Skip to main content

Can we have more than one Product Owner?

April 30, 2020

One of the questions about Scrum I’m often asked is, “Can we have more than one Product Owner per product?” In fact, one of the few Scrum rules about the Product Owner role is,

“The Product Owner is one person, not a committee.” (The Scrum Guide)

Instead of responding to the question by simply reciting this rule, I like to use a metaphor to create an understanding of why Scrum requires the Product Owner to be a single person, and why you should require this too:

Imagine that your Scrum Team is the crew of a rowing boat. There are people doing the hard work of rowing, there’s a person who among other things helps these people create and maintain rhythm and then there’s the person holding the rudder.

The boat is your Scrum Team. The people doing the rowing are your Developers, the person facilitating rhythm is your Scrum Master, and the person holding the rudder is your Product Owner. The rudder determining the direction of your boat towards a goal is the Product Backlog. The content and ordering of the Product Backlog make visible the decisions of the Product Owner.

A Scrum Team is like a crew rowing a boat.

With that metaphor established, I like to ask, ...

Read the full story here.

 

 

 


What did you think about this post?

Comments (6)


arun mohan
05:34 pm April 30, 2020

How a product owner can be a master in all backlog user stories??... In this case how he will be able to decide on a topic where he is not confident??


Maarten
07:17 pm April 30, 2020

How about priorizing epics vs prioritizing user stories? The epic is the destination, the user story is the path - given current, wind, power and skills of the rowing crew.. Do we need the same person to decide on destination and path?


Hannes Cmarits
04:11 am May 1, 2020

I would say the WHAT is the PO the HOW is the Team.
But both can be discussed.
The How has to be discussed if the solution costs too much.
Till now we are estimating the User Storys.


vylum
12:32 pm May 1, 2020

Backlog items can be discussied with all stakeholders at any time, but once an item made the sprint backlog, the PO should be confident enough tot make decisions on questions that arise while implementing those items.

In review the stakeholders can assess whether the decision was any good and if not, add an item to the top of the backlog correcting it.


Johannes Geske
06:38 am May 4, 2020

Thanks for reading and commenting, Maarten. Epics and user stories don't necessarily describe goals and paths. They are complimentary practices for managing the Product Backlog. Regardless of how this is done, the Product Owner is accountable for managing the Product Backlog ("What?"), while the Development Team is accountable for the "How?". These accountabilities lie with different people on a Scrum Team to promote self-organization, bottom-up intelligence and collaboration. The Product Owner may delegate parts of their work to the Development Team, including some decision-making about the "What?". However, the Product Owner remains accountable. I hope this helped.


Johannes Geske
06:49 am May 4, 2020

Arun, thank you for asking. The Product Owner doesn’t have to be the expert in everything on the Product Backlog. The Product Owner can delegate parts of the Product Backlog management work to the Development Team if it has more expertise in a topic. In that case, however, the Product Owner remains accountable for the Product Backlog. Scrum really is about maximizing value by collaborating across roles and maintaining clarity about accountabilities.