The Core Role And Responsibilities Of A Product Owner In Scrum

The primary role of the product owner in scrum is to actually “own” the product and function as a “decision maker” on behalf of the stakeholders and project owners. The PO is employed by the stakeholders to represent their interests while implementing scrum framework in their projects. Contrary to what most people new to scrum believe, a product owner can ‘own” a product, but is not necessarily its “owner,” in most cases.

The core job of the product owner, or rather the main responsibilities, are:

• Plan the product release and work out how to “make” the product through consistent product increment
• Ensure that the sprints are successfully completed during the project
• Shippable and “bug free” products are delivered at the end of sprints
• Ensure that the project is successfully completed

The product owner’s job is a difficult one, and a full-time one.   

 

The product owner as the core determinant of a successfully completed scrum project

It is essential to deliver the product value at all times. The scrum “mechanism” requires efficient, reliable, and accurate methods, which can help to support the product vision as envisioned by the stakeholders, and create an effective pipeline having the capability to distil the product vision into shippable, concrete, and deliverable user stories that can successfully demonstrate the tangible benefits of the product. It is the primary reason why the role of a product owner is a very important one while implementing scrum.

While the product owner participates in most scrum rituals, his or her main function, parallel to that of the scrum master, is to act as a facilitator for the entire team, and be available to the team when problems and issues arise. 

The main tasks of a product owner are:

• Envisioning the product and facilitating its development
• Creating an iterative or sprint release strategy which can incorporate the changing market conditions and product requirements
• Distilling the high-level product related requirements into developable and deliverable user stories linked with acceptance criteria
• Prioritizing the product backlog
• Communicating difficult and complex system architecture issues to the clients
• Negotiating all client-sided disputes and concerns associated with the product design, development, and user story priorities

 

Responsibilities of a product owner

The PO is mainly responsible for:

• Representing the interests of, and acting as the voice of stakeholders and customers
• Understanding project profitability and delivering high ROI
• Managing and communicating with the stakeholders
• Promoting collaboration amongst the team members
• Undertaking on-the-spot tactical decisions and ensuring that the product development cycle is not affected
• Participating in the release meetings and planning
• Writing effective user stories
• Maintaining and updating the product backlog
• Helping the team in estimating the development time for each scrum scenario
• Participating in the sprint review meetings, accepting the user stories as “Done”, and providing effectual feedback
• Monitoring the project progress and suggesting constant adjustments based upon important strategic objectives

Find out more, and subscribe to the permanently free "limited users" QuickScrum tool which can help you in implementing scrum framework in your projects!