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Some thoughts about product owners. First, it& #39;s best to have one PO per product, not per team. Otherwise you have a cacophony of conflicting decisions with no coherence. The teams can each have somebody in the role of "on-site customer," though. 1/7
That person can answer questions that come up during the course of development, talk to other customers if necessary, &c. It& #39;s best if that person is an actual customer. Otherwise, you& #39;re playing a game of "telephone." The teams also need to understand the business. 2/7
If there& #39;s a business person on the team, their role is NOT to "represent the business," it& #39;s to teach business thinking to the team. They are not an intermediary. They& #39;re a team member with a specialized skill that they& #39;re infusing into the rest of the team. 3/7
Other specialists (e.g. architects) work the same way. They don& #39;t do the architecture. The teach the team to do architecture and help coordinate between teams. 4/7
I& #39;ll point out that, if you& #39;re unfortunate enough to be doing Scrum, this way of working is perfectly aligned with the Scrum Guide. At no point does the guide say that you need a 1:1 between teams and POs. All it says is that here& #39;s a PO on the team. 5/7
That PO can be on several teams. 6/7
A single product backlog is always best, not a plethora of them. "The Product Owner is the sole person responsible for managing the Product Backlog." One backlog. One PO. 7/7
