In Scrum, Product Owners play a crucial role in the progress, value, and triumph of a product. Their accountabilities are significant, impacting all stages of the product's lifecycle. In this short blog post, I'll list the Product Owner's primary accountabilities.
If you are interested in a deep-dive coverage of the topic, just like or comment on the post. That way I will know what posts to expand on (empirical approach :-) )
Let me define "accountabilities" before we start: Accountabilities, in this context, refer to duties which are owned by the Product Owner (PO). Such ownership cannot be delegated, although someone else might carry out the activity, the PO will still remain "accountable".
1. Owning the Product Vision
It is the product owner's responsibility to establish and communicate the product vision (and product goal) to both stakeholders as well as her Scrum team(s). This entails understanding the market, discovering customer needs, and thereby establishing the "True North" for the product.
2. Engaging with Stakeholders
Product owners serve as the primary link between customers, business stakeholders, and the product organisation (Scrum team(s)). They work with them on an ongoing basis to discover what they need (and why), collect feedback, manage expectations, relay updates, and ensure that all parties are in sync regarding the product vision, objectives, and priorities.
3. Owning the Product Backlog
A fundamental part of a product owner's role is to manage the product backlog, by ensuring that:
the product backlog exists and is transparently available internally and externally
it captures the needs of customers and stakeholders
it focuses on achieving the overarching objective, the Product Vision/Goal
its PBIs (Product Backlog Items) are ordered (arranged) by the value they will each deliver
she understands each PBI (what and why we invest in) and is able to explain that to the rest of the Scrum team
Performing the above will require collaborating closely with stakeholders as well as the Scrum team to fully understand and define requirements, dependencies, and customer and business value to ensure that the most valuable items of work are prioritized for development.
4. Maximising the Value
Product Owners are accountable for maximising the value of the product. As such they are the ones who should be able and empowered to decide where investments are made next (i.e. priorities). Product Owners are consistently looking for ways to better understand the customers and the market, gather feedback, scrutinize metrics, and refine product backlog, get input from the team, so they can uphold the product's competitiveness and enhance customer and business value.
5. Being a Team Member
Product Ownership is not a traditional management role (that is why it is called product owner and not product manager). As a PO you are simply a member of the Scrum team at the same hierarchical level and should be working with the rest of the team continuously and on a daily basis.
6. Applying an Empirical Approach
In the context of Scrum, Empirical means planning and adjusting product development based on real-world data and feedback, ensuring that the product evolves in response to actual user needs and market conditions. In complex product environments, Product Owners need to be able to take an empirical approach to product discovery, development and delivery. This is non-negotiable for a PO role.
In summary, the role of a product owner is multifaceted and challenging, and in my view the most impactful role in Scrum. By effectively managing the product vision, backlog, stakeholders, decision-making, work outcomes, and continuous enhancement, product owners can steer the success of a product and contribute to the overall advancement of the organization's agility.
Let me know in comments what you think of Product Owner's role. What is missing from my list from your perspective?
This was a nano blog post. Need an extended post to learn more about the topic? Leave a comment or like the post.
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