Key 5 - Product Owner: Michigan Agile Philosophy (MAP) Project Key

5.  Product Owner

Product Owner is another role rather than a title.  Someone takes on the role of Product Owner for the life of the project.  They are usually one of the more important stakeholders who understands what users want now and typically they have an idea or roadmap of expected trends.

The Product Owner should have a very good idea of what they want to build.  They are often more slanted on the business side because they are expected to understand users, competition, the domain, and how the environment may adapt over time.  The Product Owner (PO) should be available to the team as much as possible, but minimally they should be able to check in with the team at least weekly.  They should be strong communicators as they will be the chief translator of requirements to the team.  Good POs ensure that the other stakeholders remain informed about the status and goals of the project. 

The PO prioritizes project features putting the most important items in stack ranked order.

Occasionally the team may bring up that there are dependencies on the work that needs to be done.  The team works with the PO to reprioritize based on these dependencies.  The team will then either commit to a certain amount of work for each iteration (Scrum) or they will commit to minimizing Work in Process (WIP) and try to maximize flow through the system.

As stated by Mike Cohn,  

“The Scrum product owner's job is to motivate the team with a clear, elevating goal. Team members know best what they are capable of, and so they select which user stories from the top of the product backlog they can commit to delivering during any sprint.

In return for the Scrum team's commitment to completing the selected user stories from the top of the product backlog, the product owner makes a reciprocal commitment to not throw new requirements at the team during the sprint. Requirements are allowed to change (and change is encouraged) but only outside the sprint. Once the team starts on a sprint, it remains maniacally focused on the goal of that sprint.”

Some companies have their Product Owners go through training before they can start their role.  The best description I have seen is in the 15 minute video by Henrik Kniberg.  You can watch or share it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502ILHjX9EE