> The Product Owner is also accountable for effective Product Backlog management… The Product Owner may do the above work or may delegate the responsibility to others. Regardless, the Product Owner remains accountable.
It’s entirely compatible with Scrum for the engineers to sit with customers and come up with backlog items, and the PO to take the role of ensuring backlog quality and reviewing strategic direction of the work items being added by developers.
Exactly. This article starts with a misunderstanding:
> In Scrum, Product Owners have sole authority over the Product Backlog
While, as per your quote (emphasis mine)
> The Product Owner is also _accountable_ for effective Product Backlog management… The Product Owner may do the above work or may delegate the responsibility to others. Regardless, the Product Owner remains _accountable_.
Meaning they have the final say, not that they decide on their own without any input from the team.
My impression is that OP just had to work with bad POs who didn't understand their role.
A lot of people over-interpret rigid hierarchy’s, when Scrum is supposed to be the opposite.
From the actual scrum guide: https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
> The Product Owner is also accountable for effective Product Backlog management… The Product Owner may do the above work or may delegate the responsibility to others. Regardless, the Product Owner remains accountable.
It’s entirely compatible with Scrum for the engineers to sit with customers and come up with backlog items, and the PO to take the role of ensuring backlog quality and reviewing strategic direction of the work items being added by developers.