Stakeholder Relationships And Synthesis​ For Scrum Product Owners

The product owner is an individual and serves as the inflection point between the development team and the stakeholders. Through regular communication, workshops and sessions, the product owner continually grows their understanding of the business value the internal stakeholders desire. From the business’s perspective, this is why they are developing the product. 

There are external stakeholders too. They’re called customers. The product being developed doesn’t just solve a problem for the business; it must solve a problem for the end-user. The product owner engages in discovery and testing with customers to understand their needs, goals, and pain points.

Scrum organizes the team to develop products, and the Product Owner plays a vital role in this team

The product owner synthesizes input from both groups of stakeholders to maximize the value the product delivers. There will always be competing interests among the stakeholders, and the product owner is accountable for synthesizing these. It is critical to the Scrum team's success that the authority of the product owner is both clear and supported.

Working with stakeholders, the product owner identifies why the product will be developed and synthesizes it into what the product becomes. This synthesis of values and priorities is gathered into an ordered backlog that is equally visible to the development team, the stakeholders, and the rest of the organization. The development team then works to identify how to create the product.

How The Product Owner Creates A Road Mapping​ In Scrum

Products can take months or years to develop. As priority is set for features and functionality, the product owner will need to order how to release them over time. First, they will identify functionality themes, prioritize them, and then allocate themes over time.

The product owner works with the Scrum Master to look ahead to future sprints, evaluating significant milestones to ensure the team delivers key features on time. Together they consider if the work needed to get there matches the capacity and velocity of the team. This zooming out to set the road map and zooming in to set the sprint goal helps keep the team both agile and focused.

The product owner identifies why the product will be developed and synthesizes it into what the product becomes

The product owner also communicates with stakeholders to ensure the road map aligns with the overall business strategy. These products don’t operate in a vacuum, and critical moments or events may dictate when specific features need to be ready. There might also be other related products currently in development that create dependencies with this team’s product. The product owner communicates and coordinates to keep all these factors aligned.

Remember, the roadmap is an estimate for completion, not a delivery guarantee. The current plan is based on what we know right now and will be updated as greater understanding emerges.

The Product Owner Established The Sprint Vision And Goals​

Each spring begins with sprint planning. The product owner keeps the product vision in front of the team while describing the sprint vision and goal. The sprint goal informs what work to select from the backlog and complete during the new sprint.

Being a product owner isn’t easy but it’s a lot of fun.

During backlog refinement, the team already worked through the why and what of these backlog items. But the product owner is reminding the team to ensure clarity and focus. This clarity is critical because during sprint planning and throughout the sprint, the team will decide how to complete each item. Each day, during the daily scrum, the team will evaluate their work according to the sprint goal set by the product owner.

Why The Product Owner Inspects the Work at the of the Sprint

At the end of a sprint, the team delivers the increment, which is the next phase of a working product ready to be deployed to the customer. The product owner receives this increment by inspection according to the requirements in the sprint backlog and the team’s definition of done. Stakeholders should be invited to attend but the product owner is the one accepting the work. 

There shouldn’t be a ton of big surprises here for the product owner. They have been attending the daily standup throughout the sprint, inspecting the work and providing feedback as it gets done. But the sprint review is still a critical moment where work isn’t “mostly done”, it’s “done done.” 

Sometimes work isn’t accepted at the end of the sprint. This is part of the process of having transparency allowing for evaluation leading to adaptation. If the work for a backlog item doesn’t meet the acceptance criteria or the definition of done, it’s not done. The item description is updated, added to the backlog, and prioritized for a future sprint. 

Being a product owner isn’t easy but it’s a lot of fun. To lead well, you need to leverage clear, consistent communication and empathy and influence. The Product Owner must understand the end-user as well as the business goals. They hold these two in tension and double down on the areas they overlap.

And if you want a brief comparison of the roles of Scrum Master and Product Owner, check out this video.

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I hope this introduction provides you with a picture of what a Product Owner is. For a look into the everyday work of a Product Owner, check out the posts below.

To learn more about Scrum, check out my What is Scrum? A Guide for Everyday People to Learn Scrum. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.

Still not sure about your next step with Scrum? I offer a couple of free coaching sessions each month. You can signup for a free 30-minute coaching session, and we can work together to identify a good next step for you.