Ideally Scrum Product owners are part of the client organisation. To solve work load issues in the initial software lifecycle our Product Owners support the client organisation temporarily and help relocate daily tasks of the future Product Owner.
Antare helps out the client organisation with a certified Product Owner, which is especially helpful in case the Scrum methodology is followed in the software development lifecycle.
The Product Owner
The Product Owner is expected to do the best possible job of satisfying all stakeholders, maintain the Product Backlog, and ensure that everyone knows the priorities.
Above definition by the Scrum Alliance best covers the role of Product Owners as part of an Agile software development approach (Scrum). The development team grandly depends on the Product Owner to perform this role in the best possible way. In any situation where the Product Owner is doing less, the team will lose efficiency and most likely deliver software not satisfying all stakeholders.
A Complex, Multi-faceted Role
The different responsibilities make the product owner a challenging and multi-faceted role that shares some of the responsibilities traditionally attributed to a product marketer, product manager and project manager.
This is how Roman Pichler put it clearly in his “Demystifying the Product Owner role”. Apart from the fact the Product Owner role is not played solely by one person, but is a team performance. In existing organisations it is often hard to allocate this role to one single person, especially taking into account the tasks this person is already occupied with.
In our experience we encountered various approaches in fulfilling the role of Product Owner. The winning setting is the one where the Product Owner role is done by someone of the client organisation, capable of being in close contact with all stakeholders, and understanding the domain and products of the client organisation. We often encounter, the best Product Owner candidate is someone already having their working days filled up with other important tasks.
The Antare approach is to support the client organisation with one of our certified Product Owners (CSPO). They work from the client organisation premises and help the organisation set up and run the Scrum project in order to fulfil the Product Owner role according above definitions. The best suited Product Owner candidate from the client organisation is directly supported by our Product Owner professional. Gradually the role is incorporated in the daily working scheme of this candidate. By following a strict planning and approach, our professional leaves the organisation within an acceptable short period of time, leaving behind a fully managed Scrum project guided by a Product Owner from the client organisation.