Simply put, an Agile product owner is a role in a Scrum team that is responsible for the project’s final outcome. But what does this role look like? Keep reading!
What are the responsibilities of a product owner?
The main responsibility of the product owner is to participate in Scrum events and ensure the final product meets its goals. In order to do so, the product owner manages and optimizes the product backlog, and works with product metrics, refinement, roadmap, and product review. All of these responsibilities aim to maximize the product’s value.
Product owner’s role in the team
While the Agile product owner indeed works in the Agile framework, he or she is not required to have experience with it. Especially in many cases, product owners come from the client’s side. However, as they take over the course of product development, they should be able to take different stances:
- Visionary – shaping the product’s vision and goals;
- Collaborator – explaining the product vision to different stakeholders;
- Customer representative – focusing on customer’s needs and pains;
- Decision maker – deciding what goes in or out of the product backlog;
- Influencer – convincing different stakeholders when needed;
- Experimenter – verifying various assumptions and hypotheses.
The takeaway
For the product to succeed, the product owner should be able not only to manage product backlog but also to wear many hats and take different stances. This is why this role is make-or-break in product development.
