Platform Product Owner as vehicle and storyteller (and not domain expert)

In Julia Cameron’s book The Right to Write, she says,

When we are just the vehicle, the storyteller and not the point of the story, we often write very well—we certainly write more easily.

This is true. I’m coming to see a big part of my role as Product Owner in Giant Swarm as a vehicle and storyteller.

For example, I helped Stevo (Platform Engineer) articulate his thoughts on Reliability as a main feature in Giant Swarm. I was able to do the same with Yasser (Solution Engineer) in Customer Service (Customer Support) as another main feature of Giant Swarm.

Being the domain experts, in Cameron’s context, “the point of the story,” they struggle to articulate what they think and what should be done as a result.

I, being a mere vehicle and storyteller, found it less hard.

I think this concept of being a vehicle might be a main feature of being a PO of a product where you are not the domain expert.