From the course: Agile Requirements Foundations

Collaborating with the product owner on the backlog

From the course: Agile Requirements Foundations

Collaborating with the product owner on the backlog

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- The role of the product owner is to build and prioritize the backlog. They own it. They are the decision maker on what gets built by the team. This is a huge responsibility that many product owners simply cannot take on all of what it entails. So they rely on the strong support of BAs. The BA role provides a lot of skills that many product owners need to perform in their role. The BA brings analysis skills at a release and feature level, and they bring collaboration and facilitation skills that help the team deliver the product owner's vision. The agile BA role is to make decision making easy for the product owner. The BA maximizes the efficiency and effectiveness of the product owner by analyzing, organizing and facilitating the key factors needed for the product owner to engage and make decisions. The product owner and the BA become the value managers of the product. As value managers, they have three main goals. First, they work together to understand the customers, customer journeys, the market and the various aspects of how a product is seen from a market and customer point of view. That's the external facing analysis. Second, they work together to define, at various levels of detail, what gets built. This aligns to the team's work with the organization's strategy and market needs. And creates small, easily executed slices of work. This is what we have been calling defining increments of value. And third, they work together with the team on a daily basis to support and facilitate value in the team while getting the work done. When product owners and business analysts team up it's typical for the product owner to be more external facing to the market, customers and organization. The product owner is typically looking at the big picture view, the product strategy and the market and organizational changes influencing the product. The BA usually works internally with the team on detailed backlog analysis and day-to-day delivery work. As a partnership, product owners and BAs work closely to share information, make decisions for the team and build a shared understanding of context. They also work with customer and value for the team, making sure everyone's on the same page. Most product owner/BA teams meet and collaborate daily to stay in sync. Each product owner and business analyst pair will need to define the roles that work for them as a team. It all depends on what makes sense for them in terms of skills, time and relationships. The two should collaborate together to understand the role and what the team needs. Ultimately, together they determine the role and drive the team to create a product that users will love.

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