#200 – Customer Pull

If your product development scoping is driven by anything else than customer pull, then, you’re assuming that you’re smarter than your customers on their own needs (unless you’re creating products for yourself). Except for requirements coming from changes to legislation, regulation, compliance, security or similar, the customer (or user) who can be internal or external will give you the best feedback on what value to deliver as well as a deeper understanding of the why.

Let’s also acknowledge that not all customers know how and what to pull for–here, it’s your responsibility as Product Owner to teach and show the customer the more collaborative, feedback-oriented nature of the agile ways of working (ask your Scrum Master to help), so they see the value of it. Remember that the customer and end users are, most likely, your most important stakeholders, so communicate frequently with them and invite them to Sprint Reviews to see that their input is taken seriously.