Product ownership: good doctor, bad doctor

In this video, Rafa Sabbagh highlights the concept of product ownership. He presents an analogy comparing the role of a doctor and a customer relationship when defining a product. Rafa suggests that, similar to how a good doctor takes charge of diagnosing and providing treatment options, we should actively take ownership of defining the product, rather than solely relying on customer requests and wishes.

A patient gets to a doctor that has been recommended. The doctor then starts speaking:

Doctor: “Nice to meet you. Please tell me… what do you want?”

Patient: “See, doctor, I’m in pain. I need something for my pain!”

Doctor: “Yes, I get it. But then again, what do you want? See, here in my medical office, the patient is king. You are the boss. Just tell me what you want! There are so many different medicines, so many medical tests… choose what you want and I will prescribe it to you!”

Of course nobody expects a serious doctor to behave such bizarre way. Instead, how would we expect a good doctor to behave? A good doctor would ask the patient a good bunch of questions. “What exactly are you feeling?” “Did you change any habits?” “What have you been eating?” “How have you been sleeping?” “How long have you been feeling it?” But, definitely, none of the questions will be “what do you want?”, and not even “what do you need?”

The doctor will then examine the patient and, based on all she heard, all she saw, and on all her knowledge and experience, she will formulate her best hypothesis of treatment for that patient. And when the patient comes back in a few days after undergoing the prescribed medical tests and taking the prescribed medicine, the doctor will work to understand the patient’s current state. She will look at the test results, ask more questions and again examine the patient, and then she may correct the course, adjusting or changing the treatment - her hypothesis - based once more on all she heard, all she saw, and on all her knowledge and experience. This kind of work is like an investigation, where possible solutions are being offered from the first possible moment.

One important thing here is the good doctor will always be the one who takes the responsibility over the chosen treatment. She is the one accountable. She will not push that to the patient, nor accept that the patient tries to take it.

So, if another patient asks the doctor: “Hey doctor! I’m in pain here. Please prescribe me a little morphine!” That good doctor shall answer: “No, let me examine you first and then I will prescribe you what I believe will work for you”. The doctor makes herself accountable for it. She owns it.

Long ago I once received one of these short fake stories (unfortunately!) stating a doctor in Italy had those sayings at the medical office’s door:

“If you searched on Google and came for a second opinion… I recommend Yahoo!”

The moral of that story is… don’t go to the doctor if you won’t let her own it.

And what does any of that have to do with anything? Well, it is crystal clear that it is not the patient’s role to tell the doctor what would be their treatment, isn’t it? Then it should also be clear that it is not the clients’ role to tell us what they need! The clients have a problem and are immersed on it. They are the ones feeling the pain, it’s not their job to come up with solutions! Of course, in the case where we are the ones solving our own problems, which could mean we are our own clients, that would go a bit different.

One may still argue that it is the clients’ problem, regarding the clients’ own business, so why aren’t they the best ones to define what should be done? For the same reason that the patients should not decide their own treatment, despite the fact that it is the patient’s pain and on the patient’s body.

Don’t get me wrong, we are not supposed to keep the clients aside. That would be stupid. We must interact frequently with the clients (and with other stakeholders), so we can investigate and understand the problem as we formulate the hypotheses of solutions.

Our usual biggest mistake there is to simply gather requirements or collect requests from our clients and then go and implement what we were told to. We unfortunately got used to act like if this is the right way to do it, or even like if it is the only way to go. When a customer asks for something new, we are too used to answering: “yes, sir!” Problem resolution is not ticket-based work. We are not waiters, who take note of the client’s order and bring it to the kitchen. Our job is to provide a service to our clients, and that service is to solve their problem.

And, as I said before, we often confuse the problem with a solution. Their problem is not the solution they asked for. We must own the definition of the solutions.