Ag Advanced Certified Product Owner® (A-CSPO®)

Product Owner Core Competencies

• Illustrate why Product Ownership is important for you.
• Reflect on the mindset and actions to be successful as a Product Owner.
• Demonstrate at least three techniques to interact with stakeholders over multiple.
• Describe two examples when the Product Owner should not act as the facilitator for the stakeholders.
• Demonstrate at least three facilitative listening techniques.
• Demonstrate the use of at least two alternatives to open discussion.
• Describe at least three ways to facilitate a final decision with stakeholders.
• Explain why the Product Owner should be cautious about accumulating technical debt. 
• List at least three ways technical practices may help Scrum Teams deliver a high-quality Product Increment and reduce technical debt each Sprint.
• Describe at least three examples in which the Product Owner collaborates with the Development Team to maximise the flow of value.
• Recognise at least two approaches to scaling Scrum.
• Identify at least two techniques for visualising, managing, or reducing dependencies.
• Describe at least three benefits and drawbacks of feature teams and component teams.

Advanced Purpose and Strategy

• Discuss a real-world example of how product strategy is operationalised and evolves over time in an Agile organisation.
• Practise at least two approaches to identify purpose or define strategy.
• Create a product plan or forecast with stakeholders. 
• Practise at least one technique to visualise and communicate product strategy, product ideas, features, and/or assumptions.

Empathising with Customers and Users

• Use one technique to connect teams directly to customers and users.
• Practise at least two techniques of product discovery.

Advanced Product Assumption Validation

• List two cognitive biases that may impact the Product Owner’s capability to effectively deliver business value. 
• Appraise how effectively the Sprint Review is used to inspect and adapt based on the Product Increment that was built in the Sprint.
• Compare at least two approaches to validating assumptions.
• Experiment with at least one approach to incorporate validating assumptions into the Scrum framework.
• Develop at least two hypotheses for a target customer.
• Create a plan to test at least one hypothesis.

Advanced Techniques for Working with the Product Backlog

• Describe one benefit of maximising outcomes and impact while minimising output.
• Use at least two techniques to model value and at least two techniques to measure value.
• Debate at least three techniques to order a Product Backlog.
• Apply at least two techniques to organise and filter a Product Backlog to link to product goals or strategy.
• Illustrate how the Product Owner can ensure that enough Product Backlog items are “ready” for the upcoming Sprint.
• Integrate feedback from at least three sources to generate and order Assess the Product Backlog Refinement and identify at least three ways to improve.