What is NOT the role of a Product Owner?

Since the Agile Manifesto, many companies started working with many agile frameworks, mostly Scrum and Kanban. However, until now, it is clear that so many companies don’t understand who the Product Owner is. Why do I say that? I’ve been working as a PO over the last eight years, and every company had a different understanding of the role of a Product Owner.

I’d like to discuss with you not who the Product Owner is, but instead some anti-patterns that I have seen over my journey. But before we jump into that, let’s take a look at some definitions of this role.

Bob Galen has one way of seeing the Product Owner that is my favorite; he defines as the four quadrants:

The Scrum guide says:

The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Development Team. How this is done may vary widely across organizations, Scrum Teams, and individuals.

So let’s go now to the anti-patterns. What are the most common misunderstanding I have ever seen?

• Order taker: receives orders and send it to the team directly. Generally, there is a long-term goal;