Scrum Product Owner – Agile project environment

The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing business value for the project. He is responsible for articulating customer requirements and maintaining business justification for the project. The Product Owner represents the voice of the – internal or external – customer. The Product Owner can and will delegate certain activities – like physically maintaining the Product Backlog – but in the end he remains responsible. Managing the Product Backlog The Product Owner is the only person allowed to manage the contents of the Product Backlog. This means he has to: – create, maintain and clearly describe the Product Backlog items – prioritize the items to best achieve objectives and mission – ensuring that the Scrum Team understands the items in the Product Backlog. Release Management The Product Owner is responsible for reaching the project goals. He creates and maintains the release plan and decides about deliveries, functionalities and therefore about the costs of a project. He manages the Scrum Team by creation and prioritization of appropriate Backlog items. Stakeholder Management External stakeholders should not communicate directly with the Scrum Team. Instead the Product Owner should collect and discuss required functionalities with the different Stakeholders (e.g. customer, marketing, service etc). These requirements are then combined and filtered before giving it to the team in the form of prioritized Product Backlog items. Work closely with the Scrum Team For a successful agile project it is important that the Product Owner and the Scrum Team work together very closely. He is responsible that everyone in the Team understands what is required. The Product Owner is also responsible for checking and accepting the Sprint results during the Sprint review sessions.