Product Owner

A Product Owner role came about from the Scrum agile methodology for project management. Product Owners are therefore found in all organisations who use an agile development approach. Product Owners are tactical in practise and work very closely with development and delivery teams to ensure they deliver on their vision. Product Owners will translate visions from an overarching product manager into detailed requirements whilst working very closely with various business stakeholders to ensure everything is clear. Product Owners sit within the first stage (planning) of the wider ‘software development life cycle’ as they are the very first port of call, the very people that have the vision to deliver a software project whatever that may be. This initial stage will include gathering data, visiting sites/relevant stakeholders, finding out pain points etc. They also have key input in the recruitment of the agile team that is to follow on once they have gathered their requirements, this includes but is not limited to, business analysts, software engineers (front end, back end and full stack), UX designers/consultants, test engineers (manual and automation). Having a good quality Product Owner can really streamline the whole process in the long term, so its important to deploy the right person to a position to ensure continuous success for your business.

The main responsibilities of a product owner are:

• Tactical thinking
• Articulate the product backlog items
• Order backlog items to achieve objectives
• Optimise the development teams work
• Ensure the backlog is clear and concise
• Guide the agile team on what to work on next