I have been asked to give a summary introduction of the responsibilities of the product owner role to a budding Product Owner.  They are due to go on a training course in around six-weeks so this is much more of a high level introduction to the expectations of the role.

I began by outlining some of the core expectation of the role, the delivery expectations and the importance of the role in the process.

But the crucial and generally time consuming aspect of the role is the co-ordination, interaction and management of the stakeholders.

The Product Owner is one of the hardest roles in Scrum, being lobbied by users, the business, the team and others.  Giving time to users to properly understand requirements, understanding the goal and vision of the project/product. Identifying priorities. Being available to the team. Making decisions and all the while knowing you are the single wring-able neck, the one person responsible for the success of the project.

The Product Owner is involved in writing stories, planning releases, setting the product vision, the sprint goals and constantly ensuring that the backlog is up to date and prioritised.

It is not for the feint of heart.