An Empirical Study of the Product Owner Role in Scrum

The Product Owner (PO) is critical for translating business needs into a software implementation by gathering and prioritizing requirements, and assessing whether features have met the definition of "done." There is a paucity of detail about how POs achieve this daunting task in practice with potential negative consequences for project success. In this research we employed a mixed-method approach comprising two case studies in which we interviewed and observed 55 practitioners across 9 large multi-national companies and an SME. Using a cross-case analysis we identified twelve distinct Product Owner activities. From our empirical findings we created a Product Owner role taxonomy and found eight generic activities common to all teams, projects and companies regardless of project size.