agencies product owner

content/posts/2024-agencies-product-owner/index.md

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+---
+title: "Dear digital agencies, stop asking your customers for a Product Owner."
+date: 2024-04-26T12:15:43+02:00
+categories: ["Prodcut"]
+draft: true
+---
+
+A client-side Product Owner isn't necessary for successful digital products—I even consider it harmful. What's crucial is proper and effective Product Management by the agency.
+
+(The beloved "PO per proxy" won't cut it, either.)
+
+Having experience with both sides, I would like to share some fictional letters.
+
+## The biggest mistake clients of digital agencies can make is writing tickets.
+
+Dear future client, please stop writing tickets.
+
+Instead, insist on discussing how you could best contribute in harmony with a dedicated product team.
+
+Leave the organization of the product team and the resources to the agency - they know how to do it best.
+
+What are you then, instead? Well.
+
+Sometimes, you are the *Subject Matter Expert*, having expertise and access to users.
+
+Most importantly, you need to act like a *CEO*, owning the vision and mission and identifying the problems that must be addressed. You trust that the agency conducts effective discovery and identifies the features themselves.
+
+Your most important job is ensuring the agency has the necessary monetary resources to staff the team sustainably.
+
+In this regard, You can act like a *VC*, first investing small amounts until you have proof (in the team and the market) and then more significant amounts.
+
+## The biggest mistake digital agencies can make is being satisfied with a briefing.
+
+Dear future agencies, please take responsibility for the product and move away from the mindset that someone from the client should tell you what to build.
+
+Most clients lack product management competence or cannot do it because they have too much detailed knowledge and get lost in details. In most cases, it's both.
+
+Product management is a skill that must be learned over several years, for example, in a startup committed to a vision. It means responsibility for providing value to the customer (value risk) while being viable for the business.
+
+Please take responsibility for all product risks (value risk, business viability risk, feasibility risk, usability risk) and staff and bill accordingly—only then can digital products succeed.
+
+Everything else is money wasted for the client and opportunities for the product.
+
+## Sketch of a a more successful model
+
+![](customer-agency-linkedin.png)

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