The Product Manager is one person, not a committee. The Product Manager usually represents the needs of many business stakeholders and makes these transparent in the Program Backlog.
One person in this role results in clarity regarding priorities, the direction of the product, and what is of value to deliver Sprint to Sprint. When more than one person attempt to fulfil the role, delays in decision-making results, and confuses the team regarding what the priorities are.
Those wanting to change the Product Backlog can do so by engaging the Product Owner and helping the Product Owner understand the value and relative priority of what they need.
Product Owners aren’t expected to:
- Write all of the Product Backlog items. They are not the team’s “business analyst”.
Product Owners don’t necesarily come from the “business”:
- In many product environments, business stakeholders have a customer role instead of being part of Scrum teams.
- It takes a while for many organisations to move from a project management relationship with business to one where there is a shared, product management focus.