James Shore talks about his new book.

Agile teams large or small, co-located or distributed, have one very important common denominator: the absolute imperative that a strong product owner be established before any work begins. Arguably the strongest, or weakest, link in any Agile team is the product owner. At odds with this basic fact is a startling oversight of this role at the outset of many projects. Add to this a multi-site outsourced development team and it's no wonder successful enterprise Agile adoption is slow going. What makes a good product owner? Why is this role critical to the success of any Agile project? How should this role be supported within the team and organization? These fundamental questions will be addressed herein.

Several forces in the software industry are combining to dramatically shorten product cycle times for even the largest applications. These forces also shorten the feedback loops on an application's quality, usability, and customer relevance. As feedback loops shorten and the number of software deliveries goes up, it becomes paramount to inform and collaborate with employees, customers, and partners in a community setting.

Agile processes and practices have gained enough attention that both IT businesses and product development organizations are engaging in large Agile implementations. These larger-scale products, programs, and projects are more complex, have more dependencies, and present significant challenges.