Product Owner and Customer

Hi Dirk, 

To be honest a little bit strange question :)) if I understand you correct, no, the Product Owner is not the same person as a customer. Product Owner is the person who is making product (with entire Scrum Team) for customer (no matter which type of customer it is).

Well, it depends. If you're offering SW development as a service, the customer (i.e. the organisation paying you to develop the software) may also designate on of their own as the Product Owner. That, however, requires some serious collaboration skills on both sides.

I meant: There is one company being paied for developping software, and the other company (customer) odering and paying for.

Is the Product Owner an employee of the software company? or employee of the ordering company?

I meant: There is one company being paied for developping software, and the other company (customer) odering and paying for.

Is the Product Owner an employee of the software company? or employee of the ordering company?

It depends. Both are possibilities with advantages and disadvantages.

A PO from the SW company will typically have more exposure to the developers and is easier to work with on a daily basis. But he's usually not empowered to make meaningful decisions about the product (such as dropping a feature from the backlog if he believes it no longer brings any value).

Depending on the product and the setup between SW company and customer, you could opt for one or the other.

thanks, think I got it now!