- The product owner might sound, in any other setting, like someone who physically owns a tangible, real thing. But that's not the case in scrum. So who or what is a product owner? Essentially, the product owner is the single person responsible for the product or products that the development team is working on. They're responsible for maximizing the value of the product. This value is a result of the work of the development team. They're the person that the organization would go to to find out what state the product is in in its development. They should be able to answer questions from the organization like, "Is the product releasable?" "What version or increment is the product in?" and so on. They aren't a committee or group of people but just one person. They may, however, represent the desires of a committee in an attempt to guide the scrum team to a particular vision of the product. No, not at all. Scrum teams are self-organizing so there is no boss. They're the member of the scrum team who interacts with the wider organization at-large to get feedback or input. They help guide the development team with, say, features of the product, but they don't instruct them how it should be done leaving the development team to decide how to develop the product. For the product owner to succeed, the organization at-large must respect the decisions of the product owner. They're responsible for some key aspects of the scrum team. One of their key priorities is managing and owning the product backlog. Which means that they make sure that items in the backlog are clearly labeled and described, that the backlog is ordered properly for the scrum team to best achieve the goals and missions of the team, that the backlog is clear and visible to anyone who needs to see it. This could be by expressing the ticketed items via a piece of software or using sticky notes. This way, anyone who needs to see the backlog can understand what is in the backlog. And that everyone in the team understands the items in the product backlog. The product owner doesn't necessarily have to complete all of this. It can be completed by a development team, for example. However, they do need to ensure that these tasks are completed. As the product owner is responsible for the product itself, they need to make sure that communication is clear. This means ensuring that everyone in the scrum team knows what needs to happen with the product.