Are you a team player, a creative, free thinker and people’s person? Then chances are, you might be a Product Owner. Let’s look at the other reasons you might be a Product owner:

1. You are an IT professional

Okay, I’ll admit, this is the easy one but nevertheless, it’s something that needed to be gotten out of the way. Team leads, product managers, software development managers and architects as well as aspiring coders and developers are all able to become successful product owners if they have the right aptitude for it. However, it’s important to go through a CSPO course as it would go a long way in setting up a career as an SPO, which brings us to our second point…

2. You like to learn all about processes and frameworks.

With the number of online courses available to choose from, it is, now more than ever, easier to pick up learning. With that said, ideally, a product owner would have completed a Certified Scrum Product Owner® course and undergone a full-fledged training program to understand all the nitty gritty bits of the role. Online learning offers fantastic flexibility when it comes to learning when you want, where you want and adds even more value by giving you unlimited access to learning resources. 

3. You are in charge of the product backlog

You have a vision for the final product and you convey this to your team through the product backlog. The product backlog is a feature list of the product. You keep updating this as client requirements change, or new features added or when something is not feasible. 

4. You like to be on top of things

Product owners assess the needs of the client and the customers and design a system that checks all the boxes in terms of utility as well as UI and suggests necessary features of the software.  And this often means that they lie at the top of the chain of production and are vital to the whole creative process that goes into the conception and design of the software. Their key role lies in communicating with the customer on a daily basis and identifying critical aspects of the project and making sure it is translated to the actual production, which brings us to…

5. You like to talk to people and understand their needs

A product owner is the main link between a customer and the rest of the team and acts as the voice of both the client and all the stakeholders. They try to identify the needs of the customer by constantly liaising with the client and then conveying it to all the stakeholders including the delivery team, in a technical language if necessary.

6. You are a free thinker 

As a product owner, it’s your job to determine the final appearance of the product. You do this by understanding the basics of the product and then come up with designs and features that are in line with what the client is essentially looking for. You are also heavily invested in the design process and often the determining factor when it comes to how the product is going to look eventually.

7. You are NOT a Scrum Master

Many people get confused with the terms while they have similar names and have a few positional overlaps, their roles could not be any more different. Product owners and Scrum Masters are two of the most vital roles in the scrum agile system. Both of them are heavily involved in the conceptualization and the planning of the processes. However, the key difference lies in the fact that the product owners are more involved in the conceptualization and customer relations and understanding the essence of the program while the Scrum master is more involved in the product development stages and will be an expert at organizing scrum. It’s important to note that for the successful delivery of the product, its essential for the Scrum master and the product owner to be on the same page.

8. You believe in cross-discipline expertise

This is a highly debated point; should the product owner be well versed in Scrum? Well, no, not really.   The product owner is involved with collaborating with the customer and the team and hence plays a more strategic role than a technical one. While it’s not necessary to be a Scrum expert, but a basic knowledge of Scrum is required so that the product owners will be able to assist the Scrum masters should the need arise.

There you have it, 8 reasons you could be a Scrum Product Owner. If you are not one but identify yourself with most of them (including reason 1), then don’t wait, go ahead and pick up CSPO training course today.