产品经理和Scrum Master都必须是领域专家吗？

Posted 2020-10-05

注明：原文来自 Mike Cohn的邮件推送,我已将原文贴在最后供参考，翻译的目的是为了锻炼自己的能力和理解水平，如有版权侵犯，请告之。

 

Scrum Master 和 产品经理应该是领域专家吗？让我们来看看他们各自的角色.

 

产品经理通常被期待为开发团队安排工作，并为他们的工作排优先级。为了让团队更高效，产品经理需要理解用户，他们的目标，竞争格局，行业趋势以及他们之间的影响。

那就意味着产品经理应该是在团队开发的这个产品领域里面的专家。假设一个伟大的产品经理正在为金融行业开发产品，然后我们让他去为某个医疗的产品担任产品经理，此时，产品经理将会在医院的一堆问题中迷失“借记在哪里？谁拥有信用?"

很简单，产品经理需要理解他们当前工作的行业，我不说那么远，产品经理需要成为一名专家，但是成为一名专家总是有帮助的。

有一些行业是产品经理可以直接在工作中学习并很快熟悉的。指导开发地址簿产品的产品经理将比在没有适当背景下投入基因分析产品的产品经理更容易在工作中学习.

但是Scrum Master又怎么样呢？ Scrum Master这个角色很不一样。Scrum Master的工作更多的是将思想转化为产品而不是想法本身的过程。

这就意味着成为一个伟大的Scrum Master 不必需要很深入的领域经验。

想想一个非常成功的职业体育教练, 教练背后的一些事情导致教练进入他们教练的体育运动，但是，伟大的教练所做的很多事情都适用于任何其他运动。

当然，篮球教练需要懂得篮球，并且几乎可以肯定地广泛打过篮球， 但是大多数的伟大教练都是在处理职业运动员的自我，

鼓励团队合作避免自私，激励运动员等等。我怀疑在某个领域获得冠军的教练同样可以在另一项体育领域获得很高水平的成功。

所以对于一个Scrum Master, 当然，在一个金融行业的团队里面，一个懂得金融行业的Scrum Master 肯定要比一个懂得健康领域的Scrum Master 要好，所以，一个拥有专业领域的Scrum Master是很合意的，但是我完全认为这不是一个必要条件。

无论你发现自己是什么角色，产品经理，Scrum Master还是团队成员，专业领域知识一直是有帮助的。但是对于产品经理来说，拥有专业的领域知识对一个成功的敏捷团队却是必要的。

Should product owners and scrum masters be experts in their industries?  Let‘s consider each role separately.
Product owners are expected to select and prioritize the work to be done by their teams. To do that effectively, a product owner will need to understand the product‘s users and their goals, the competitive landscape, as well as the industry and trends affecting it.

 

 This means that a product owner should be a an expert in the domain in which the team is developing products. Consider a great product owner working to develop products for the financial services industry. And move that product owner to the same role building medical products. The product owner is going to be lost and wandering around a hospital asking, "Where are the debits? Who‘s got the credits?"

 

 Quite simply, product owners need to understand the domains in which they work. I won‘t go so far as to say a product owner needs to be an expert. But being an expert almost always helps.
And some domains are straightforward and familiar enough that the product owner could learn on the job. A product owner guiding development on an address book product will have a much easier time learning on the job than a product owner thrown into a genetic analysis product without an appropriate background.

 

 But what about the Scrum Master? The Scrum Master’s role is very different. The Scrum Master‘s job is much more about the process through which an idea is turned into a product than the idea itself.
That means a Scrum Master does not need deep experience in a domain to be a great Scrum Master.
Think of a highly successful professional sports coach. Something in that coach‘s background led the coach into whatever sport they coach. But much of what that great coach does would apply in any other sport.
Sure, the basketball coach needs to know basketball--and almost certainly has played it extensively--but much of being a great coach is about handling professional athlete egos, encouraging teamwork over selfishness, motivating the players, and so on. I suspect a championship-winning coach in one sport could achieve a high level of success coaching another sport.
And so it is with Scrum Masters. Yes, a Scrum Master who knows banking will be better with a banking team than one who knows healthcare. So, domain expertise is desirable in a Scrum Master, but I definitely don‘t view it as required.
In whatever role you find yourself--product owner, Scrum Master, or even team member--domain expertise will always be valuable. But only for a product owner is domain expertise truly necessary to succeed with agile.