Getting Started for Product Owners

Scope of engagement


Product Owners are supplied to the project by various vendors and academic institutions, however, Product Owners support the entire community.  This means:

  1. Listening to all perspectives and working with the SIGs to design common solutions that meet all needs
  2. Capturing backlog items proposed by community members as UXPROD features so they can be ranked and prioritized for development 
  3. Verifying with the broader community before making changes requested by a single institution
  4. Monitoring support issues and working to support all production customers with critical bug fixes
  5. Working with other Product Owners and SIGs to support the needs of adjacent domains and workflows

A current directory of product owners can be found here: Directory of Product Owners by Area of Focus

Product Owner Meetings

  • There is a group meeting for Product Owners every two weeks.  
  • There is also a private #product_owners Slack channel

(Note: Contact Khalilah Gambrell for more information about these meetings/channels.)

FOLIO is looking for Product Owners

Joining FOLIO as a product owner is a great way to make a big impact on the project.  You will:

  • Get involved in the FOLIO community
  • Build your network
  • Develop new skills

  Interested? Please review the below list of long-term and one-time opportunities. If you would like more information, please contact, Lead FOLIO PO, Khalilah Gambrell

Long-term Projects and Opportunities: Product Owners Needed 

We are always looking for good POs for the following areas. Time commitment is a minimum of 6 months. 

PriorityNeedDescription

Required skills

Minimum - Time frame

Course Reserves app 
  • Triage bugs and refine backlog.
  • Document workarounds
  • Currently, there is no team assigned to the Course Reserves app so your primary objective will be to prioritize bugs that can be assigned to a team with capacity. 
  • Bugfest support
    • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
    • Triage user feedback
    • Prioritize bugs
  • Support the community's use of the Courses app
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Has used Course Reserves software (FOLIO or other software), or applied/defined Course Reserves workflows
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
5-8 hours a week

Service points and Locations

  • Current product owner will be leaving the project and we are looking for a person who wants to support FOLIO

  • This area of FOLIO is fairly well built up and has no urgent development needs. It would be an excellent opportunity for someone new to product ownership to learn with a less urgent feature list.

  • Primary objectives

    • Triage bugs and refine backlog

    • Conduct knowledge transfer with current PO prior to their departure


    • Work with POs across functional areas to support workflows that rely on locations and service points
    • Refine one feature per release (depending on developer capacity) and work with developer team to present requirements
    • Bugfest support
      • Write and revise test cases
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
  • Familiarity with circulation workflows
  • Familiarity with or willing to learn metadata workflows that use locations
  • Interested in building prioritization and testing skills
5-8 hours a week (depends on if a feature is being developed)

Circulation: Loans, Circulation rules and loan policies, Check-in, Check-out, Loan information on Item Details
  • Support circulation needs for checking items out, checking items in, recording information for troubleshooting and other resource access functions.
  • Primary objectives
    • Triage critical issues 
    • Knowledge transfer: Work with current PO(s) to document key functionality and workflows
    • Document workarounds 
    • Refine backlog
    • Per release - Refine one feature 
    • Will work with several POs responsible for various circulated functionality/workflows 
    • Will present requirements to a development team 
    • Bugfest support
      • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
  • Support the community's use of FOLIO circulation functionality
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity/expertise with circulation workflows 
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
10-15 hours a week 

Circulation: Fees/Fines

Current product owner will be leaving the project and we are looking for a person who wants to continue to support FOLIO's fees/fines capabilities.

  • Primary objectives
    • Triage critical issues 
    • Complete implementation of fees/fines features 
    • Knowledge transfer: Work with current PO(s) to document key functionality and workflows. Becomes Fees/Fines SME.
    • Document workarounds 
    • Refine backlog
    • Per release - Refine one feature
    • Work with several POs responsible for various circulated functionality/workflows 
    • Present requirements to a development team 
    • Bugfest support
      • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
    • Support the community's use of FOLIO circulation functionality.
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity/expertise with circulation workflows 
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
10-15 hours a week 

Item States
  • Primary objectives
    • Triage critical issues
    • Becomes Item States - SME
    • Refine backlog  
    • Document workarounds
    • Work with several POs responsible for functionality/workflows in circulation and metadata management
    • Present requirements to a development team
    • Bugfest support
      • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
    • Support the community's use of item state functionality
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity/expertise with circulation workflows. 
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
5-8 hours per week

Circulation: Requests app 

Looking for a person to manage the requests app and workflows. 

  • Primary objectives
    • Triage critical issues 
    • Learn about app and workflows from community members and POs familiar with the app
    • Document workarounds 
    • Refine backlog
    • Per release - Refine one feature 
    • Work with several POs responsible for various circulated functionality/workflows 
    • Present requirements to a development team 
    • Bugfest support
      • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
    • Support the community's use of FOLIO circulation functionality
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity/expertise with circulation workflows including integrations with discovery/opac systems
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
10-15 hours a week 

Circulation: Lost items 

We are looking for a product owner who can 

  • Primary objectives
    • Triage critical issues
    • Refine backlog  
    • Document workarounds  
    • Work with several POs responsible for various circulated functionality/workflows 
    • Present requirements to a development team 
    • Bugfest support
      • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
    • Support the community's use of FOLIO circulation functionality
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity/expertise with circulation workflows including integrations with discovery/opac systems
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
5-8 hours a week

Circulation: Patron/Item blocks

Current product owner will be leaving the project and we are looking for a person who wants to continue to support FOLIO's fees/fines capabilities.

  • Primary objectives
    • Triage critical issues 
    • Knowledge transfer: Work with current PO(s) to document key functionality and workflows. Becomes a SME. 
    • Document workarounds 
    • Refine backlog
    • Per release - Refine one feature 
    • Work with several POs responsible for various circulated functionality/workflows 
    • Present requirements to a development team 
    • Bugfest support
      • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
    • Support the community's use of FOLIO circulation functionality
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity/expertise with circulation workflows 
  • Good familiarity with discovery system/opac workflows 
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
10-15 hours a week 

Accessibility

Need a product owner who can lead efforts for POs/development team to

  • implement/think about accessibility 
  • organize accessibility testing
  • manage accessibility dashboard and backlog
  • write requirements / defects and present requirements to a development team(s)
  • lead effort to define greater shortcut keys 
  • advise teams regarding accessibility 
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity with accessibility guidelines and best practices.
  • Great familiarity/experience implementing accessible features. 
  • Familiar writing accessibility testing scenarios/tasks
  • Can test features with web accessibility compliance tools and screenreaders
  • Enthusiastic in building an accessible FOLIO and staying current on changing guidelines. 
5-8 hours per week

Inventory Search Enhancements 

Need a product owner who can define inventory search requirements now that the app's search is powered by Elastic Search. 

  • Primary objectives
    • Triage critical issues 
    • Learn about current inventory search implementation and proposed development
    • Documentation  
    • Refine backlog
    • Per release - Refine one feature 
    • Work with several POs responsible for various cataloging functionality/workflows 
    • Present requirements to a development team(s)
    • Bugfest support
      • Help validate environment for testing 
      • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
      • Triage user feedback
      • Prioritize bugs
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Good familiarity in defining search requirements OR strong willingness to learn how to define search requirements
  • Bonus if you are familiar with Elasticsearch
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Enthusiastic about search!!! 
10-12 hours a week 

Patron APIs for discovery systems

Need a person to

  • reviews current APIs used by discovery systems/opacs
  • is a SME for teams that develop or enhance circulation workflows to ensure e2e workflows are supported 
  • Documentation  
  • Refine backlog 
  • Triage bugs 
  • Per release - Refine one feature 
  • Work with several POs responsible for various circulated functionality/workflows 
  • Present requirements to a development team(s)
  • Bugfest support
    • Help validate environment for testing 
    • Write/revise test cases in Test rails
    • Triage user feedback
    • Prioritize bugs
  • Likes conducting reference interviews 
  • Great familiarity/expertise with circulation workflows 
  • Good familiarity with discovery system/opac workflows 
  • Good familiarity with APIs OR strong willingness to learn.  
  • Wants to develop/hone prioritization skills 
  • Likes testing features 
8-10 hours a week 

Micro-volunteer (one-time commitments) Projects and Opportunities

This list represents one-time commitments projects and opportunities. Commitment: provide project completion due date. 

Project/OpportunityDescriptionSkillsCan be done by a group? 
Acceptance Testing: Lead/conduct Business Acceptance Testing per feature/workflow

FOLIO is committed to delivering quality features that are well received by the community. We need people who can lead business acceptance testing (BAT) at least once at the mid-point of a release to ensure that development is on the right path well before bugfest. Lead/conduct BAT responsibilities

  • Schedule testing 
  • Recruit participants 
  • Organize testing
    • Gather/define task/scenarios for testing 
    • Collect feedback 
  • Report feedback to PO and development team 
  • Prior experience conducting  acceptance testing and/or usability testing 
  • Or SME in an area AND has a general interest in running such tests 
  • AND/OR has an interest in user research or project management 
Yes
User research: Organize/conduct FOLIO Usability survey 

Current FOLIO UX has been in place for over five years, there is a need to reassess UX and understand if the UX supports users' expected workflow. A FOLIO Usability survey will help POs and developers understand what changes are needed at the platform level and why.  Anyone interested in organizing and conducting a survey 

  • Select tool to create survey and collect feedback 
  • Recruit participant 
  • Create survey 
  • Conduct a survey preview 
  • Gather feedback
  • Report feedback to POs and Community. 
  • Prior experience conducting  acceptance testing and/or usability testing 
  • AND/OR has an interest in user research or project management 
Yes
User research: Conduct usability testing per feature/app/workflow
  • Prior experience conducting  acceptance testing and/or usability testing 
  • Or SME in an area AND has a general interest in running such tests 
  • AND/OR has an interest in user research or project management 

Market Analysis: Conduct market intelligence per feature/app/workflow


Requirements Analysis: Define shortcut keys requirements 


Requirements Analysis: Peer review requirements per feature


Support: Triage (feature/workflow) bugs per feature/app/workflow


Product Analysis: Document/share workarounds per feature/app/workflow


Product Analysis: Document (feature/workflow) gaps per feature/app/workflow


QA: Write/Revise tests cases for specific area/workflow


Documentation: Update User Design online documentation 


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