The Product Owner is responsible for the Return on Investment (ROI) of the Product. In order to manage that responsibility, the Product Owner needs to estimate how much financial benefit the Product Backlog Items for a specific Sprint will generate, and compare that to the effort of one Sprint’s worth of the Scrum Team’s labor. This calculation then allows the Product Owner to decide if a given Sprint is worth doing or if the Scrum Team should turn its attention to other work… possibly even a different product. If the Product Owner has these estimates, then it is possible for the Product Owner to maximize the ROI of the Scrum Team. When these estimates are missing, it is difficult to ensure that the Scrum Team is working on the best possible PBIs. In the worst case, the Product Owner will spend the Team’s time working on very low ROI items and cause substantial problems for the business.

To learn more about Product Owners, visit the Scrum Team Assessment.