The responsibility of the Product Owner is to add value to every solution created by a development team, which is why they assume multiple functions, such as product design and market analysis. In this article, I will share the main functions that we perform at MAKE, but they can also be useful for any Product Owner who is starting or reinforcing their role.
1. Define the product vision Product
It is the responsibility of product owners to convey the vision and objectives to all stakeholders, including the client, stakeholders, participants, and the development team.
Therefore, they must have a broad perspective to ensure that the team maintains a clear vision, despite the fact that there is a lot of flexibility in the agile development of the product. To accomplish this, you can use a visual summary and a product roadmap to guide you.
2. Managing the product backlog
The backlog is not a static list of pending tasks, but it is alive and must be continuously updated according to the needs of the project, strategic changes and/or objectives of the company. The backlog has to be accessible, especially for the development team. This ensures better performance and successful results.
3. Anticipating customer needs
The Product Owner must understand and anticipate the needs of the customer for successful product development. It is important to know the product market and have communication skills that allow them to anticipate problems/needs to address them, that is, to be one step ahead.
4. The Product Owner is the main intermediary
They are the main communicator and the intermediary between stakeholders and the team. A fundamental role is to ensure that stakeholders accept the decisions that were made, as well as the strategy, and to corroborate that the developers have everything clear and have understood the instructions.
5. Evaluate product progress at each iteration
The Product Owner plays an important role when reviewing and evaluating product progress at the end of each story. Tasks are closed in progressive order, as long as they meet expectations. If that does not happen, it is reviewed again to see what was not clear and to retake the task.
