Product Owner
Product Owner Role
Product Owner is responsible for the profitability of the product (ROI). In LeSS, there is only one product owner and one product backlog. Typically, PO is in the Product Management Unit. She acts as a connector, bringing teams and customers/users together so the teams become more customer focused.
A LeSS Product Owner focuses on thinking hard about prioritization but collaborates with the teams on clarification. Further, she encourages and helps the teams enter into a direct conversation with true users and customers for clarification. She acts as a connector, not an intermediary.
Reducing Wastes
There are a couple of wastes in product development.
- Overproduction of features
- Waiting delay
- Handoff
- Extra process
- Partially done work
- Task switching
- Defects
- Under-realising people’s potential
- Knowledge scatter
- Wishful thinking
Single Product Backlog
The product backlog is organized in
- already done
- fine grained
- coarse grained A good Product Backlog must:
- have estimates for all items,
- have finer grained items at the top and coarser grained items further down, and
- be prioritized. In LeSS Huge, there is additional column - Area. You can filter the backlog by Area.
Summary
The product backlog is very important with clear ownership and priority in LeSS agile. It also helps with the competing priorities within the organization.