How can a Product Owner Develop Skill Negotiating with Exec Leadership? w/ Steve Martin

This is a frequent question in the CSPO classes I teach. Many organizations want the benefits of Agile. Sometimes they assign people to the role of Product Owner, and then continue with business as usual. For the role of PO to work effective, you need an individual filling the Product Owner role who is will and able to make decisions, even without all the information they would want to make the decisions. AND they need to be working in an organization that trust them to make those decisions.

If you don't have that, if you are in a PO role, but management is handing you products with deadlines and ever changing scope (cause it's agile #sarcasm), then you're in trouble.  So, how do you get started developing the skill and experience negotiating with stakeholders who may not view you as someone who has the gravitas to negotiate with them.

In this episode of drunkenPM radio, Steve Martin joins me to share his strategies and thoughts on how to cope with your need to develop negotiation skills.

Steve is the founder of Cottage Street Consulting and you can also find him on LinkedIn.