I have a mixture of large company and small company experience that has shaped my perceptions.
#CHIEF ARCHITECT JOB DESCRIPTION SOFTWARE#
I have been Chief Architect of the Equities Division of Citigroup (350,000 in the company, 30,000 people in Equities), of MetLife (65,000 employees), ADP (65,000 employees), and of a small software vendor named Quantifi (roughly 50 employees). Weak coordination of the product ownership circle team.The following observations about the role of Chief Architect come from my four previous positions as Chief Architect.How budget is defined, distributed in product development pipelines. Missing economic framework for product development.Project orientation, not a product thinking.Chief product owner role is too much focused on details and not on strategy.Missing vision and strategy of the product portfolio.Chief product owner doesn’t communicate with business leaders.Chief product owner doesn’t coordinate technical aspects with architects.Chief product owner doesn’t collaborate with product owners on daily basis.Chief product owner defines detailed requirements.The chief product owner is typically not responsible for user stories definition. Responsible for business themes, features and sometimes for epics definition.The chief product owner coordinates split of requirements into system’s parts and into other related products with the support of architect and product owners.Responsible for definition of MVPs extending product in multiple versions continuously.Product owners are responsible for product’s parts in such case. Coordinates product development on a high level.Very often the Chief product owner is responsible for budgeting of requirements.Accountability for the product vision and strategy.Communication with key stakeholders and product sponsors.Responsibilities of chief product owner role It is not necessary to have them on daily basis, but in case of high-risk, it is highly suggested. High-level details will be provided by product owners responsible for a particular part of the product.ĭue to complexity, it is good to not have more than 10 people in such product ownership circle (golden rule of team organization in agile). This circle prepares strategy, high-level plan, initiatives, epics and features in regular sessions up to necessary details. The chief product owner is a leader the product ownership “circle” established form roles mentioned above. a technical perspective with which enterprise architects or system architects might help a lot.a system perspective supported by multiple product owners responsible for particular part(s) of the systems being developed,.a business perspective where marketing, sales, operation, strategy & innovation groups might be very helpful to Chief PO,.The product must be successful from multiple perspectives: The picture is from Scaled Agile Framework.Įvery product owner is responsible for some part of the product Who usually collaborate with Chief Product Owner?Ĭhief product owner needs a support of multiple roles. The Chief Product Owner, product owners, and teams. One product owner collaborates with more product owners and architects at the same time. Who can fulfill Chief Product Owner role? All other agile practices and patterns are applied by the Chief Product Owner in the same way as in product owner’s case. Overall strategy and vision should be maintained by role Chief Product Owner. In such case, scaling of product owner role is suggested. The development of complex products involves more teams demisiveloping parts of the product.