Final answer:
The Product Owner is responsible for prioritizing the team backlog and accepting features after they have been completed. These duties are essential for maintaining alignment with business objectives and ensuring the delivery of valuable product increments.
Step-by-step explanation:
The responsibilities of a Product Owner in Scrum or Agile methodologies include several key functions that contribute to the development process. Two responsibilities that specifically belong to the Product Owner are:
- Prioritizing the Team Backlog - The Product Owner is responsible for ordering the items in the product backlog so that the team knows which features, improvements, or bug fixes to implement first. This is crucial to ensure that the most valuable work is completed at the earliest opportunity.
- Accepting Features - Once the development of a feature is completed, it is the Product Owner's responsibility to review it and decide if it meets the criteria set out and delivers the intended value. This is known as accepting the feature, and it signifies that the feature is potentially shippable or ready for release.
These responsibilities are essential for maintaining the product vision and ensuring that the team's work aligns with the stakeholders' expectations and business objectives.