Skip to main content

Domain knowledge required for PO

Last post 10:04 am June 4, 2018 by Filip Łukaszewski
3 replies
10:51 pm June 3, 2018

Hi

I'm interested to know what people's thoughts are on the domain (i.e. product) knowledge required to be a successful Product Owner. How deep should they understand the product, the regulatory requirements, customers and so forth


07:03 am June 4, 2018

A PO should understand the domain well enough to be able to maximize the value of the product.


07:04 am June 4, 2018

The more knowledge on the product's domain the better :) Otherwise, how could the product owner maximize the value the development team is delivering iteratively? Could you as a PO maintain a product backlog without considering bussiness value, customers interests, market counterparts, tendencies or novelties in the field and other related considerations?

Depending on the product I guess the PO could survive by simply satisfying the stakeholders requests, but will he be as efficient as someone who really has that domain knowledge? This kind of 'expert' PO can even provide advise or reorient the product to something of more value (something that even the stakeholders haven't considered before).

"The New New Product Owner" by Charles Bradley is very worth reading.


10:04 am June 4, 2018

Exactly, thanks to his domain knowledge he could even identify additional, crucial stakeholders...


By posting on our forums you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.

Please note that the first and last name from your Scrum.org member profile will be displayed next to any topic or comment you post on the forums. For privacy concerns, we cannot allow you to post email addresses. All user-submitted content on our Forums may be subject to deletion if it is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use. Scrum.org does not endorse user-submitted content or the content of links to any third-party websites.

Terms of Use

Scrum.org may, at its discretion, remove any post that it deems unsuitable for these forums. Unsuitable post content includes, but is not limited to, Scrum.org Professional-level assessment questions and answers, profanity, insults, racism or sexually explicit content. Using our forum as a platform for the marketing and solicitation of products or services is also prohibited. Forum members who post content deemed unsuitable by Scrum.org may have their access revoked at any time, without warning. Scrum.org may, but is not obliged to, monitor submissions.