The Product Owner: There can be only One

If you’re not living under a rock, then you have heard of Agile, and you have heard of Scrum. But if you’re new to any of this, then you might want to better understand what a Product Owner is and what s/he is responsible for.

One person, not a committee!

A Product Owner is a single person who is responsible for a Product. If the Product is a large product and there are multiple teams supporting it, the Product Owner (PO) may have a group of others supporting them in their position. The PO may also represent a group of stakeholders or a product committee.

Both a member of AND the key role on an agile Scrum Team

The Product Owner is part of the Scrum Team. While a member of the team, this person is also the KEY role on the team. The success of the product will largely be driven by this role (now called an “accountability“).

The key Visionary for the Product

The Product Owner is responsible for creating and communicating his or her vision for the Product. The vision should be regularly revisited and revised as products are released to market and feedback is received.

The mini-CEO of the product

Think of the Product as a company, and the Product Owner is its CEO. The CEO is responsible for driving the product forward, driving out value and return on investment, listening to the voice of the customer, and making important decisions such as when to release.

The keeper of the Product Backlog

The Product Owner is responsible for populating and maintaining a robust Product Backlog for as long as the product exists. As part of that, he or she should be continually evaluating and ordering the backlog to recognize the highest value items, to ensure that the right things are being developed. Think of this role as the “Value Maximizer”.

The Decision Maker for releasing

The Product Owner is also responsible to decide when to release a product to market. It may be the minimum viable product to start with, to start getting feedback, or if your product is already released, it may be minimal marketable features. The Product Owner may choose to continuously release as items are completed, may save up a set of features until he or she believes that the overhead cost of releasing is justified, or it may be based on a timeline, such as monthly or quarterly.

Authorized to make decisions

The Product Owner is empowered to make decisions related to the Product, and those decisions should be respected by everyone in the organization. If a poor decision is made for some reason, it can be easily corrected or addressed very quickly. This isn’t even necessarily a failure, but a learning opportunity to make improvements.

The Voice of the Customer

The Product Owner listens to and represents the voice of the customer. Whether the customers are internal or external, the PO should be seeking to understand the customer’s goals, journey, feelings, wants, and needs. Everything that the PO does should take this into account when ordering the product backlog to achieve the highest value. Value can be recognized not just as revenue but could also include other measures such as customer sentiment or satisfaction.

A Servant Leader who partners with the Scrum Team

The Product Owner should also be a servant leader. While this may seem to contradict being CEO of the product, it really doesn’t. Effective CEOs fill their executive team with people smarter than they are. Similarly, the PO relies on the team to deliver on the product vision. The attributes listed below are just a few qualities that a good PO should possess: