Responsibilities of the Product Owner in Scrum Processes

Posted by SCRUMstudy^® on February 13, 2023

Categories: Agile SBOK® Guide Scrum Scrum Master Sprint Backlog

The Product Owner represents the interests of the business stakeholder community to the Scrum Team. The Product Owner is responsible for ensuring clear communication of product or service functionality requirements to the Scrum Team, defining Acceptance Criteria, and ensuring those criteria are met.

In other words, the Product Owner is responsible for ensuring that the Scrum Team delivers value. The Product Owner must always maintain a dual view. He or she must understand and support the needs and interests of all business stakeholders, while also understanding the needs and workings of the Scrum Team. The Product Owner must understand the needs and priorities of the business stakeholders, including customers and users.

Responsibilities of the Product Owner in Scrum Processes

Process	Product Owner Responsibilities
Create Project Vision	Defines the Project Vision Helps create the Project Charter and Project Budget
Identify Scrum Master and Stakeholder(s)	Helps finalize Scrum Master for the project Identifies Business Stakeholder(s)
Form Scrum Team	Helps determine Scrum Team members Helps develop a Collaboration Plan Helps develop the Team Building Plan with Scrum Master(s)
Develop Epic(s)	Creates Epic(s) and Personas
Create Prioritized Product Backlog	Prioritizes Prioritized Product Backlog Items Defines Done Criteria
Conduct Release Planning	Creates Release Planning Schedule Helps determine Length of Sprint
Create User Stories	Helps create User Stories Defines Acceptance Criteria for every User Story
Estimate User Stories	Clarifies User Stories
Commit User Stories	Facilitates Scrum Team and commit User Stories
Identify Tasks	Explains User Stories to the Scrum Team while creating the Task List
Estimate Tasks	Provides guidance and clarification to the Scrum Team in estimating effort for tasks
Create Sprint Backlog	Clarifies requirements to the Scrum Team while creating the Sprint Backlog
Create Deliverables	Clarifies business requirements to the Scrum Team
Refine Prioritized Product Backlog	Refines the Prioritized Product Backlog
Demonstrate and Validate Sprints	Accepts/Rejects Deliverables Provides necessary feedback to Scrum Master and Scrum Teams Updates Release Plan and Prioritized Product Backlog
Ship Deliverables	Helps deploy Product Releases and coordinates this with the customer
Retrospect Project	Participates in Retrospective Sprint Meetings

Some other important responsibilities of a Product Owner are:

Determining the project’s initial overall requirements and kicking off project activities; this may involve interaction with the Program Product Owner and the Portfolio Product Owner to ensure that the project aligns with direction provided by senior management.
Representing user(s) of the product or service with a thorough understanding of the user community
Securing the initial and ongoing financial resources for the project.
Focusing on value creation and overall Return on Investment (ROI).
Assessing the viability and ensuring the delivery of the product or service.

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Responsibilities of the Product Owner in Scrum Processes