Why have a Product Owner anyway?

Photo by: nomanson

I can’t stress enough just how important the role of the Product Owner really is. This job is not for the faint-of-heart. In fact, the Product Owner is probably the most important individual on the Scrum team since he single-handedly is responsible for driving the direction the team is taking.

The Product Owner And The Team

The team is responsible for how they are going to implement the functionality. The Product Owner, on the other hand, is responsible for WHAT they are going to build and in what priority order. Although, there are times that Architectural elements will be prioritized ahead of business functionality, for obvious reasons. So, the Product Owner is like the driver on a bus. He can drive the team around in circles, off a cliff or he can ensure the team is taken to a place where it can make a significant impact – Imagine that!

Agile Product Managers - Is there such a thing

There's a pretty vibrant debate going on at http://tinyurl.com/c5bgog about Agile Product Managers. To quote the blogger, " the concept of an “agile product manager” really doesn’t hold much water".

From my perspective however, it's all or nothing for me. What I mean by this is that if you're practicing Agile, you want the entire company to be Agile. It's a total shift in mindset. At a previous company, our marketing department were very "old school" and could never wrap their heads around Agile practices. This created much tension in the company.

In order to be effective as a product development company, you have to have "all the wood behind the arrow". It's the only recipe for success.

My 2 cents,
Jack