Are Product Owners communicators? A multi-method research approach to provide a more comprehensive picture of Product Owners in practice

摘要

Product Owners have an important role in the agile and hybrid softwaredevelopment process. While this role is supposed to maximize the value of a product,there seem to be several scattered results on how they achieve this, as well as whatactually constitutes this role in practice. To consolidate current research resultsand to further analyze the key attribute of Product Owners, we conducted amulti-method research approach spanning a systematic mapping study and aconsecutive case study in a hybrid development environment.The results of the mapping study states that Product Owners are communicators. Wefurther investigated on this and used the shadowing technique to observe three ProductOwners' communication activities. The results support that statement, as the gaineddata reveal that Product Owners spend 65% of their time in meetings. But rather thanjust providing the team with the necessary requirements for the product under development,Product Owners need this time to synchronize and align their work, streamlinethe agile process of large-scale Scrum, discuss team-based topics, and to solve upcomingissues addressed by the team. These results contribute to draw a more comprehensivepicture of the important but yet complex role of Product Owners in practice.