Agile and Scrum development practices focus on defining the value stream of any given course of action. It is possible that the highest value outcome does not align with the original customer request. Remember to show respect for your customer's perspective in your response while demonstrating your ability to choose the best path.

I served as a Product Owner for a website that allowed external clients to search a large database of videos and other media products for download. I talked with several of my internal stakeholders responsible for customer support, and they described a common complaint about the usability of the search tool. Users reported missing results and a painful filtering experience, so I began to develop a strategy to build something more user-friendly.

The development team pushed back and offered some ideas about why the users were not getting their expected results. They suggested we train the users to work with the current design. I helped the team understand the personas of the users who most frequently used this functionality. They were often junior team members, and their roles had a high turnover rate. Due to their age demographic, they were used to search tools similar to those used in popular applications. I asserted that making a more intuitive experience for them would add more value than continuous training on an outdated tool. I demonstrated how the improvement would lead to increased sales that would quickly offer the ROI needed to justify the time and resources the effort would take.

We embedded a new search tool that followed the users throughout the site. It was more intuitive, it was faster, and the results were better. Our sales increased, the customer experience was improved, and our business partners were thrilled with the results.