The Role of the Product Owner in Scrum-comparison between Theory and Practices

Abstract

New methods have emerged in last* decades for managing projects and develop software. The agile ideology was generally defined with the agile manifesto in 2001 and is widely used for software project management. Scrum is the most common method within agile and has become one of the most popular tools in software development in Iceland.The objective of this research was to shed light on how Scrum is applied. The role of the product owner is studied; the knowledge and skills he is required to have, according to the Scrum method. This is compared to the perception of a number of actual project owners of their role. Information was gathered by semi structured interviews with a limited number of product owners that have had that role for at least 1 year.The results show that the majority of the participants in the survey are using different project management methods. They apply the methods that best fit their own operations. The understanding of the role and responsibility of the product owner is quite different between organizations but seldom in perfect conformance with the official Scrum method. Cases were reported where there are two product owners for the same product. One is then responsible for business aspect but the other is responsible for technical aspects of the product. Scrum has a strong position in software development with its defined roles, collaboration emphasis, understanding, visibility, effective process and fast development.