In absence of Product Owner, who is going to take care of his responsibilities?

In my opinion, this is a non-negotiable role which is critical to the success of the product. 

In an interim sense, the team could split the responsibilities and try their best to act in accordance to the product's vision and strategy. A proxy could also be named while the company replaces a Product Owner who has left. None of these are ideal but could help keep things moving forward in the short term. 

In absence of Product Owner, who is going to take care of his responsibilities?

If it is a temporary absence, then the Scrum Team should self-organize or prepare themselves for such a scenario. Remember, the PO, the SM are all human beings and may need to take vacations, or may even pursue other opportunities that may leave this role vacant. How the Scrum Team self-organizes in this situation is entirely upto them.

If it is an ongoing issue, then transparency needs to be brought over the matter, how it impacts the ability of the Scrum Team to deliver value, and appropriate steps need to be taken.

If this absence is predictable (e.g. holiday), the Product Owner might prepare the Scrum Team and stakeholders to minimize the number of decisions they have to take, and to empower them to take the right decisions when they are needed.

The Product Owner might also continuously communicate the product vision, encourage the Development Team to talk to stakeholders directly, and to take calculated risks.

By gaining this experience, the Development Team might gain sufficient skills to cope in the short term without a Product Owner.

In absence of Product Owner, who is going to take care of his responsibilities?

First consider what the team responsibilities are.

I'd suggest that one responsibility might be to question if the product is worthy of attention, if no-one can account for any value supposedly delivered.

Define "absence." If it's PTO, the PO can delegate to somebody on the Development Team until they return.

In my organization, the identification of a proxy Product Owner to manage PO responsibilities has had some success when the PO is unavailable for any reason (i.e. - PTO).



What is critical is that the PO responsibilities as identified in the Scrum Guide are still performed in their absence, whomever is identified to perform them.   The accountability for such responsibilities never leaves the original PO though.

@MarkAdams  - You said define "Absence". who should define this? either the PO or the development team?? Thanks!

This question pops up quite frequently in Product Owner Open Assessment.

There are two answers to it:

1. Within the sprint, the Dev Team makes the best decisions possible to assure the progress towards the sprint goal, re-aligning with PO when he/she is available again.

2. In a permanent state of unavailability, new PO needs to be appointed. Development efforts without PO are not employing Scrum. 

So in short, the course that needs to be followed fundamentally based upon the duration of absence. The effects are compounded by the maturity of the Scrum Team, the ability to align with the Scrum values, and optimizing the work according to the state of the system. 

I'm going to point out that the Scrum Guide defines roles not job titles.  So as long as someone on the Scrum Team is able and willing to fulfill the role of Product Owner, then there really isn't an absense.  As everyone said, if this is short term let the team decide how to deal with it. If this is considered a permanent thing, then the Scrum Team needs to look beyond job titles and identify how the role can be addressed.  If they do not feel it can be addressed with the people on the Scrum Team, it should be raised to the organizations management chain because even though Scrum doesn't mention a management chain, every organization will have one.  This would be raised as an impediment that needs to be addressed.