Our Marta Cooper Project Scrum Product Owner answers frequently asked questions about the Product Owner role in the Scrum team.

What are the most important responsibilities of a Product Owner role?

• Maintain product vision, distribution, price, markets
• Ongoing communication with stakeholders
• Creating and maintaining Backlog, User stories
• Prioritizing Backlog Product Items
• Release Management - Define the phases and timelines for a new release
• Track work progress, time and budget

Who is the leader at Scrum?

There is no hierarchy in Scrum and therefore no leader. There are 3 major roles within the Scrum team: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Development Team, and each has respective responsibilities.

What does the value of the work done mean?

The work done value means the work done on tasks that are of the utmost importance to the product because if it is not prioritized well, the team can work on tasks that are irrelevant and fail to deliver the product in time.

What is User Story?

This is an informal and concise definition of any user's needs. Describes a user who does not need any functionality to satisfy their need. There are certain standards for user stories - As a role, I need the capability, so that I can receive a benefit. It is important that each user story is self-contained, does not overlap with another, can be easily tested, analyzed and adapted and can be completed within a single sprint.

Why might User Story not mean a task for team members?

Because the Product Backlog may be full of user stories that are not essential to the value of the product. It is likely that they were just ideas or shared thoughts out loud that have no added value.

What possible initial startup can the Product Owner role and stakeholder fulfill, and why?

The Product Owner and the stakeholders, before launching each product, come together to produce product vision. The product vision is information about the whole concept of the product - what the target group is, how it will be manufactured, what needs will be met, which markets will be launched, distribution, pricing and what are the important metrics. The product vision is important for creating a Product Backlog and setting goals.

What are the responsibilities of the Product Manager role at Scrum?

There is no product manager in the Scrum team.

What are the important knowledge and qualities of the Product Ounce Role?

The official Scrum Guide does not specify the specific knowledge and skills that a product needs to possess, but it is good that it has the technical knowledge, knowledge of the product market, competition, consumers

What is the difference between the value for the users of a product and the value of the product from the perspective of its owners?

The value of one product is different for each of the stakeholders. For example, the value for the stakeholder from launching a new product on the market would be the profit they would accrue, the lifting of market shares, the advertising of the company. While for consumers, the value of the new product is measured in meeting their needs.

How often should the Product Owner role guide the Development Team as to how they should do the job?

The Product Owner does not guide the development team on how to get the job done. They are a self-organized team that can decide for themselves how to work.

What does job prioritization mean?

There are many product items and user stories in the Product Backlog, but not all of them are of equal importance to the product, and some of them are even unnecessary because they are just ideas of which are the most important, which are secondary and which are superfluous. And the development team can decide how many of them can perform during a sprint.

Why should the Product Owner role prioritize work?

Because when we have already completed a large part of user stories, the client may decide that the result satisfies him and terminate the project. In this way, prioritizing tasks and work, we accomplished the task of creating a working product without completing all the backlog product items in the list by the end.

Why can stakeholders stop working on the product, given that the product is not ready for the planned work yet?

As I mentioned above, this is possible if they are already satisfied with the work done and the product that is created.