Buddy Healthcare
Product Owner Assignment
Presented by Ali Al Zuhairi
Prioritization & Conflict Resolution
Healthcare SaaS Excellence
Agenda
Backlog Prioritization
Strategic approach to healthcare SaaS priorities
QA vs. CTO Conflict
Facilitating release readiness alignment
How to Avoid Conflicts
Proactive prevention strategies
Reflection
Key insights and learnings
Backlog Prioritization
Strategic approach to healthcare SaaS priorities
Context
Buddy Healthcare is a healthcare SaaS platform supporting nurses and doctors with digital care pathways.
Key Priorities
Priority Ranking
Internal bug: failed API sync for 2% of appointments
Data-loss/sync failures cause missed appointments. High risk to safety and SLAs. Fix now with immediate rollback/monitoring.
Nurse feedback: alert visibility is too subtle
UX issue affecting clinical awareness. Quick wins to improve safety and satisfaction. Plan small iteration this sprint.
New hospital requests: HL7/FHIR export
Strategic for sales and integrations but larger scope. Include only with dedicated capacity—otherwise break into discovery tasks.
Marketing wants push notification analytics
Valuable for growth but non-critical to safety. Defer or schedule as low-priority item if capacity allows.
Rejected Items
Customer request: automated urgent message to patients based on form answers
Safety-critical with legal/regulatory implications. REJECTED due to high risk and insufficient guardrails for automated urgent medical messaging. Requires extensive regulatory review and liability assessment before consideration.
Conflict Scenario
QA vs. CTO Release Decision
QA Team
Position:
"Delay the release due to incomplete verification documentation"
CTO
Position:
"Release on schedule to maintain momentum and commitments"
How should we resolve this conflict?Resolution
Finding Common Ground Through Structured Facilitation
Alignment Reached
Regulatory compliance and product safety are non-negotiable priorities.
We also acknowledged the critical importance of maintaining delivery predictability and development momentum.
Key Outcome
This approach maintains delivery discipline while ensuring quality and regulatory standards are respected.
It fosters collaboration rather than compromise.
Agreed Actions
QA will identify the minimum critical documentation required for release compliance.
Development continues in parallel to avoid blocking non-risk areas.
A final readiness checkpoint will occur before release for QA sign-off on key verification items.
To Avoid Such Conflicts
Proactive Conflict Prevention Strategy
Proactive Coordination Approach
A mini-team meeting first allows QA, Dev, and Product to identify risks, blockers, and documentation gaps early. Then, an advance alignment meeting with leadership ensures everyone sees the same information before a formal release decision.
Mini-Team Meeting
QA, Development, and Product teams collaborate to identify potential issues early.
Leadership Alignment
Present unified information to leadership before formal release decisions.
Key Takeaways
Product Owner Excellence in Action
Core Approach
This approach demonstrates prioritization based on impact, risk, and value, while facilitating team alignment through structured reasoning and transparent communication — key traits of an effective Product Owner.
Impact-Driven
Patient safety and data reliability first
Risk-Aware
Balance speed with compliance
Collaborative
Foster alignment over authority
Product Owner Excellence
Balancing stakeholder needs, technical constraints, and business value while maintaining focus on user outcomes and team collaboration.
Thank You!
Questions & Discussion
