The Product Owner

The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team. How this is done varies widely across organizations, teams and individuals, but the Product Owner is always accountable for effective Product Backlog management.

That includes developing and explicitly communicating the Product Goal; creating and clearly communicating Product Backlog items; ordering the Product Backlog; and ensuring the Product Backlog is transparent, visible and understood. The Product Owner may do this work or delegate it to others, but remains accountable either way.

For Product Owners to succeed, the entire organization must respect their decisions. Those decisions are visible in the content and ordering of the Product Backlog and through the inspectable Increment at the Sprint Review. The Product Owner is one person, not a committee. They may represent the needs of many stakeholders, but anyone who wants to change the Product Backlog does so by trying to convince the Product Owner. The Product Owner is also the only person with the authority to cancel a Sprint.

Study focus: a "committee of Product Owners", stakeholders adding items directly to the Sprint Backlog, or a manager re-ordering the Product Backlog are all exam traps. Value, ordering and the Product Goal are the Product Owner's accountability.