grooming sessions product owners can apply this technique to bring the best from the team. Encourage people to speak out without fear. Give them ambient to convey their mind. In the product discovery session when things are not so clear as things are evolving, that is the time where product owners can demonstrate such traits.
Emphasize Possibilities: Believe Before You See:
During the sprint demo the working product has been demonstrated to all. This will establish the possibility, based on the working software, to expand the image of what else can be done. Never grant negative comments to kill the power of expanding possibilities.
Amplify Freedom AND Responsibility:
As a Product owner let us use the “fail fast” thoughts and let this thought dominate the flow. The major learning comes when we experiment freely and rapidly. The fear-free culture will encourage people to take ownership and find out the unknown. Let us not put too much role and constraint with stiffening the freedom.
Practice Self-Discovery Within a Group:
Allow team members to find their own solution. Let them discover the solution by passing through the pains and gains. The highly diverse teams are, good for the product and solution. They will be produced to be part of the team. Evade top-down solutions and provoke team-centric solutions.
Learn by Failing Forward:
The maximum learning comes when we experiment with something and it did not proceed as we had expected. We learn and prepare better. Small risks are better as it have less impact. The new product feature is invariably gone by small iterations and impact analysis of that iteration. Take the call as a product owner on how much risk a team can take and move on. Do we have to be successful all the time? Memorandum this answer in the perfect manner.
Build Trust As You Go:
A great product built by great team members. A great team member forms with many months and years of working collectively. Those journeys are strengthened by considerable team support and holding each other in all the time. Turbulence time demands more trust among team members. A great product owner knows this part.
Practice Deep Respect for People and Local Solutions:
Understand the people’s expertise for their contribution. In a great product, every team member creates a space in their team through their expertise and support. Encourage the skill and capability development with the periodic acknowledgement of their contribution.
Include and Unleash Everyone:
In all the agile ceremonies, it is significant to engage all the team members for a better solution. Encouraging everyone to talk and share their comments, Call out their name if voluntarily people hesitate to make the comments.
These techniques will alleviate any product owners to become better by developing a better product and solution;
After talking with the product owner, they felt wow satisfaction as the team outcome has improved. All these develop positive mindsets among team members.
