What is a Product Owner?

What skills does a product owner need?

First and foremost, a Product Owner must have domain expertise, which means he or she must be an expert in the target audience, their needs and potential competitive products. If a Product Owner does not yet have this expertise, then he or she must work towards gaining this domain expertise. In addition, communication skills are of great importance in this role, as a Product Owner must be able to communicate the context to the development team and stakeholders. The soft skills and knowledge listed below are important in daily work.

Through product responsibility, product owners have the task of defining and prioritizing the “what” and thus the requirements of the product. This means that, in addition to the product, the management of the different requirements of the individual stakeholders and, above all, of the customers is also a priority.

The Product Owner Journey is very complex and exciting. On this page we will show you what the most important tasks, the biggest challenges and the best opportunities for advancement are. Find out for yourself whether you are up to the role of Product Owner and how you can become an outstanding Product Manager in an agile company.

All this enables a product owner to perform his daily tasks in a goal-oriented manner and ensures that the work steps and stakeholder management are given sufficient weight.

What does a Product Owner not do?

A Scrum Product Owner is not a project manager in the typical (waterfall) sense. Rather the role is responsible for all product decisions. However, tasks such as the control, distribution and implementation of requirements are the responsibility of the development team and are accompanied by the Scrum Master in terms of process technology.

Thus there is a clear division of responsibilities (similar to a separation of powers) and a certain sequence of rituals and tasks. Thus the activities are far away from typical project management.

Classical overhead tasks such as management presentations, lengthy budget negotiations and target agreements are not described by the Scrum Framework, but are nevertheless often tasks that product owners take over.

The difference between the two and three-day variants is not the conclusion itself, but the depth of the topics. In addition to introducing the basics of Scrum and explaining the roles, the three-day course offers a deeper insight into the tools and techniques that a Product Owner needs in his daily work. Here a comprehensive insight into known and less known working techniques is given, which for example also include the basics of Design Thinking. The two-day course, on the other hand, dispenses with the introduction to the basics and merely introduces the more general tools for daily work.

Shortly before the start of the course, all prospective Product Owners will be sent a starter package with information, which includes the services to be provided in advance but which are manageable. A look into the knowledge area of the Agile Academy for the appropriate role usually provides good advance information with which to start the course.

In order to better understand the new structures, processes and working methods, many prospective Product Owners attend suitable further education and training courses, e.g. a Certified Scrum Product Owner® course at the Agile Academy.

These trainings are available as two and three day seminars and they introduce the participants to the agile basics, show the typical functions of the roles and deal in detail with the tasks of the Product Owner. To learn the tools and techniques of a great Product Owner in a systematic and practical way, we strongly recommend the 3-day courses.

However, depending on the place of residence, work experience and industry, fluctuations are of course also apparent here. In addition, team size, product maturity and Scrum experience can also play a role. We think that good Product Owners, who actually act like entrepreneurs, can and should earn far more than the average.