The product owner serves as the liaison between the stakeholders and the Scrum team. They collaborate with stakeholders to articulate their requirements into a vision, and then steer the team towards delivering a functional product based on that vision.
Product Owner’s Responsibilities
The Product Owner organizes and manages the workflow through the Scrum team.
- Translating stakeholder needs into a product vision
- Creating a product roadmap to align the vision with business objectives
- Defining, prioritizing, and clarifying requirements to meet stakeholder needs with measurable results
- Creating and managing the product backlog with detailed descriptions
- Collaborating with developers to refine backlog items
- Participating in Scrum Events
- Continuously communicating with stakeholders for feedback
- Tracking progress against project objectives
- Identifying risks and taking corrective action before negatively impacting the timeline and budget
- Ensuring that the working product aligns with success criteria.
Product Owner’s Role in Scrum Events
Before the Sprint Planning meeting, the Product Owner must ensure that features have been decomposed into user stories and all dependencies have been resolved. User stories should contain thorough acceptance criteria, use cases, and pertinent supporting documentation such as mocks, diagrams, and wireframes required for the testing phase. A significant portion of this work can be addressed during the Backlog Refinement meeting.
In the Sprint Planning meeting, the Product Owner collaborates with the development team (developers, designers, and testers) to ensure their understanding of the vision and achievable Sprint Goal. Emphasizing the most valuable items, the PO communicates the Product Backlog Items that must be built within the current sprint. Additionally, they work closely with developers to agree on realistic expectations regarding timelines and deliverables. In this session, developers estimate overall effort and break down requirements into smaller tasks.
As the Product Owner is responsible for setting the direction and goal of the Sprint, their presence at the Daily Scrum may or may not be necessary. This meeting primarily intends for developers to collaborate, plan daily tasks, and assess progress. It is not meant for solving problems. Nevertheless, the PO can attend as an active listener to better understand technical aspects or receive developer feedback. If there are any task-related queries from the development team, the Product Owner can address them after the Daily Scrum.
In the Sprint Review meeting, the Product Owner invites stakeholders and developers to inspect the increment and adapt the Product Backlog. After the Sprint Review, the PO ensures that all requirements in the user stories meet the ‘Definition of Done’ by participating in test case reviews. Once all requirements comply with the objective, product demos are showcased to stakeholders for feedback or approval.
During the Sprint Retrospective, the Product Owner can offer constructive feedback on the value delivered by the team while also having a open and honest discussion about any issues that arise during the sprint. It is the Product Owner’s responsibility to address or clarify any concerns raised by the team that may impact the next iteration.
Backlog Refinement: Ongoing Activity
The Backlog Refinement meeting, also known as Backlog Grooming, involves the Product Owner discussing future sprint goals and the associated PBIs (Product Backlog Items). Taking into account the knowledge and recommendations from the development team, the PO proceeds to draft acceptance criteria, identify any technical dependencies between the PBIs, and reprioritize. Some teams integrate Backlog Refinement with Story Estimation for story pointing using Planning Poker. Most of the requirement clarification occurs during Backlog Refinement, which is an ongoing activity throughout the sprint.
