The product owner is a software development role that isn’t widely known to people outside the software industry. However, it is an important role in making software projects go smoother, and bring the exact expected outcomes.
The product owner’s main responsibility is to become the point of contact between all parties that ensure that the requirements and feedback are effectively and efficiently shared.
This bridges the gap between the strategy of the product (the business side) and the strategy of development (the technical side).
In this blog, we are sharing the biggest reasons that make a product owner a very effective member of the software development team.
Boosting idea creation
Adding a fresh pair of eyes to the idea-creation process is never bad. Especially when this person is aware of everything related to the project. This includes all the aspects from the business and technical sides.
The product owner can also use a wide range of additional tactics to discover ideas and offer a great contribution to features. The tactics include visualized user journeys, target user personas, data analysis, competitor analysis, and others.
A great product owner can also manage data collection and structuring. In order to make the most of the information you gather from all sources and use it to improve the product and select the features to include.
Visualizing complexities and defining them
A major software development challenge is determining complexities and being able to visualize them. The product owner can help with this, as their scope of knowledge about the product allows them to do it with the highest focus.
The product owner determines the priorities of the challenges to resolve. Then, communicates the visualized results with every member of the team.
Supporting executive decisions
Executive decisions relying on technical and business aspects are always made before and during the development of a software product. With a product owner, these decisions can be more informed. As the product owner has both technical knowledge about the product as well as inclusive business side understanding.
Decisions can also be more understandable to the team. Who can be more engaged with the presence of this connection between everyone. This can boost team motivation. As the team is more included and the decision-makers are making the best use of their knowledge and opinions.
Using the backlog to boost development efficiency
The backlog is one of the most useful tools that the owner uses to raise efficiency during development. The backlog acts like a short and long-term planning tool. Thus, having tasks to do in one place.
Having a backlog, managed by the product owner gives the development team more transparency about the project. Also, acts as a reference when planning for tasks and enhancements.
