Agile Scrum Roles: What Is the Role of the Scrum Product Owner?

by Chris Daily

The Product Owner is the Scrum role that comes with the most accountability and responsibility.

While each member of the Scrum team is accountable for their work, it is the Product Owner who is the face of the group for all the other stakeholders. When a deadline moves, it's up to the Product Owner to tell the client. Was a feature missed or left behind? That's on the Product Owner, too.

Product Owners are typically the most senior position on Scrum teams, but they aren't a lone rider. Their relationships with the development team member, stakeholders, and the Scrum Master mean they have plenty of support to lean on.

Do you know what it means to be a Agile Product Owner? Keep reading for our complete guide to the Product Owner role.

What Is the Agile Product Owner?

The product owner serves as the vital link between the customer and the Scrum team. Their goal is to maximize the value of the product produced. Simply put, the Scrum master aims to make the process more efficient by coaching the agile framework, but the product owner focuses on delivering value in the form of software products.

The product owner role requires only one person's time and skills. It's not suitable for splitting between several people or assigning to a business team or committee.

Instead, the person occupying the role should have a firm grasp of the business team's objectives not only within the business itself but the:

• Market

• Competitors

• Customer needs

• Digital trends

With that grasp, they also communicate with all relevant stakeholders to gather the requirements for completing the product and for discovering the product.

Is the Product Owner a Leader?

The product owner is a leader in a way that differs from the Scrum Master. They keep the cross-functional team on the path that leads them to the customer and the customer's ideal product.

Overall, the product owner leads by:

• Acting as the voice of the customer

• Taking ownership of value

• Gathering feedback

• Making decisions based on multiple stakeholders

Product owners also take care of several responsibilities that help them lead.

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Product Owner Responsibilities

If you step into the role of Product Owner, you'll find yourself with no end of responsibilities.

Vision

As a product owner, your first responsibility demands a definition of the vision of the product. As the point person within the agile product development team, the product development team depends on the product owner to define the goals and create a general image for the product.

Your vision includes stakeholder input and development goals with the ultimate task of aligning the business objectives on both sides to create a cohesive product. A strategic visual summary, such as a roadmap or a user story map, are great ways to communicate visually.

Overseeing the Product Backlog

Unlike Scrum Masters, the Scrum Product Owner dives into the details. While the Product Owner doesn't necessarily complete work on the sprint, they do participate in stories.

The product backlog functions as a to-do list, and we'll explain its functions in depth later in the Product Owner Tools section.

Setting Priorities

One of the ways a Product Owner leads is through prioritizing the needs of the scrum development team. In most cases, you weigh priorities according to budget, time, and scope of the project. The priorities need to meet the list of requirements for both the stakeholders and the development teams, which requires leveraging your position as a go-between.

Anticipating Needs

What does the client need? How will you anticipate it?

Expect to use your product and client insight to keep tabs on a customer's developing needs to address them in a timely fashion.

Oversight

While Scrum Product Owners don't get their hands dirty, they do check in on the development priorities as they unfold. You'll participate as an overseer in each stage from planning to sprint.

You'll then use your oversight to act as a liaison between both the development team and business teams and evaluate the progress at the end of each spring. Remember that the development process is a concern for Scrum Masters - not the product owner.

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Product Owner Tools: The Product Backlog

As a Scrum Product Owner, you deal with so many moving parts that it feels more akin to juggling with your hair on fire. While Agile processes make the role simpler compared to traditional project management roles, the addition of product owner tools simplifies and streamlines the software development process even further.

One of the product owner's primary responsibilities lies in managing the product backlog while delivering the maximum value possible.

The product backlog is the list of prioritized features in the product generated over multiple springs. A Scrum Product Owner create the backlog in the first spring by writing down everything that comes to mind for prioritization. The backlog then becomes the goal post for the first sprint.

A product backlog is flexible because it grows and changes over various sprints as the Scrum team learns.

Product backlogs typically feature four different items:

• Features

• Technical work

• Bugs

• Knowledge acquisition

A Scrum Product Owner uses the product backlog as the chief way of communicating the product vision to the development team. It's also the tool by which the value of the cross-functional team's work grows, and the product owner accomplishes their final goal of maximizing the end of the product.

How does that happen?

One of the key responsibilities of the Scrum Product Owner is to determine what goes into the product backlog and each item's priority. They then follow the list of responsibilities discussed earlier to oversee each iteration in the development process and keep the client or customer up-to-date.

With a product backlog in place, it's easy to see precisely where the agile team is and how far they have to go.

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Working Together: The Product Owner Meets the Scrum Master

A great Scrum Product Owner doesn't stand alone. They stand next to an equally competent Scrum Master.

The Scrum Master is one of the Product Owner's greatest tools. While the two roles overlap in some ways, the Product Owner usually wields more authority, but the Scrum Master serves with more leadership skills.

The two can meet in the middle to work together to improve the team. Some of the ways they can combine their shared skills include:

• Improving communication

• Boosting team morale

• Clarifying and communicating the product vision

• Creating and facilitating productive meetings

• Working with other agile teams

While each of these is important, it's a process called backlog grooming where the partnership between the Scrum Product Owner and Scrum Master leads to effective product backlog management.

You'll remember that the product backlog contains the complete set of user stories for the remainder of the project.

Backlog grooming is a format for product refinement. It's a review process that confirms the backlog features items that are appropriate both in nature and in priority.

By grooming the product backlog, you prevent the list from growing uncontrollably and overwhelming the team. Allowing the backlog to morph into an untamable beast confuses the status and priority of tasks. It also skews the project timeline.

Merely failing to maintain your product backlog might extend your project completion date. As the Product Owner, you're responsible for explaining the unplanned and entirely avoidable change to the client.

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Avoiding Common Product Owner Mistakes

Like everyone else, a new Product Owner or a team switching to Agile might make mistakes. The sheer number of moving parts mandate a fine-tuned balance from the product owner, and it is this balance that is the most common mistake someone in this role makes.

As you work towards this balance, consider these mistakes to avoid winding up in a skewed version of your role.

Lacking in Management Skills

Do you have the management skills to win the endorsement of stakeholders?

A Product Owner without the full trust of the stakeholders including the team members is the equivalent of towing a steam engine with a 150cc scooter. You don't have the power to do an adequate job at aligning all the stakeholders to create a cohesive vision.

Becoming Too Invested

Your role is responsible for the results, and it permits you some oversight abilities. But are you taking every story personally and micromanaging a team?

Investing too much of yourself in the project leaves you stranded in the quagmire of details unable to climb out. Avoid micromanaging and instead focus on prioritization to allay any fears.

Working Too Distantly

A Product Owner has no business acting as a micromanager, but an approach that creates too much distance also does you no favors.

Distance comes on a scale, and while Product Owners don't need to move in with their team members, they need face time. To garner trust, promote clear communication, and encourage progress are some things that can only be inspired with some face time in combination with good communication skills.

Plan to be on site for the sprint planning and review at a minimum.

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Strike a Balance to Become the Best Product Owner

The Product Owner role is the most complex one, and it's no surprise that the person in this role is one of the most senior positions in Scrum.

Do you want to refine your product owner skills? Are you looking for a product owner certification? Refocus your transition to Agile with one of our upcoming Agile Product Owner Training Course.  It will change your career trajectory.  Click here to learn more.

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