The growth opportunities
In 2014 Hylke de Haan started as a Support and Test Consultant at Mysolution and since a year and a half he is Product Owner. What is striking is that his career reflects a different path than his completed studies. Hylke completed a bachelor's degree in Business Administration at the University of Groningen, followed by a master's degree in Marketing Management.
"After my studies, I started working in a Marketing and Sales position within ICT. The industry was good, but after a while I have come to the realization that I actually find the substantive aspect more interesting than the commercial part. That is why I have decided to continue in a more functional role within ICT. I was already working with Dynamics CRM, and knew Mysolution from a customer, so it was a targeted next step for me."
Always thinking from customer needs
"This was a fun way to quickly gain substantive knowledge. From testing you stay informed of the latest developments of the product, and from support you learn well to think from the customer's point of view. Then I grew into the field of issue and release management, plus the role as Functional Designer.
From business administration you get acquainted with all business processes, and the specialization in marketing ensures that you learn to think from customer needs. Within Mysolution, this way of thinking is paramount to ensure that you stay close to your customers with your product. Substantive knowledge is of course welcome, only you can always gain it and as a starter you also get plenty of room for that."
Product Owner at Mysolution
"There had been some distributed designing within Mysolution, but there was no formal position as Product Owner yet. Since I already took on the issue and release management, and also made functional designs, it was a logical next step for me. Of course there is much more to it, but so far I experience it very positively because you have a bigger impact on the product.
My position is Product Owner in the field of front office, back office and portal/API. The role of Product Owner means that you are responsible for adding as much value as possible to the product."
Three central questions
"This consists on the one hand of the 'what' (prioritizing so that development per sprint is concerned with what adds the most value to the product at that moment) and on the other hand the 'how' (delivering and working out specifications, often in consultation with consultant / customer). Furthermore, you represent all stakeholders, so in the decision-making you have to take into account everyone's interests: those of customers, development, consultants, etc. That makes the work very dynamic."
Big steps with Dynamics Business Central
"The biggest challenge now is to make a transformation with the entire organization towards agile and scrum. A goal here is to become more flexible by being able to release more frequent releases, in a way that adjustments in a new version are never very large and therefore the impact is limited.
In addition to an organizational change, we are also dependent on the technology. Ideally, it would be perfect to automatically update all our customers who work in the Azure cloud at night, for example, and that they are not inconvenienced by this in the morning. That way you create a very short feedback loop with your customers, mistakes are also corrected and customers quickly get value for money. With the new platform version Dynamics Business Central, the realization of these plans is one step closer."
Successes within Mysolution
"Success comes in all sorts of forms, and this is different in every role and phase. When I had just been employed by Mysolution for a few months, I made a comment to my supervisor that I did not find our Outlook add-in very useful. Then a conversation arose about how I saw it in front of me, and I got the answer: 'Work it out, let a developer make an estimate in terms of construction time and then we will discuss it next week'. Then it was built immediately and our customers still work with this software. From such things I get satisfaction. For me, what it's all about is the space for your own initiative and responsibility, and also the space 'to take a nosedive'. Fortunately, this exists within Mysolution.
Formally speaking, there is no next step for a Product Owner. That means that you grow with the product in your role, so therein lies the challenge. For me personally, it means that in the long term I also want to get involved in a more strategic way."