Sheila's Blog

The Product Owner is the member of the team that represents the customer or project stakeholders and has a number of responsibilities.

Product Vision – the Product Owner should write the Product Vision to describe the goals of the project so that everyone is clear on what the team is aiming to achieve.

Product Backlog – the product owner maintains the prioritised list of requirements or user stories.  They’re responsible only for keeping it up to date and can get help and input from anyone they like.  It’s important that the backlog is regularly updated so that changing requirements and priorities can be taken into account for each sprint.  This is how the Product Owner steers the team towards the desired goal.

Release schedule – this is owned by the Product Owner who uses the artifacts generated during each sprint to estimate and keep track of whether a project will meet deadlines.  It’s the Product Owner that monitors for problems with meeting a deadline.  As a project progresses, the amount of business value delivered in each iteration tends to decrease.  The Product Owner watches for the point when the value to be delivered is no longer worth the development effort to be expended.

Finally, it’s very important that the Product Owner be available to answer any questions from the rest of the team and to provide feedback both in daily meetings and reviews.  The Product Owner also helps set acceptance criteria for user stories.  It’s a vital role within the scrum team.

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