Two workable setups are one Product Owner per product, or one Product Owner for all five products who delegates work within each product. In both, a single person stays accountable for each product’s value.
Exam Question
A multi-national company is using Scrum for product development of their five major products. What are two good alternatives for how many Product Owners the company should use for these five products? (choose the best two answers)
- A. There is one Product Owner for each product (so five in total). Each Product Owner may delegate to others for specific value, capabilities, and functionality within their product. The five Product Owners share and align work via Product Backlogs.
- B. There are as many Product Owners as are needed to analyze, document and explain expectations and requirements with all Development Teams.
- C. There is one Product Owner for all five products. This person may not delegate work to others for specific value, capabilities, and functionality, given these are all the Product Owner’s individual responsibility.
- D. There is one Product Owner responsible for all five products. This person may delegate work to others for specific value, capabilities, and functionality within each product in order to scale his role.
Correct Answer
A and D.
Why This Is the Correct Answer
The Scrum Guide says “The Product Owner is one person, not a committee.” It also says the Product Owner may do the work of Product Backlog management or delegate it to others, but “the Product Owner remains accountable.” Option A gives each product its own accountable Product Owner, who may delegate within that product. Option D gives all five products to one person, who scales by delegating work while keeping the accountability. Both respect the rule that each product has one Product Owner. Which is better depends on how related the products are and how much one person can handle.
Why the Other Options Are Wrong
B. As many Product Owners as needed to document requirements for all teams. This treats Product Owners as requirements writers and spreads accountability across many people. It is a committee, which the Scrum Guide rules out.
C. One Product Owner for all five who may not delegate. The Scrum Guide explicitly allows delegation. Forbidding it would make the role unmanageable across five products.
Exam Tip
In scaling questions about Product Owners, check two things: each product has one accountable Product Owner, and delegation is allowed while accountability stays with that person.
Key Takeaways
- Each product has one accountable Product Owner.
- Product Owners may delegate work, not accountability.
- One person may own several products if they can manage it.
Get ready for the official PSM II exam
90 PSM II practice questions, each with an in-depth explanation like the one above.
- Practice Mode: study at your own pace and choose the test length.
- Mock Exam Mode: 30 random questions in 90 minutes, like the real exam.
$29 is ScrumPrep's one-time price. The official PSM II exam fee ($250) is paid separately to Scrum.org.
More PSM II exam questions
- Your organization has announced a release to its user base three Sprints from now. To be able to include all functionality in the release, work needs to accelerate. The Product Owner puts some testing from the Definition of Done on hold for the next three Sprints, while adding a generic item to the Product Backlog to resolve this in a future release.
- You are the Scrum Master for three Scrum Teams working on the same product. There is a single Product Backlog that all three Scrum Teams select from. Management is eager to improve the productivity of the teams and wants to standardize velocity across all three teams so that they can see how each team is delivering value. When responding to management, which two statements are appropriate?
- Creating a forecast for a Sprint tends to run more smoothly when the Product Backlog items that are discussed are well understood and actionable. Which approach would you recommend to ensure this state of Product Backlog at Sprint Planning?
- True or False: During the Sprint Review of a scaled development effort, every Scrum Team should demonstrate its individual Increment separately.
- What are two signs that a Scrum Team is self-managing?