What is Product Owners Role in Software Development?

Importance of a Product Owner in Software Development Process

A software development company needs to understand the growing requirement of product owner. Let us first clearly understand what is product owner?

We can consider a product owner as a responsible person who provide high end digital products in a top-rated software development company. PO focuses on user stories and along arrange the backlog as per priority. Other responsibilities include keeping the conceptual and technical integrity of the features for the team in perfect manner.

When it comes quality control, PO plays a vital role; accepting completed stories ensure its integrity. Many companies that do not have PO fails to manage the project efficiently. The development process has to go through many unnecessary hurdles, many cases missing deadlines and poor quality of the final product have also been noticed significantly in absence of a PO.

A Product Owner has to have some technical knowledge to be more effective. During custom software development, PO has to communicate with technical team to make them understand important concepts. The less communication errors help in moving the project development in right direction at right speed. PO also requires to explain tech concepts to stakeholders also, so PO works kind of a middle man between the stakeholders and the development team.

However, the world is facing scarcity of professionals who match all the requirement of being a perfect Product Owner. So, if you are looking forward to fill that position in your company then you should prefer a developer or a CTO, in short, a technical person, rather than a business person. Here are some of the main areas of responsibility of a Product owner during software product development.

Product Owner’s Role in Software Development:

Product backlog:

Creating and maintain product backlog is one of the main responsibilities of a PO. The adaption of Product Backlog has to be done considering market and client needs. Saying yes to a new idea is easy, but what is crucial is saying no. Not everything can be managed perfectly in one project and thus prioritizing is also a difficult task for a PO.

Considering business value or ROI while prioritizing the backlog:

Every user story has to be consider one by one. It is not possible to give priority to seven stories at once. There should be an order, such as story no. 1, story no. 2 and so forth. Along with the business point of view, PO also needs to see the things from developing side too. It is PO’s role to maintain the balance of requirements from both the sides.

Clear communication of vision and goals:

When the team is clear about vision and goals, before they start working on new requirement keeps them on track. PO creates vision of the product with stake holders once getting cleared with customers’ expectations. The product can be successfully finished with quality when the vision and goal is set before starting the project.

Convincing customer and stakeholders that the software product development is on the right track:

Convincing stakeholders and customers at every step of the project is not the responsibility of a development team. It is for PO. PO provides full support to the development team and help them achieve the goal on time.

Conclusion

Well in the end we can say that for a great benefit, a software development company needs to have a product owner in the team. Companies like Falcon Online Services have a product owner in their team for proper management.

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