10 things a Product owner must do

In a Scrum team, a Product owner is the person who has the vision about the product and is responsible for maximising value of the product and the Scrum team.Product owner is always one person and not a group of people.

Here is a list of 10 things a efficient Product Owner must do....

1. Have a clear vision about the product and communicates the same to the stakeholder and Development team
2. Creates, owns and keeps Product Backlog up to date. The Product Backlog should be ordered to best achieve goals.
3. Express Product Backlog items clearly with acceptance criteria
4. Ensure the Development team have a clear understanding about the Product Backlog items
5. Attend the key sprint events like Sprint Planning, Scrum stand-up, Sprint Review and Retrospective
6. Always available for the Development team queries
7. Liaise with the stakeholders and build a strong relation with stakeholders so that they respect his/her decisions
8. Agree a clear definition of Done with the development team
9. Decides on the release date
10. Represents stakeholders/users/clients.

Ideally a Product Owner should be responsible for only one Product at a time but in real world the same person may be managing multiple products. 

Who can be Product Owner?

Any person who has a clear understanding about the business and the product can be a Product Owner. In some organisations, Business Analyst act as Product Owners. In some organisations, Product Managers become Product Owners. Recently some organisations have started recruiting dedicated Product Owners. These days there are courses for becoming Certified Product Owners.