Scrum Product Owner

In Scrum, the Product Owner has the most responsible role of all. That role is also the hardest to fill in. With a wrong Product Master the Scrum introduction might be very hard and the process itself can feel either very difficult or even impossible.

The role of the Product Owner is to lead the development effort towards the project's success and maximize projects' effectiveness. He or she has several duties including conveying his or her vision to the team, outlining and prioritizing the work, and focusing and adjusting the actions to business value.

The Product Owner needs profound knowledge of which features add most value to the business case. If this is time saving, the Product Owner has to be aware that it is the priority and value it more than other product features. Simultaneously, the Product Owner has to always keep in mind the stakeholders interest and make sure that the product is developed within budget and by the deadline. He or she also needs to combine some domain knowledge with excellent interpersonal skills.

The Product Owner always has to be available to answer teams' questions and be ready to give advice.
Availability is one of the most discussed topics when this role is considered. Looking at the responsibilities, some of the Scrum experts say, that the Product Owner does not have to be available full-time. But it requires the product backlog to be in a good shape and priorities cannot change too often, so that Scrum teams do not have to update the product backlog without Product Owner supervision.

With their strong authority Product Owners usually tend to introduce managing to Scrum process but they have to respect Scrum values that include self-organization of the team together with self-managing and planning. Although they are responsible for the product development, they should not tell their people what to do after they planned everything at the sprint planning meeting. Product Owner cannot give his or her team more work during the sprint that is already running even if requirements change or competitive actions interrupt product development. All the new tasks can be introduced only at the next sprint planning meeting not to disorganize teams' work.

Pointing out the activities that will produce the most business value is the most important but also the most difficult role of the Product Owner. Sometimes it requires making hard decisions during the sprint planning that may not be appreciated by the Scrum teams. But this is the Product Owner who is responsible if the project fails. Therefore, the Product Owner has to clearly and objectively set the priorities of a product development and determine a timeline for its development. The role of the development team is to deliver their work to the Product Master, and his or her role is to deliver the product to the customer.