Agile Product Owner Roles and Responsibilities

1. Product Owner Team Functions

1.1. Client-Side Function

1.1.1. Groom (backlog grooming)

1.1.1.1. Gathers requirements from business clients

1.1.1.2. Responsible for the continuously evolving of the product backlog

1.1.1.3. Needs to interact with costumers in order to gather the requirements

1.1.2. Prioritiser (requirements prioritisation)

1.1.2.1. Responsible for prioritising requirements in the product or sprint backlogs

1.1.2.2. Ensures that requirements bring value to the business

1.1.2.3. Has the responsibility to identify and reconcile the needs of the different parts of the client organisation

1.1.3. Communicator

1.1.3.1. Connects onshore and offshore geographical distribution

1.1.3.1.1. Internet connectivity

1.1.3.1.2. Video conferences

1.1.4. Traveller

1.1.4.1. Spends time onshore at client sites, gathering first-hand knowledge of a client’s needs

1.1.4.1.1. Onshore members of product owner teams communicate with clients

1.1.4.1.2. Off-shore members for disseminating information to development teams

1.1.4.1.3. Product owners act as a bridge between the onshore and offshore divisions

1.1.5. Intermediary

1.1.5.1. Acts as an interface with senior executives, driving large scale offshore enterprise software development programmes, and disseminating domain knowledge to teams

1.1.5.1.1. Product owner is supplemented by an intermediary from within the development team

1.1.5.1.2. Need to have extensive experience of the system business domain

1.2. Production-Side Function

1.2.1. Risk Assessor

1.2.1.1. Evaluates technical complexity

1.2.1.1.1. Risk management in order to assess technical complexity and potential shortcomings in the development teams’ skills and capabilities

1.2.2. Governor

1.2.2.1. Ensures project compliance with corporate guidelines and policies

1.2.2.1.1. Provides a technical governance framework to project teams working on a development programme

1.2.2.1.2. Ensures the selection of common tools and technologies for the project

1.2.2.1.3. Must be aware of corporate governance policies and strategic directions

1.2.3. Technical Architect

1.2.3.1. Coordination of the technical and architectural policies between the scrum teams

1.2.3.1.1. Sufficient documentation

1.2.3.1.2. Illustrative source code to ensure project teams can understand and follow the guidelines

1.2.3.1.3. Architectural coordination is achieved by using reference architectures to guide and support self-organising scrum teams

1.2.4. Release Master (release planning)

1.2.4.1. Manages and approves release plans

2. What is an Agile Product Owner?

2.1. A member of a scrum team.

2.1.1. A scrum team consists of 3 roles

2.1.1.1. Product Owner

2.1.1.2. Team Member

2.1.1.3. Scrum Master

2.2. A single person, representative of all stakeholders for the project.

2.2.1. Provides guidance and support to everyone envolved with the development

2.2.2. Must have communication skills and be good in negotiations

3. What is Agile?

3.1. A general concept used for different methods for software project management and development

4. The Agile Product Owner Is Responsible for...

4.1. Decision making

4.1.1. On what should not be prioritised, and take the consequences of that decision

4.2. The success or failure of the project

4.3. The financing of the project

4.4. The requirements and objectives of the project

4.5. Maximising the output of the team

4.6. Finding a balance between the different properties of the product

4.7. Maintaining and prioritising the so-called product backlog

4.7.1. A Product Backlog is an ordered list of everything that is known to be needed in the product

4.7.2. The backlog must be under constant care and scrutiny