Something people have to keep in mind about People, Ideas & Objects is that we are currently in development. By focusing on developing the
user community, this is a key part of the software development and the software development capability that we will be providing to the industry. It may seem to the casual reader that things are static at this point, however, as this year develops we will see that this development in the user community will bring about many of the desired outcomes that we anticipate. Stay tuned, I promise this will be an interesting year.
One of the things that we are experiencing is that with the Internet and cloud computing our progress is able to move at the speed at which change is happening. We are not being constrained by the traditional resources of a software developer. Everything is virtual at this point and as a result is able to accommodate the needs of the people we are appealing to and the oil and gas industry. We have a lightweight footprint that is unconstrained by the physical world.
One of our objectives is to recruit the user communities leadership team and have them represent the user community to the oil and gas investors. This was to secure the funding necessary to develop the
Preliminary Specification and have the user community and service providers developed. I recently changed my mind on this point. We will continue to recruit these positions, however, we are not going to expose any of these individuals to the antics of the bureaucracies vindictive ways. There is no reason that these people need to take on any career risk by being named here. Therefore from the point of view of what will be expressed to the investors, what you currently see, is what you get.
I am therefore going to begin to detail the specific positions that we are looking to fill in the leadership team and what those positions will be doing. The first position I want to discuss is the Product Owner positions of the user community. We expect that there may be upwards of 20 out of the total of 30 leadership team positions being Product Owners. Starting today I want to begin a discussion of that role and what they provide to the user community, the development team and to the software quality.
The quotations that I will be making are from the book, “Agile Product Management with Scrum: Creating Products that Customers Love” by Roman Pichler. What he suggests as the reason that the Product Owner role exists is to solve the issue of having too many cooks spoiling the soup. Having a single individual leading the development of the product from beginning to end provides this solution. Making one person responsible for ensuring its success and ensuring that everyone involved has a shared vision of the product is the Product Owner role in the development. In the broad scope and scale of the Preliminary Specification I am more or less its Product Owner. But each Product Owner in the leadership team will be either responsible for one module of the Preliminary Specification or some element of the technology. For example the data model, the user interface etc. So for example we will have a very senior individual who will be the Product Owner for the Partnership Accounting Module, and they will have the authority and responsibility for that module.
In the book the Product Owner role is defined as,
The Product Owner is the one and only person responsible for the managing the Product Backlog and ensuring the value of the work the team performs. This person maintains the Product Backlog and ensures that it is visible to everyone.
If we think for a minute we may have 250 to 300 users in the Partnership Accounting module. This being a simple mathematical representation of the total of 3,000 people in the user population. There may be a need for far more people, especially considering the Material Balance Report which is a critical part of the module. The scope of the module is very broad, however it is consistent in terms of the type of work that is being done and therefore can be handled by one leader or Product Owner. Ensuring that the user community has considered the differences present in the People, Ideas & Objects Preliminary Specification. Having adopted those differences in their input and their analysis of what is required in their systems. It is then the responsibility of the Product Owner to ensure that the development team delivers that product to the user community.
The background of the Product Owners for People, Ideas & Objects purposes is from the business domain. Although a key member of the development team, their understanding of the business domain is what is required. Particularly with respect to the manner in which their understanding of these critical oil and gas processes are handled. It can take years, and sometimes decades before people are fully aware of the total scope of the processes under management in modules such as the Partnership Accounting module. A technological focus is not what we need to ensure product quality or to represent the user community. There will be significant developer and user collaborations and interactions throughout the course of product design and development. And the developers will have time to understand the nuances of the particular parts of the module from individual users, however there is the bigger picture that needs to be captured as well. And from a business perspective, that needs to be provided from the Product Owner.
We'll be discussing the Product Owner position in more detail in the next few days. If you have an interest in these positions, or any of our leadership teams positions please contact me.
The
Preliminary Specification and
user community provides the oil and gas producer with the most dynamic, innovative and
profitable means of oil and gas operations. People, Ideas & Objects
Revenue Model specifies the means in which investors can participate in these user defined software developments. Users are welcome to join me
here. Together we can begin to meet the future demands for energy. And don't forget to join our network on Twitter
@piobiz anyone can contact me at 403-200-2302 or email
here.