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:

Listening to all perspectives and working with the SIGs to design common solutions that meet all needs
Capturing backlog items proposed by community members as UXPROD features so they can be ranked and prioritized for development
Verifying with the broader community before making changes requested by a single institution
Monitoring support issues and working to support all production customers with critical bug fixes
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.

Need	Description	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/Opportunity	Description	Skills	Can 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	Yes
Market Analysis: Conduct market intelligence per feature/app/workflow	For FOLIO to continue to increase it's reach, it needs to compete with existing library management solutions. Analysis should cover multiple areas: How do existing FOLIO features compare to existing solutions that libraries use today? What features do existing solutions have that do not yet exists in FOLIO? Are there areas where FOLIO can potentially greatly improve workflows for librarians? Note that comparing all of FOLIO to existing solutions is a large task, community members should just focus on areas of expertise. Doing so will make the time and effort manageable while encouraging many to take part.	Prior experience as a librarian using other library solutions Experience using FOLIO SME in a specific area of library operations A willingness to document findings	Yes
Requirements Analysis: Define shortcut keys requirements		Experience using FOLIO SME in a specific area of library operations A willingness to create requirements for needed shortcuts	Yes
Requirements Analysis: Peer review requirements per feature	Product Owners gather requirements in a SIG and / or a working group. Product Owners then create requirements with enough details for developers to create the functionality during an upcoming sprint. Prior to developers building the features, it would be ideal if an SME were able to review		Yes
Support: Triage (feature/workflow) bugs per feature/app/workflow	Review logged defects at a regular interval (weekly) to help verify and document steps to verify if the issue is reproducible, If it's a bug or a feature enhancement as well as prioritize severity of issue and provide explanation for the expectations of correctness	Prior experience as a librarian using other library solutions Experience using FOLIO SME in a specific area of library operations A willingness to document findings A willingness to make prioritization decisions that are sometimes difficult Answer and sometimes developer questions about possible acceptable solutions	Yes
Product Analysis: Document/share workarounds per feature/app/workflow		Experience using FOLIO SME in a specific area of library operations A willingness to document workarounds and review with SIG, working group or local library staff and PO	Yes
Product Analysis: Document (feature/workflow) gaps per feature/app/workflow			Yes
QA: Write/Revise tests cases for specific area/workflow	Create manual test cases that can be run during bugfest prior to each release	Experience using FOLIO SME in a specific area of library operations A willingness to create a draft and then review with the working group and SIG for completeness	Yes
Documentation: Update User Design online documentation			Yes
Documentation for FOLIO applications.	Detailed documentation about application features that cover usage as well as how the app works and what data is updated within the system.		Yes
Use cases	An SME to create thorough documentation that present the details workflows and situational needs of daily work needed to support daily operations in FOLIO. These are expected to be focused but exhaustive. The can for as guidance in detailed requirements gathering as well as automated test cases and UAT.	Experience using FOLIO SME in a specific area of library operations A willingness to create a draft and then review with the working group and SIG for completeness	Yes
Automated testing - test case creation	Cypress and Karate test run nightly generating lists of issues found for developers to review and fix. FOLIO has several thousand that need to be maintained by improving existing cases for better coverage as well as the creation of new test cases. These allow FOLIO to catch defects early in the development process well in advance of bugfest.	Interest is using/learning Cypress and/or Karate automated testing tools Ability to create and build testing scripts Ability to review tests with PO and librarians Ability to read requirements and translate into testing scripts Ability to create tests for edge cases in addition to main workflows Willingness to update prior test cases based on feature changes	Yes
Automated testing - existing test case review	Cypress and Karate test run nightly generating lists of issues found for developers to review and fix. FOLIO has several thousand that need to be maintained by improving existing cases for better coverage as well as the creation of new test cases. These allow FOLIO to catch defects early in the development process well in advance of bugfest. The goal here is to review and flag existing cases for completeness and correctness.	Interest is using/learning Cypress and/or Karate automated testing tools Ability to create and build testing scripts Ability to review tests with PO and librarians Ability to read requirements and translate into testing scripts Ability to create tests for edge cases in addition to main workflows Willingness to update prior test cases based on feature changes	Yes
Test Data Set Generation	Test data is needed to fully exercise the FOLIO code and test cases. Current data isn't updated and old. Test cases may not be catching issues due to this.	Interest is using/learning Cypress and/or Karate automated testing tools Ability to review tests and determine if data exists to properly test Ability to read requirements and determine if data exists for complete and proper testing Ability to create data sets for edge cases in addition to main workflows	Yes