PO role ‐ the key for success
Agile Gathering 7, Kiev
Alek Kozlov

About myself
CSM, CSP
•
Magister of Art in IT management (CUM LAUDE)
•
Happily married with 4 children
•
First Ome I have heard about agile in 2001
•
I have started working by agile in 2004 at Estonian Ministry of
•
Finance, where I was IT project and development manager for EU
Structural Funds informaOon system development and integraOon
layer development.
• Then, as IT/IS department manager in large retail company, I
launched all development projects in iteraOve and incremental
approach. Scrum was used for that purpose.
• Now, as a consultant and scrum.ee founder, fully dedicated and
commiWed to coaching and teaching scrum to my client’s soYware
teams and leaders

“Self‐checking” matrix
3 ARETEFACTS: 3 CEREMONIES: AGILE VALUES:
3 ROLES:
Plan (Planing M) 12 FROM AGILE
Product Owner Product BL
THEORY MANIFESTO
SO Team Sprint BL Act (DSM)
(e.g. Courage,
Scrum Master BurnDownChart Feadback (Retro) working soYware)
ARTEFACTS:
ROLES: VALUES:
EPIC US
CEREMONIES:
SOME WHO IS THE NOT EMBRACED
DEFINITION OF
“AGILE
BEST PRODUCT “DOING BY
DONE
PROBLEMS
CEREMONIES”
WHEN THE US IS
OWNER? BOOKS”
DONE?
ARTEFACTS: CEREMONIES: VALUES:
TEACHING ,
ROLES: “KEEP THE FAITH”
RETHINK, WHY
EXPLAINING AND
SOLUTIONS MUST BE or in other words
LEARNING YOU ARE DOING
“JUST KEEP DOING
CLARIFIED (e.g. US DEFINITION
AGILE?
THEM”
SKILLS)

Roles must be clarified
• First role in Scrum is a Product Owner role
• My working experience convinced me that for
successful project the role of the Product
Owner is crucial
• Further I will focus on that – “simple” role, and
I will try to clarify that role to myself and
hopefully, you will find it also helpful 

Product Owner responsibiliOes
• Product backlog management
– Gathering requirements as a User Stories
– User Stories proper definiOon
– ConOnuous User Stories re‐prioriOsaOon for
maximisaOon the product/project business value
• Co‐operaOon with team and SM
– User story (requirements) explanaOons to the team
specialists
• Team work acceptance
• Release planning

Scrum roles responsibiliOes
US defini,on
Agile planning
and esOmaOon
US work US Priori,za,on
es,ma,on

Who is the best PO?
• Client?
• Power User?
• Some kind of manager? From our side or from
client side…?
• Scrum Master?
• Project Manager?
• Analyst?
• Tester?
• ….
• Your experience?

Roles must be clarified
Client PO PM SM
Client
PO – Product
Owner
PO
PM – Project
Manager
PM
SM – Scrum
Master
SM

Roles must be clarified
C PO PM SM
C
PO
PM
SM

SUMMARY
• Client = Product Owner =
– PROBLEM: normally clients are too busy for being full Ome PO,
but if he/she is ready to be PO that would be like team’s dream
came true
• Product Owner = Project Manager =
– PROBLEM: soYware companies can’t full gather and understand
the concept, conOnuing to push the “client=PO” variant to own
clients who are strongly resistant to the idea. This is the most
oYen encountered obstacle seen and the reason why many
soYware companies stopped to implemenOng the scrum
– SOLUTION: embracing the idea for in‐house PO=PM. That
can be much more easier way for success and can provide
best value and saOsfacOon to the customer

Thank you!