Product Owner

Product owner is a role in Agile development responsible for create the User Stories of a project and prioritize the backlog. It is also responsible to validate the outcome of the development process, to confirm it meets the acceptance criteria.

Having this role unclear or not having at all, usually leads projects to chaos and erratic outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Be the middle person between stakeholders and the development team, ensuring that the product vision is clearly communicated and understood.
• Create new User Stories and ensure they are well-defined.
• Prioritize User Stories in the backlog, looking for different needs (business, technical debt or functional).
• Participate in Agile ceremonies.
• Review deliverables meet the acceptance criteria, before they are presented to stakeholders and considered done.
• Make sure projects are on track and delivery on time.
• Clarify requirements and answer questions from the development team.

Collaboration with Development Team

• Make realistic estimation.
• Identify dependencies and blockers that may impact the development process.
• Risk assessment and mitigation planning.
• Make big tasks into smaller, manageable tasks.
• Review technical debt and prioritize it in the backlog.

Collaboration with Stakeholders

• Gather requirements and feedback from stakeholders to inform the product backlog.
• Communicate project progress and updates to stakeholders.
• Manage stakeholder expectations regarding project timelines and deliverables.