Digital and Agile Specialist

Tag: Product Management

  • Being Product Led

    Helping organisations move from ‘doing Product Management’ to ‘being Product led’. As you might expect from someone who’s career has been within the Product space, and who has worn various ‘Head of Product’ types hats over the years; I spend a lot of thinking and talking about Product Management. For the last few month’s I’ve…

  • Becoming Product Led

    Becoming Product Led

    Recently I was asked how I would go about moving an organisation to being Product Led; when agile and user centric design are equally new to the company, or when agile has not delivered in the way that was expected. Before diving into the how, I think it’s worth first considering the what and they…

  • Product vs Service vs Programme?

    Product vs Service vs Programme?

    How we define a product vs a service is a debate that comes up regularly; as proved by Randal Whitmore (Deputy Director of New Propositions at the UKHSA) today on Twitter: In fact, it comes up so regularly, I could have sworn I’d blogged about it before; but if I have, it isn’t on here!…

  • Service Owner vs. Programme Manager vs. Product Lead

    Service Owner vs. Programme Manager vs. Product Lead

    What’s the difference? Does the name matter? Over a year ago, following an interesting chat with David Roberts at NHSBSA, I got to thinking about the role of the Service Owner; and why the role wasn’t working in the way we intended back in the dawn of the Service Manual. This in turn (as most…

  • Why SME’s are important, but shouldn’t be the Product Manager

    Along time ago in a land far away; well four years ago and sat in a very cold office in trafalgar square; Ross Ferguson , Alex Kean , Scot Colfer and I plus a few others sat discussing the DDaT capability framework for Product Management. The discussions we had at the time focused on “how…

  • Measuring cost vs. measuring value?

    Discussing the differences between Product Management in the Private and Public sector. There has always been a perceived difference in how Product Managers in the public and private sector work, what their priorities are and their key focuses. Historically at its most simplistic the view has been that within the Public sector the Product Manager…

  • What is the value in a Head of Product?

    Our numbers are growing, but what is the role, and what value does it add? When I first took up the role of ‘Head of Product Management’ back in October 2016, I was one of the first in Government to have the title, and within a few months there was a very small band of…

  • Theme vs. Epic vs. Feature vs. Component vs. Story

    Probably the question I get most (after what is Product Management, and what is the difference between a Product Manager/ Product Owner/ Delivery Manger)… ok so the third most common question I get asked is “what I mean by Epic/ Theme/ Feature, Componant or Story, what is the difference?” And given I get asked it…

  • What does a Product Owner own anyway?

    Recently Ross Ferguson wrote a great blog about why GDS chose Product Manager rather than Product Owner as the role title of its Product people. Ross is right when he says that Product Management is the profession, and more widely understood by the wider industry, so why do we in DWP not use that term…

  • The strength of Product People in Government

    For those that don’t know me I’m Zoe, proud mum, avid geek and currently the Head of Product at the Department for Works and Pensions. At the start of this year, we in the DWP worked with the Goverment Digital Service to host the first ever cross-government Product Management conference. Why? Because we wanted to bring together all the Product Managers and Owners…