The product owner in scrum is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the team’s work. The Scrum Guide is admirably concise on this point and deliberately silent on how it is achieved, because how it is achieved depends entirely on the product, the organization, and the market. What the definition does not convey is the difficulty of the role when it is done correctly. The product owner must maintain a clear product vision, own a prioritized backlog that reflects that vision, be available to the team for clarification during the sprint, and make decisions about scope and trade-offs in real time.