Product Employee: Product Owner in the Home Office – Opportunities and Challenges

This episode of the ProductWorker Podcast is about working as a Product Owner in a home office. Since the Corona pandemic, working from home has become the norm for many product owners, which brings with it both opportunities and challenges. Oliver Winter and Dominic Winter discuss how the responsibilities of the Product Owner have changed due to changed working conditions and how this impacts daily work.

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Advantages and disadvantages of working from home

One of the biggest changes relates to communication, especially with your own team. Although virtual communication through Slack or video conferences offers many exciting possibilities, there are also aspects that are more difficult to implement in a home office. Spontaneous conversations or a quick “call out” of a question in the on-site team room are missing, which can slow down exchanges within the team. Product owners also need to ensure that important information is not lost despite working remotely. On the other hand, working from home also has some advantages: Flexibility makes it possible to focus better on certain tasks and to do deep, uninterrupted work.

Another communication challenge is maintaining relationships with stakeholders. In the office there are many opportunities to exchange ideas informally – for example at the coffee machine – whereas in the home office there are no such opportunities. Here a creative approach is required to maintain contact not only formally, but also at a personal level. For example, a “stakeholder daily” can help speed up the decision-making process by holding small, regular meetings.

But working from home not only brings obstacles but also some new opportunities. Thanks to increased flexibility, Product Owners can take advantage of job opportunities throughout the German-speaking region or even further afield. Additionally, digital tools like Miro or Confluence improve collaboration and documentation. Working in virtual space makes it possible to work more transparently and make processes more efficient.

A big advantage of working from home is the possibility of making your work rhythm more flexible. Product owners can dive deeper into tasks without being distracted by external factors in the office. But there is one thing you should pay attention to: it is often difficult to clearly separate work and personal life, especially if you do not work in a separate study room, but perhaps at the kitchen table.

The current version of the podcast is also available on the ProductWorker blog: “Product Owner in the Home Office – Opportunities and Challenges,

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