Product Owner — a 3-min overview
Welcome to Scrum Sutra — a series where I shall share a 3-min overview of each element of Scrum and how it connects with the other elements in the bead to form Scrum Sutra.
Product Owner is one of the accountabilities of Scrum Team. The others being Scrum Master and Developers. Product Owner is a single person who has an ultimate accountability to maximize the value of the product.
The Product Owner crafts the Product Goal and ensures everyone in the organization understands it. And she is courageous to change it, should she realize that the Goal is no longer valuable, or some other Goal is more valuable. In fact, she is the only person accountable to cancel the Sprint, should the Sprint Goal become obsolete. And the entire organization should respect this ownership.
The Product Owner honors this ownership by making transparent all the decisions being made and which reflects in the Product Backlog –
o By being open to ideas from stakeholders,
o By keeping the Product Backlog ordered based on what maximizes the value of the product,
o By discussing, and not deciding, on what work the Scrum Team does and,
o And being courage to validate assumptions of value through frequent releases.
While she welcomes inputs from various stakeholders, she demonstrates courage to say “No” to work that does not maximize value and does not just meet expectations. And that includes not accepting any work which does not meet DoD.
The Product Owner uses Scrum’s empirical product planning approach.
o In an ongoing Product Backlog refinement activity, where appropriate details are added and work items are broken down into smaller and more precise items.
o In Daily Scrum, the Product Owner respects the Developer’s self-management and can be an observer but do not participate in the event.
o In Sprint Planning, the Product Owner presents the ordered and transparent Product Backlog aligned to the Product Goal, collaborates to form the Sprint Goal and discusses with the Developers so the later can select Product Backlog items into the current Sprint.
o In Sprint Review, the Product Owner presents the Product Backlog evolutions against the long-term Product Goal and adjusts the Product Backlog to include new opportunities.
o In Sprint Retrospective, the Product Owner participates as a Scrum Team member where together they inspect how they can improve quality and effectiveness.
A long list, isn’t it? The PO may delegate some of these responsibility to others but she remains accountable for it to happen.
That’s a 3-min overview on Product Owner. To stay tuned to the next in the Scrum Sutra series.
