The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team. How this is done may vary widely across organisations, Scrum Teams, and individuals.
The Product Owner is also accountable for effective Product Backlog management, which includes:
The Product Owner may do the above work or may delegate the work to others. to do. Regardless, the Product Owner remains accountable.
For Product Owners to succeed, the entire organisation must respect their decisions. These decisions are visible in the content and ordering of the Product Backlog, and through the inspectable Increment at the Sprint Review.
Release Planning, producing roadmaps, understanding milestones and deadlines are part of the Product Owner’s day-to-day work.
The team is expected to be long-lived. This also means the team has a fixed operational cost per Sprint. With this cost, the Product Owner must determine how best to spend their money and what is of value to deliver Sprint to Sprint.
The Product Owner is one person, not a committee. The Product Owner may represent the needs of many stakeholders in the Product Backlog. One person in the 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:
Download the Product Owner Checklist (PDF) to print and use in your team design.
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