Capability Building · EST. 2011 · APAC

Business decisions were queuing outside the delivery team. Embedded inside, velocity improved immediately.

The Situation

The Enterprise Solutions and Technology group within the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) had spent four years embedding agile practices across its delivery portfolio — adapting the Scaled Agile Framework for a large enterprise context. The Product Owner role had initially been filled by system analysts embedded in agile teams. A major program branch had observed stronger outcomes in areas where business people occupied the role directly, and engaged ZXM to design and embed a structured transition program to move business stakeholders into Product Ownership across its teams.

The rationale was clear. Having business people co-located with delivery teams — owning the backlog, answering questions in real time, and representing users’ needs directly — reduces the latency that accumulates when Product Ownership sits one handover away from the team. The branch wanted to capture that advantage at scale, which required not just a structural shift but a deliberate capability investment in the people making the transition.

What the diagnostic found

Before the transition model was designed, ZXM mapped the existing Product Owner operating context: how decisions were being made, where backlog priorities were originating, and where information handover gaps were producing rework in the teams. The diagnostic identified a consistent pattern. Business knowledge was reaching delivery teams late — after designs were already underway — because the people holding that knowledge were not embedded in the work. When questions arose, teams waited. When priorities shifted, the signal was slow. The structural cause was a separation between business context and delivery accountability that the existing analyst-led PO model had not resolved.

ZXM designed a structured transition program to close that gap. Business stakeholders would be embedded directly in the agile teams, holding the Product Owner role with full accountability for the backlog and the team’s direction. The transition required both role clarity and capability — and the program was built to deliver both simultaneously.

What changed

ZXM worked with the incoming Product Owners across a structured three-month engagement. Each business stakeholder completed a focused Product Ownership capability program covering backlog management, business prioritisation, and how to translate user needs into delivery-ready requirements within the ATO’s scaled agile context. ZXM coaches then provided weekly one-on-one sessions with each PO to work through real backlog decisions, resolve questions about the role, and build confidence in the day-to-day practice of Product Ownership. Coaches also worked alongside program leadership to monitor progress and surface systemic barriers early.

The structural shift was the critical change. Business people moved from being consulted to being accountable — present in the team, available to the team, and empowered to make prioritisation decisions without escalation. The information latency that had accumulated through handovers was removed at the source.

What held

Within three months, business stakeholders were operating as accountable Product Owners — embedded, present, and making prioritisation decisions without escalation. Backlog questions that had previously stalled teams for days were being resolved within the working day, because the person with the answer was sitting with the team. Rework from late-arriving business context dropped measurably as the gap between business knowledge and delivery accountability closed at the source. The ATO adopted the model as the preferred approach for the remainder of the programme and flagged it for broader rollout across other programmes. The capability transferred to the people. It did not leave with the engagement.