Product Owner - Role And Responsibilities

What is a Product Owner?

 

To be precise, a product owner is a scrum development role for a person who represents the business or user community, and is responsible for working with the user group to determine what features will be included in the product release.

 

Image Source – ProductCoalition.com

 

What are a Product Owner’s Responsibilities?

• The Product Owner (PO) represents the business to the development team and the Scrum team to the business folks.
• The PO  is one person, not a committee or group of people.
• The PO has product vision.
• The PO  owns the budget and is responsible for the success of the product.
• He/she is part of the Scrum team – closely works with the development team and Scrum Master throughout the sprint.
• The PO owns the product backlog and directs product development through product backlog prioritization.
• Strives to maximize the value of the product delivered by the development team each sprint.
• Ensures product backlog is visible, transparent and clear to all and shows what the Scrum team will work on next.
• Provides feedback to the Scrum team and answers any business-related queries for the development team.
• Ensures that the development team understands the product backlog items to the level needed.
• Is accountable for product backlog refinement along with the development team.
• The PO is also responsible for the release.
• The PO is available to the development team mostly every day to answer any queries that they may have on product backlog items and to provide feedback on the running items in the sprint.
• The PO has the authority to cancel a sprint – Only the PO can cancel the sprint, if the goal is obsolete, and can then start the next one immediately.
• Accepts/rejects development team work.
• Attends all Scrum events if needed.
• The PO is the decision maker of the Scrum team.
• The PO is the domain expert in the Scrum team.
• The PO also interacts with stakeholders to understand their needs, and requests and creates product backlog items to serve them.
• The PO manages stakeholder communication and expectations.
• The PO makes decision on when to release the product.

The differences between the responsibilities of the Scrum Master and Product Owner

 

Here are a few differences in  responsibilities of  the PO and Scrum Master:

 

 

Differences between the role of Product Owner and Product Manager

 

Here are some differences between the PO and PM roles;  this will enable you to understand and segregate both the roles:

 

Product Owner	Product Manager
Technology Facing	Customer facing
Identifies Product Needs	Identifies Market Needs
Owns Implementation Process	Owns Product Roadmap
Manages the Dev Team and Works on Daily Scrum Tasks	Manages the Budget and Secures Funding for the Team

 

I would like to give you some points to ponder and if you are using Scrum, you will be able to answer these questions by yourself –

1. Who is responsible for project management activities in Scrum?
2. What happens to the project managers in the organization when Scrum is introduced?

I hope after reading this article, you now know  the role and responsibilities of the product owner. Happy learning.