Product Owners (POs) is the content authority for the team level of the Scaled Agile Framework for

Enterprises (SAFe). The PO is responsible for the team backlog, writing, prioritizing and accepting
user stories, and representing the customer to the Agile team. They optimize return on investment
by ensuring that the Scrum team members are engaged in delivering the most valuable product
features.

They play the role of team member responsible for defining stories and prioritizing the Team
Backlog. This role is responsible for streamlining the execution of program priorities while
maintaining conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components the team is
responsible for. They have a significant role in quality control and is the only team member
empowered to accept stories as done.

The role has significant relationships and responsibilities outside the local team, including working
with Product Management to prepare for Program Backlog, participating in Agile Release Train
(ART) Synch meetings, and cooperating to deliver Solution value.

Key Roles and Responsibilities:

• Provide vision and direction to the Agile development team and stakeholders
• Ensure that the team always has an adequate amount of prior prepared tasks to work on
• Plan and prioritize product feature backlog and development for the offer/product
• Fully understand the product vision, roadmap and growth opportunities to enable onward
articulation into the development team
• Assess value, prioritize backlog items based on this value, time, and other team
dependencies determined in the PI planning meeting and refined during the PI, to ensure
focus on those with maximum value that are aligned with the offer/product strategy
• Provide backlog management, iteration planning, and elaboration of the user stories
• Work closely with Product Management to create and maintain a product backlog according
to business value or ROI
• Lead the planning product release plans and set expectations for delivery of new
functionality/capability
• Provide an active role in mitigating impediments impacting successful team completion of
release and Iteration goals
• Drive iteration goals and iteration content via prioritized stories
• Establish story acceptance criteria, accepts stories into the baseline
• Research and analyze the market, the users, and the roadmap for the product
• Follow our competitors and the industry
• Keep abreast with Agile/Scrum/SAFe best practices and new trends, and seek to relentlessly
improve the operation of the Product Owner role

Knowledge, Skills and Attributes:

• Applicable knowledge of the technologies and portfolio of offers used by the team
• Demonstrable knowledge of product development in an ITC industry
• Strong knowledge of the SAFe’s practices and its application/operation
• Powerful communication aptitude, with an innate ability to say “no” in a way that will not
discourage or upset the business
• Effective conflict resolver
• Effective escalator
• Team empowerer – through strong collaboration and knowledge brokering
• Understand fundamentals of iterative development
• Understand fundamentals of product/ software development processes and procedures
• Understand the value of commitments to delivery made by a development team
 • Understand incremental delivery and the value of metrics
• Understand backlog tracking, burndown metrics, velocity, and task definition
• Be able to relate to, and integrate with alternate development methodologies (e.g. waterfall
• Be conversant in DevOps practices and understand the strong relationship and bi-directional
dependency required with deployment teams

Academic Qualifications and Certifications:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related
field
• SAFe Product Owner / Product Manager Certification
• Implementing & Leading SAFe
• Other SAFe certifications (e.g. SAFe Scrum Master, SAFe for Teams, SAFe DevOps, etc.)
• Professional scrum product owner (PSPO) or certified scrum product owner (CSPO)
• Program Management Professional (PgMP) or equivalent certification advantageous

Required Experience:
• Demonstrated experience in building managed services solutions
• Previous program or development management experience
• Demonstrable planning experience.
• Relevant Agile coaching experience
• Experience working in Agile approaches: XP, Kanban, Crystal, FDD, etc.
• Demonstrated experience managing multiple teams and product roadmaps