Ideally, there is one team or at most two teams per product owner.
Table 1 describes responsibilities of the product owner as they help the business and the team achieve their goals.
Table 1. Responsibilities and practices of the product owner
Responsibility Area |
What the Product Owner Does |
Integrating into the development team |
Being available to the team, colocating with the team as much as possible. Driving the team at a sustainable pace,
Walking the floor and look for issues / delays / improvement opportunities Serving as liaison with the business and business SMEs Participating in or observing team meetings
Helping the team to resolve or escalate impediments as appropriate, providing the team lead with status of impediments reported by the team. Protecting the team from distractions and outside influences, including loaner requests, multiple projects, and production support (where possible). |
Integrating the team into the broader value stream (or program) |
Acting as the designated communicator for the team to the value stream (or program) level, discussing with the product manager:
Assessing the business value of the team objectives. Attending planning events and the iteration demonstration and review events. |
Managing the team backlog |
Populating the backlog.
Prioritizing the backlog.
Maintaining and modifying the backlog.
Getting ready for the next iteration. |
Monitoring iteration execution |
Understanding and help setup visual controls. Reviewing information visibility charts. Reading the information visibility boards for signs of problems with the iteration for signs of failing agility. Remaining aware of whether the team’s other responsibilities (changes, internal projects, unplanned work) are reducing their ability to complete the committed backlog items. Note: Using a burn-up chart is recommended, because it shows changes in the team’s capacity (the top, “target” line on the chart) along with completed work. |
Assessing and accepting product |
Understanding the priorities of the product manager. Specifying acceptance criteria for each story in backlog. Accepting or rejecting backlog items at the iteration demonstration and review at the end of the iteration. Deciding with team about unfinished work. |
Working with release management |
Working with release management to release as appropriate. Writing stories required for release. |
Product Owner Overview
Practices
- Acceptance test-driven development
- Capturing functional requirements
- Controlling work-in-process (WIP)
- Daily coordination
- Decomposing a feature into stories
- Estimation
- Iteration demonstration and review
- Iteration demonstration and review (plan)
- Iteration planning meeting
- Iteration retrospective
- Operational metrics
- Unfinished work
- Visual controls