The need for a Product Owner
Evolving a product does not only mean to continue and enforce the development of more features that fulfil the demand of a particular scope on a technical level. Evolution also means to question previous decisions and measure flexibility and orientation in general. The TYPO3 CMS successfully delivered another LTS version with version 6.2 in 2014, but then had to struggle with the question on a new and better vision that aligns the focus of TYPO3 CMS to the future demands of end-users and agencies. It became clear this question cannot be answered inside the team alone, but that this topic has to be raised to the public audience in a more prominent way. The result was a redesigned working-mode with topic focussed sprint releases, the kickoff for TYPO3 CMS 7 in general and impressive pace in the ripening process of that new TYPO3 CMS version.TYPO3 CMS Product Owner
Ensuring the continuity the high consistent demand of these processes, to challenge our goals from time to time and to stay focussed on the needs of end-users and agencies, we have installed the role of a TYPO3 CMS Product Owner. This position is assigned to <link http: typo3.org news article community-insight-mathias-mattes-schreiber>Mathias “Mattes” Schreiber who already started to take over the responsibility of this new position since November 2014, and is currently doing this full-time sponsored by his employer <link http: www.wmdb.de>WMDB Systems.Our understanding of a Product Owner
The Product Owner is the contact for the agencies, the TYPO3 Association and stakeholders in the market, and sums up the feature requests and requirements of the market. He acts as both a classic Product Owner in the sense of Scrum-style project management as much as possible in open source development, and a classic Product Manager who collects input from the market/community and helps shape the product in collaboration with the development teams. He is responsible for transparent communication towards all stakeholders, in our case the TYPO3 Associations’ board and its members, the different teams, the community and the press. The Product Owner plans releases by working closely with the CMS team leader and communicates these in public together with the CMS team lead. In order to speed up the development the Product Owner discusses structure and obligations with the CMS team and make sure these rules are stuck to. As part of the CMS team he develops concepts for workflows within the CMS team as well as when collaborating with other teams. Apart from that it is the obligation of the Product Owner to resolve any conflict within his intermediate team and to remove any obstacles in order to enable the development process further. The team’s <link>Roles & Groups description has been updated accordingly. Feel free to contact <link>Mattes or <link>us, search for the direct contact or feedback if you have further questions or ideas. We would love to hear from you. On behalf of the TYPO3 CMS Team,Oliver Hader and Benni Mack