Recently, the demand for Product Owner has increased significantly. In January 2025 alone, more than a thousand vacancies were simultaneously open on the hh.ru website. Both Sber, VTB, Beeline, Yandex corporations and startups are looking for them. And not only in IT, but also in manufacturing and trading companies. Among the requirements, you can see (extracts from real vacancies):
- Formation of a product development strategy, determination of key directions for product development;
- Preparation and control of the product roadmap;
- Manage a cross-functional development team;
- Participate in presales and negotiations with customers;
- Analysis of user behavior and product metrics to find growth points and optimization;
- Describe and prioritize tasks in the backlog;
- Conducting market research and competitive analysis;
- Continuous monitoring of the operation of implemented functions and prompt elimination of identified problems;
- Presentation of work results, new opportunities and achievements of the team to management;
- Cost-effectiveness assessment: cost-benefit analysis of decisions and assessment of their impact on the final result, P&L calculation;
- Understand users, their needs and pain points, conduct research, customer development, JTBD, etc.;
- Design a conceptual architecture for the solution;
- Prototype and test interfaces;
- Test hypotheses with minimal costs on an ongoing basis in growth hacking mode;
- Developing a product idea, building paths for developing a competitive product, including for the external market
- Build sales processes for new products;
- Manage the product budget;
- Monitor and analyze the market and competitors.
- Manage the entire user experience chain, improve CJM;
- Research the market for new opportunities (scenarios, segments, users) and communicate knowledge of market trends to product teams;
- Participate in sales processes, customer support, and the creation of training and sales materials.
In articles, the Product Owner is usually described as a mini-CEO, responsible for metrics and sales. So what happens, one person is responsible for all product processes as a manager and executor at the same time? Let’s figure it out.
Business Needs a New Leader
The goal of any commercial business is to capture a share of users’ wallets. This can only be done by providing services or selling goods. Accordingly, it is first necessary to identify market needs and develop an offer.
In manufacturing companies, the commercial director and the marketing department were responsible for all of this. In digital business, everything is much more complicated - decisions are made in conditions of uncertainty, and the most important thing is not to launch a product, but to continuously develop it. Product strategy, CustDev and time-to-market are new digital practices that require deep expertise. Another area of responsibility has appeared in the organizational structure, for which it is necessary to attract a product leader.
The Chief Product Office (CPO) is such a top manager. His area of responsibility includes defining the product strategy and vision for all company products, forming the structure and metrics, and debugging product development processes. At OTUS, in the CPO course , under my supervision, students thoroughly practice the skills and tasks of a product executive.
Effective Product Development
The more clearly processes, functions and roles are described, the more effective the business.
Product development is not yet a fully formed process, and its implementation requires a comprehensive systems approach. The entire process is divided into four blocks: Discovery, Design, Delivery and Growth. Each block has its own leader: the Discovery leader is responsible for finding opportunities and development, the Design leader is responsible for efficiency and customer experience, the Delivery leader is responsible for implementation and quality, and the Growth leader is responsible for growth and promotion.
The current reality is that businesses are still in the process of digital transformation and do not always correctly define the structure of the product department and the requirements for Product Managers. Therefore, almost everyone is called the Product Owner.
Product Owner is a role in Scrum
The original source of Scrum is Scrum.Org. This is the organization that developed this approach and defines the tasks of each element. All information is publicly available with an official translation into Russian.
There are no positions in Scrum, but roles instead. This means that the Product Owner role can be performed by any employee, for example, an analyst or even an HR manager with the necessary skills. The presence of the Product Owner position does not contradict Scrum, but only means that the volume of tasks is so large that it makes sense to assign a separate specialist to this role.
In addition to the fact that Product Owner is a role in Scrum, it is also a certified profession. This means that the requirements and responsibilities of the Product Owner are clearly spelled out in the instructions, there is no need to think of anything. If a company wants to hire a quality specialist, then it is not even necessary to conduct an interview, it is enough to check for the Product Owner certificate. The organization is engaged in training, pumping up the necessary skills and testing. This is practical and convenient, since it minimizes the risk of false experience and guarantees compliance with the requirements.
If a company wants to attract a specialist with broader functionality, then in the job description it is correct to write the position at the beginning, and indicate Product Owner as a role - for example, “Designer with the role of product owner”, or come up with your own name for the position, for example, ProductOPS. Including requirements for Product Owner that are not spelled out in Scrum only indicates the incompetence of the employer.
Roles and Responsibilities of the Product Owner
The Product Owner’s responsibilities are clearly stated in the Scrum Guide : “The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product and for effectively managing the Product Backlog.”
To be more specific, the Product Owner does the following:
- Develops and accurately communicates the Product Goal,
- Creates and clearly explains Product Backlog items,
- Organizes Product Backlog items,
- Provides transparency, accessibility and understanding of the Product Backlog.
Thus, the Product Owner in Scrum is a specialist responsible for combing and implementing the backlog. If you look at the entire product development process, you can say that this is the Leader in the Delivery section.
The preparatory courses for the Product Owner certification cover and process key concepts in detail.
Here are some brief theses:
| English: | Product Owner is accountable for effective Product Backlog management |
| Translation: | The Product Owner is responsible for effective management of the backlog. |
| Meaning: | Responsible only for backlog management and nothing else. |
| English: | Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product |
| Translation: | The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product. |
| Meaning: | Prioritizes tasks in the backlog, i.e. first implements the tasks that are most valuable to the business |
| English: | Product Owner provides clarity about a product”s vision and goal |
| Translation: | Conveys the value and vision of the product |
| Meaning: | It doesn’t create, it communicates. Its task is to ensure that all developers understand what the final result will look like, which will allow them to design the structure |
Who does all the other tasks that were listed in the job requirements? The answer is not the Product Owner! Who is responsible for what in product development is covered in detail in the Senior Product Manager course at OTUS. You can learn more about the myths and realities of the Product Owner in a free open lesson, which is available in the recording .
Product Owner as a Key Role in Delivery
According to Scrum, the Product Owner is not responsible for strategy, metrics, CustDev, or business results, only for organizing and implementing the backlog.
Backlog filling can come from different sources: from product managers or department heads, from requests from the support service or tasks from the development team. It can be different, depending on how the CPO organized the process. Product managers from Discovery are engaged in collecting feedback from customers.
The key metric of the Product Owner’s work is the functionality implemented within the specified budget, and his areas of responsibility are:
- A formatted and structured backlog,
- Prioritizing tasks in the backlog,
- Filling sprints,
- Communicating the vision of the final product to developers.
A complex task that requires expertise, skills and leadership qualities.
- In order to maintain backlog hygiene, a person must be organized, disciplined, and meticulous. It is important to be able to communicate with customers, since they are not specialists and may not understand the complexity of development or clearly describe their needs.
- Prioritizing tasks requires analytical skills. Although scoring tools exist, it is often necessary to draw conclusions based on data and metrics.
- Since the specifics of the work involve frequent communication with programmers, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of their work, understand technology stacks and development.
- It is extremely important to express thoughts clearly, structured and visually, both in the form of documentation and reports, and verbally. The Product Owner is obliged not only to convey the vision of the final product to developers, but also to report on the current state of the backlog, openly and productively discuss barriers to implementation and propose solutions agreed upon by all parties in the process.
Product Owner Career
The best Product Owners are analysts or developers. They have highly developed analytical thinking and information systematization skills. However, there are no restrictions, the role of Product Owner can be performed by absolutely anyone. The main thing is to follow your calling.
At OTUS, on the “Senior Product Manager” course , teachers with work experience will tell you in detail about real practices of the profession and practices of product development.
Main points
- Product strategy is becoming key for digital business;
- The CPO serves as the leader of all product development;
- Product Owner is a product leader at the Delivery stage;
- Product Owner is a certified Scrum role that is responsible for organizing and implementing the backlog;
- To become a Product Owner, you need to have analytical thinking, apply a systems approach, and possess social and communication skills.