Jita Park Speakers Corner

Read: "I am too intellectually lazy to even try to refute your excellent argument, so I will resort to ad hominem attacks suitable to 7th grade."

CCP must laugh their asses of when they read stuff like this

Nice pet name. Clever girl.




A BLOO A BLOO BLOO

That's a good point, and I'd concede that, obviously, some degree of understanding of the technical side of things is important. But the point I'm trying to make here is that the product owner role is a separate set of responsibilities, requiring it's own particular set of skills. The skillset that makes someone a good product owner is orthogonal to what's needed to be a good game designer, or developer, or artist.

It's really valuable to have developers that can understand business needs, so that they can communicate with that part of their team and have a shared basis of understanding. However, that's only needed up to a point - there are developers out there with MBAs, but they're really not more valuable than people that have a basic understanding of business needs and terminology. Likewise, it's useful for UI designers to understand the limitations and needs of the environment they're working in, and there's nothing wrong with having a designer who builds her own game engine in her free time. The point is that there's very sharp diminishing returns and how relevant that cross-training is to their main contribution.

The trap that I see many teams fall into is they don't treat product owner as a separate role. Instead, it falls on the back of some senior engineer because for some reason that's treated as the next step in their career path. However, engineers and product owners have completely opposite areas of focus - engineers need to be concerned with the details, but product owners need to be thinking about the big picture. Beyond the basic level of understanding needed to communicate with your team, being a better engineer doesn't actually make you a better product owner, and vice-versa.


Seleene and Trebor are both great, but their experience isn't really as relevant as it may seem. The most important contributions the CSM can make are to prioritize needs and communicate those needs to CCP. In the end, it's CCP as the technical team that are the experts when it comes to what's possible, practical, or deliverable. The CSM needs to set the goals, but it's up to CCP to design and implement the features that will reach those goals. In the end, the people at CCP who work on the game every day are the experts on development and game design as it relates to Eve Online - it would in fact be counterproductive for members of the CSM to filter their guidance through their own technical experience, because they're not involved in the day to day workings of this project. CCP is the expert on the game, but the CSM needs to be the expert on the community and player base.

My point throughout this is that "product owner" is an important role in software organizations that seems to be chronically overlooked. This role needs to be someone who understands the needs the team is trying to fill and who can set a direction that will help the team be successful. It's important that this role be distinct from the traditional "manager" role, and instead be someone who can work with the technical team so that goal are realistic and technically feasible.

the playerbase communicated their desire for More Control Over Medals very clearly

i look forwards to your success.

We need fighting in stations so we can get in and kill people while they're docked.


In Jita.

That's alright; the job of the Goon is to post.

I left RIM specifically after realizing there was no saving them.

As for the rest, you need to do better discrediting my experience.

Issler Danze

Of course, and I certainly didn't mean to minimize your contribution. Crowdsourcing can be an important tool when it comes to getting customer feedback.

However, I think that also highlights another important facet of the product owner role. In order to be effective, teams sometimes need someone to break deadlock. Going back to my startup, there were many times where we had several equally valid areas to tackle. However, our management favored a consensus-driven approach which, while being inclusive, meant that no one owned the long term vision and direction of our project.

We actually did try a different model towards the end, where each month a different developer would take over the task of acting as a product owner. However, being a product owner is actually a full time job, so whoever took on the role was instantly overloaded. Also, switching product owners monthly just continued our schizophrenic process.

This is why the CSM Chairmanship is important, and why people should vote Mittani. I think everyone agrees that CSM 6 was effective, and it should be expected that all the Proven Performers will be reelected. Still, while the contribution of each CSM member is important, it's vital that the CSM be able to speak with a single voice. In order to breakthrough deadlock and maintain focus, it's necessary that one member have a mandate (in this case, a large number of votes). I think it's only logical that this person should be the one who recognizes the importance of having a mandate - The Mittani.

Also, just to be clear, I am not literally saying that development on Eve needs to be one giant scrum. I merely think the CSM can fill a role similar to the role product owners fill on scrum teams. This is a role that I feel is often overlooked or misunderstood, yet can often be vital to the success of a project.

You have apparently bought the line that the chairman, and more specifically The Mittani, "leads and guides" the CSM (his words, btw).

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Mittani is not the leader of the CSM, he is the spokesman. And he is the spokesman not because he is the chairman, but because he is the best verbal communicator.

The CSM speaks with a single voice not because we are guided and lead by any particular member, but because just about everyone on the CSM is smart enough to realize that this is the optimum use of what leverage we have.

The idea that anyone at CCP gives a flying fart about how many votes a CSM member got in the elections is an insult to their intelligence. They care about the quality of the arguments.