Product owner responsibilities in the project assurance process: Bridging uncertainties gaps

Abstract

The product owner role in software engineering by the agile principle is a key one. He has many traditional responsibilities such as initiating a project, defining and accepting functionality and the entire product. At the same time his other responsibilities remain hidden or undefined in many projects. Unfortunately that is exactly the reason of failure for many projects and therefore here we debate and review his responsibilities and duties in other project elements and stages in order to show how important his input is to the project and other team members activities, primarily project verification and validation activities. The product owner’s contribution to the team domain knowledge, prototyping, tests planning and project backlog is crucial and cannot be omitted in companies desiring success through meeting actual customers’ expectations.