What is a Product Owner?

Product Owner: definition and role

The Product Owner (PO) is one of the three accountabilities in the Scrum framework, alongside the Scrum Master and the developers. The PO is responsible for the product from a business perspective: what should it achieve, for whom, and in what order are the functions built? According to the Scrum Guide, the PO is one person, not a committee, so that one voice decides bindingly.

The PO formulates the product goal, maintains the product backlog as the prioritized list of all requirements, explains the background to the team and reviews the results. How the team solves something technically is not for the PO to say; the development team decides that itself. The PO is thus the contact for all business questions without dictating how the team works.

Tasks in daily work

In daily work, the PO prioritizes by value, effort and risk, coordinates with management, business departments and users and is available to the team for questions. In the demo at the end of a cycle, the PO checks whether the result meets expectations and adjusts the priorities.

Decision-making authority matters: if the PO has to ask management about every question, that slows the whole team down. Time matters just as much, because depending on the project, the role takes up a considerable part of the working week. Especially in smaller companies, this effort is often underestimated.

• Formulate the product goal and vision
• Maintain the backlog and prioritize by value
• Prepare requirements as user stories with acceptance criteria
• Answer the team’s questions promptly
• Review results and collect user feedback
• Coordinate with management and business departments

Real-world example: a wholesaler’s customer portal

A wholesaler has a customer portal developed. The managing director appoints the head of sales as Product Owner because he knows the customers’ concerns, and gives him decision-making authority and a fixed time allowance. He collects requests from field and inside sales and sets the order.

When sales and accounting each want different functions first, he decides by value: first comes access to open invoices, which saves many inquiries. The decision takes hours instead of weeks, and the team can keep working without interruption. The other departments know why their requests come later.

Common mistakes and imple­menta­tion

Common mistakes: the PO is appointed only on paper and has no time, several people give contradictory instructions, management intervenes without consultation, or the PO administers wishes instead of setting priorities. Even with an external development partner, the client side needs a fixed contact person in this role, even if Scrum is not applied strictly.

Nano Concepts explains what the role contributes to the project and helps build a prioritized backlog, so that your specialists spend their time where it brings the greatest benefit. Especially when several departments contribute requirements, a clear decision-maker brings calm to the project.