Job Description – Product Owner

Title

Product Owner

Description

The Product Owner works within the agile process and is the final authority for decisions
regarding priority, business value, and functionality for all the work done by the Agile
development team. The Product Owner possesses an in depth knowledge of goals and desired
objectives of the project.

Responsibilities

Liaison & Communication

• Ably represents, interface with and engage the business user.
• Acts as a fully integrated team member.
• Uses clear goals to communicate the project vision at the beginning of every release and
sprint so that the team understands and is equipped to realize it.
• Makes business decisions and clearly communicates requirements through epics and
stories so they are understood.
• Communicates status outside the team.
Development
Creates, maintains, prioritizes, and sequences the product backlog based on business value or
ROI.
Creates user stories and acceptance tests from themes and features granular enough for a single
sprint.
Prioritizes user stories by business value.
Decides which user stories are scheduled into sprints.
Provides rapid feedback.
Participates in project planning, daily stand-up meetings (scrums), reviews, retrospectives, sprint
and release planning, demos and other Scrum-related meetings.

Application Support
Reviews deliverable and demonstrable code after every sprint, and has the authority to accept or
reject.
Develops and maintains standards for testing and progress visibility.
Provides progress reporting.
Assists as needed with backlog maintenance.
Assists with internal and external communication, improving transparency, and radiating
information.
Assists with prioritization and resolution of defects / bugs.

Management
Is always accessible and participates proactively and constantly in the team activities.
Steers the project to ensure delivery of business value.
Is visible, vocal, and objective.

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Provides encouragement, recognition, and support to the team.

Terminates the sprint if a drastic change-in-direction is required.

Changes the course of the project at the end of the sprint if necessary.

Position Requirements

Formal Education & Certification

Four-year college diploma or university degree in computer systems design or computer science,
and/or ten years equivalent work experience.

Knowledge & Experience

Two or more years project management experience and five or more years of experience in
related stakeholder function.
Thorough understanding of agile software development methodologies, values, and procedures.
Thorough understanding of the software development lifecycle.
In-depth knowledge of testing practices and techniques.
Understanding of organization’s development platform and languages.
Ability to understand technical issues.

Personal Attributes
Excellent, all-round communicator.
Advanced negotiation skills.
Proven leadership ability.
Decisive.
Self-motivated and capable of managing multiple priorities and tasks as delegated
Team-player with the ability to work in a collaborative environment.
Excellent interpersonal skills, ability to work with diverse personality types.
Ability to coach the team to reach their highest potential.
Creative and efficient in proposing solutions to complex, time-critical problems.
Collaborative in driving decisions.
Ability to deal with multiple projects and deadlines.
Strong analytical and problem solving skills with a high attention to detail.

Work Conditions

Occasional evening and weekend work to meet deadlines.

Sitting for extended periods of time.
Dexterity of hands and fingers to operate a computer keyboard, mouse, and to handle other
computer components.
Physically able to participate in training sessions, presentations, and meetings.
Some travel may be required for the purpose of offsite software and system applications
management.

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