Communities are places where people gather to debate, learn, participate, observe, contribute, etc. towards a common cause.
Traditionally gathering places have been physical locations and in person communication – in today’s world this has been expanded to online gathering places and remote communication.
As far back as I can remember, most of the activities I pursued involved the use of tools and techniques. In my formative years I was surrounded by a family of artists and artisans, all of whom were adept at using the tools of their trade. If they didn’t have the tool or technique needed to get the job at hand done, they would talk with friends and colleagues and they would innovate. Invariably they either came up with a new tool or learned a new technique.
Growth was accomplished through collaboration and problem solving to reach an outcome. The result is greater than a single person or role can achieve in isolation. It takes a community working together to deliver a valuable outcome for the community members.
The strength of a community is in its diversity of members and established norms to maintain a safe place for expression of opinions, sharing of ideas and debate. Members may agree, they may disagree, they may agree to disagree but at the end of the day they are respectful and learn from each other.
In the business world, Communities of Practice (CoP), are common. A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who “share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly”. (Community of practice – Wikipedia)
I have created The Product Owners Workshop. This is an online community open to anyone who has a passion for developing products and services that are needed and have a valuable purpose. Let’s escape the feature factory!
Diversity of experience, opinion, location, and much more are welcomed and encouraged. Although a lot of the language may be around agile concepts and practices, this community is about learning to better deliver, and deliver better, products and services regardless of framework or methodology. At the end of the day customers really do not care about how a product or service is developed – they care about the quality of outcome delivered.
There are many, many roles engaged in product development and delivery: product managers, product owners, business analysts, engineers, quality analysts, scrum masters, project managers, and the list goes on!
My vision is for this community to grow and cover any subject (within reason) the community members are interested in.
I anticipate there being three basic areas for collaboration and learning:
- Open discussion – chat spaces
- Knowledge base – a library of articles, videos, etc.
- Self-paced courses – a place to learn at your own pace with the option of live coaching
There will be planned events:
- Office hours – an opportunity to ask questions and collaborate
- Ask me Anything (AMA) sessions – yes anything but let’s keep it non PG
- Group coaching on focus areas
- 1:1 coaching will be offered on a limited basis
The content and direction of the community will be driven by the community. This needs to be bigger than one person and one person’s opinion!
If you are:
- Struggling with agile ways of working and feel like you need a fresh perspective
- Wanting to transform either you or your team into more agile ways of working
- Experienced and have some wisdom to share
- Less experienced and want to learn
- Totally new to product thinking and agile ways of working and want to learn
- On an island and feel like you could use some like-minded community around you
Please consider joining The Product Owner Workshop!
The Product Owner Workshop is accepting Founder members at a discounted rate until March 31, 2023 at midnight (MST). The Founder subscription is $12/month or $120/year and will never increase.
On April 1, 2023 the community will be open to general membership at $24/month or $240/year.
BONUS!!!!
Founder members will be eligible for our payback program. As a thank you for participating and growing the community, 20% of all membership fees will be set aside and paid back to Founder members on an annual basis. First payout will be April 2024.
The Founder rate and pay back bonus is only available until March 31, 2023 – it will never be offered ever again!
Do not miss this opportunity for a 50% discount and the possibility of getting some cha-ching back in your pocket!
Do you want to be a founding member of The Product Owner Workshop?
