Is your Product Owner just a development manager with a new title? Are the real decisions about the product made by marketing, or product management as part of marketing so that the product owner is purely tactical?
Splitting responsibilities can lead to conflicts of interest, e.g. product success (product management) vs on-time, in-budget delivery (project management) and is a carry-over from traditional organisations.
Scrum works because we unite the accountability for the success of a product, with the ability to influence what happens by collaborating with the development team and stakeholders. The product owner role combines commercial management of the initiative, product management and accountability for generating excellent outcomes (i.e. making the product successful). It’s a business, not an IT thing!
We will be discussing this and much more during my online Certified Scrum Product Owner class next week. There are still a few places available. You will learn practical thinking tools and techniques to help drive your products towards success. I would be delighted if you were able to join us.
You can register here: http://ow.ly/YAAZ50BrgcT