By creating and communicating a clear vision, the product owner focuses the efforts of the team upon delivering the best possible value for the market. Working closely with both the market SMEs and the delivery team, they bridge the gap and ensure the product design and performance is right.

To achieve this, they must have deep knowledge of the Epic they're responsible for owning (e.g. Submission) and provide proactive stakeholder management.

They will need to understand how the product is being developed and delivered, although training on project methodology will be provided.

Key Characteristics of a good Product Owner:

*Dedicated and Engaged

*Empowered and Trusted

*Confident, Decisive and willing to embrace Empowerment

*Knowledgeable

*Great Communicator

*Pragmatic

*Proactive

What the role is not:

*Acting as the project manager or scrum master

*Authoring requirements or functional design documentation - these will be produced by the projects Business Analysts. They will inform, guide and validate them

*Functional lead - the functional lead is responsible for translating the Product Owners vision into an overall solution design.

*Solution architect - they are not responsible for designing how the solution will technically operate