Agile Team Product Owner (PO)
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A Agile Team Product Owner (PO) is a Scrum team member who is accountable for the Scrum team commitments.
- Context:
- They can (typically) represent Product Stakeholders and Voice of the Customers.
- They can (typically) be accountable for the Scrum Product Backlog.
- …
- Example(s):
- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Requirement Prioritization, Stakeholder (Corporate), Voice of The Customer, User Story, Product Backlog.
References
2022
- (Wikipedia, 2022) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)#Product_owner Retrieved:2022-2-9.
- The product owner, representing the product's stakeholders and the voice of the customer (or may represent the desires of a committee McGreal, Don; Jocham, Ralph (June 4, 2018). "The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage". Addison-Wesley Professional. ISBN 9780134686653.</ref>), is responsible for delivering good business results.[1] Hence, the product owner is accountable for the product backlog and for maximizing the value that the team delivers. The product owner defines the product in terms of customer-centric outcomes (typically - but not limited to - user stories), adds them to the product backlog, and prioritizes them based on importance and dependencies. Morris, David (2017). Scrum: an ideal framework for agile projects. In Easy Steps. pp. 178–179. ISBN 9781840787313. OCLC 951453155</ref> A scrum team should have only one product owner (although a product owner could support more than one team) and it is strongly advised against combining this role with the role of the scrum master. The product owner should focus on the business side of product development and spend the majority of time liaising with stakeholders and the team. The product owner does not dictate how the team reaches a technical solution, but seeks consensus among team members. This role is crucial and requires a deep understanding of both sides: the business and the engineers (developers) in the scrum team. Therefore, a good product owner should be able to communicate what the business needs, ask why they need it (because there may be better ways to achieve that), and convey the message to all stakeholders including the developers using technical language, as required. The product owner uses scrum's empirical tools to manage highly complex work while controlling risk and achieving value. Communication is a core responsibility of the product owner. The ability to convey priorities and empathize with team members and stakeholders is vital to steer product development in the right direction. The product owner role bridges the communication gap between the team and its stakeholders, serving as a proxy for stakeholders to the team and as a team representative to the overall stakeholder community. As the face of the team to the stakeholders, the following are some of the communication tasks of the product owner to the stakeholders: * Define and announce releases. * Communicate delivery and product status. * Share progress during governance meetings.
- Share significant RIDAs (risks, impediments, dependencies, and assumptions) with stakeholders.
- Negotiate priorities, scope, funding, and schedule.
- Ensure that the product backlog is visible, transparent and clear.
- Empathy is a key attribute for a product owner to have—the ability to put one's self in another's shoes. A product owner converses with different stakeholders with a variety of backgrounds, job roles, and objectives - and should be able to appreciate these different points of view. To be effective, it is wise for a product owner to know the level of detail the audience needs. The developers need thorough feedback and specifications so they can build a product up to expectation, while an executive sponsor may just need summaries of progress. Providing more information than necessary may lose stakeholder interest aand waste time. A direct means of communication is preferred by seasoned product owners. Cohn, Mike. Succeeding with Agile: Software Development Using Scrum. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley, 2010. </ref>
A product owner's ability to communicate effectively is also enhanced by being skilled in techniques that identify stakeholder needs, negotiate priorities between stakeholder interests, and collaborate with developers to ensure effective implementation of requirements.
- The product owner, representing the product's stakeholders and the voice of the customer (or may represent the desires of a committee McGreal, Don; Jocham, Ralph (June 4, 2018). "The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage". Addison-Wesley Professional. ISBN 9780134686653.</ref>), is responsible for delivering good business results.[1] Hence, the product owner is accountable for the product backlog and for maximizing the value that the team delivers. The product owner defines the product in terms of customer-centric outcomes (typically - but not limited to - user stories), adds them to the product backlog, and prioritizes them based on importance and dependencies. Morris, David (2017). Scrum: an ideal framework for agile projects. In Easy Steps. pp. 178–179. ISBN 9781840787313. OCLC 951453155</ref> A scrum team should have only one product owner (although a product owner could support more than one team) and it is strongly advised against combining this role with the role of the scrum master. The product owner should focus on the business side of product development and spend the majority of time liaising with stakeholders and the team. The product owner does not dictate how the team reaches a technical solution, but seeks consensus among team members. This role is crucial and requires a deep understanding of both sides: the business and the engineers (developers) in the scrum team. Therefore, a good product owner should be able to communicate what the business needs, ask why they need it (because there may be better ways to achieve that), and convey the message to all stakeholders including the developers using technical language, as required. The product owner uses scrum's empirical tools to manage highly complex work while controlling risk and achieving value. Communication is a core responsibility of the product owner. The ability to convey priorities and empathize with team members and stakeholders is vital to steer product development in the right direction. The product owner role bridges the communication gap between the team and its stakeholders, serving as a proxy for stakeholders to the team and as a team representative to the overall stakeholder community. As the face of the team to the stakeholders, the following are some of the communication tasks of the product owner to the stakeholders: * Define and announce releases. * Communicate delivery and product status. * Share progress during governance meetings.
- ↑ Rubin, Kenneth (2013), Essential Scrum. A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile Process, Addison-Wesley, p. 173, ISBN 978-0-13-704329-3
2021
- (LinkedIn, 2021) ⇒ "Product Owner."
- QUOTE: About the Role ...
- As a Senior PO you will define and refine our user stories ; prioritizing the Agile Team backlog to streamline execution of product (program) priorities while maintaining conceptual and technical integrity of features for the team. In this capacity the PO remains highly available to the Dev teams during each iteration (sprint) in order to answer real time questions and provide clarity to user stories. PO also drives refinement activities ensuring Team backlog contains 2 iterations worth of ‘ready’ work for Dev team. These two functions are essential to enabling Dev teams to improve and maintain high velocity / efficiency in iteration (sprint) execution. For this reason, a PO supports a single Agile (Scrum) Team up to a maximum of 2 teams.
- The Senior PO also play a key part in our quality control; we empower our PO team to accept stories as done, ensuring the acceptance criteria has been met. You will develop significant relationships and responsibilities outside of the specific Agile team, including working with Product Management, who manages the Product (Program) Backlog, to prepare for the Program Increment (PI) Planning meeting (Big Room Planning). ...
- QUOTE: About the Role ...
2019
- (Workfront, 2019) ⇒ https://www.workfront.com/project-management/methodologies/scrum/product-owner
- QUOTE: the Scrum Product Owner is usually a project’s key stakeholder — typically someone from marketing or product management, or the lead user of a system. They have a deep understanding of users, the marketplace, competitors, and trends.
The Scrum Guide states that “the Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the development team. How this is done may vary widely across organizations, Scrum teams, and individuals.” One of their key responsibilities is managing the product backlog — the prioritized features list for the product.
The Scrum Product Owner prioritizes work during the sprint planning meeting and motivates the team with clear goals, answering any questions. The development team decides how much work they can do, taking the items from the top of the product backlog list.
- QUOTE: the Scrum Product Owner is usually a project’s key stakeholder — typically someone from marketing or product management, or the lead user of a system. They have a deep understanding of users, the marketplace, competitors, and trends.