Product Owner Courses

A Product Owner is an Agile developer who oversees a product’s development, from conception to completion. Their job is to make sure the development of the product meets the customer expectations and company standards of quality. The job entails defining the vision of the finished product and adhering to a roadmap that communicates the steps at every stage of product development. Product Owners lead daily Scrum meetings, in which developers share their progress and any obstacles that may impact progress. The job often involves collaborating with prospective users to determine design features that best serve customers. They bring customer requests to their development team and work together to come up with the best solutions that meet consumer expectations.

Both Product Owners and Product Managers work to build products that bring greater value to the consumer. The Product Manager is responsible for the broader, overall product development strategy. They determine customer needs through research. They build the plan for a product's development and prioritize the build schedule to decide what gets built next. The term Product Owner is specific to Scrum but works under the direction of a Product Manager. Whereas the Product Manager has more of a customer-facing role, the Product Owner works more closely with their development team to rally them around the roadmap and determine the daily priorities for reaching their goals. Product Owners decide on tasks and conduct daily meetings to clarify the process, so their team knows what steps they should take and what should come next.

Scrum is the foundation of the Product Owner role, making it essential to have a working knowledge of Agile and Scrum methodologies. Communication skills are crucial for leading a team toward their goal and interacting with customers to get user feedback. There are many elements to product development, which makes analytical skills necessary for prioritizing the backlog, problem-solving, and organizing projects. Though a Product Owner isn't a Product Manager, project management skills are vital to effectively delegating responsibilities and leading your development team. Multi-tasking skills are also helpful because Product Owners have to attend to many things, often at the same time. Udemy offers many courses that can prepare you for a role as a Product Owner.