The Product Owner is the single person accountable for effective Product Backlog management, which explicitly includes ordering the items to best achieve goals and missions. This ordering is a continuous process based on value, risk, and dependencies.

Furthermore, the Product Backlog is a key artifact for transparency, one of the three pillars of Scrum. It must be visible to the entire Scrum Team and relevant stakeholders to enable inspection, adaptation, and collaboration. This shared understanding of the upcoming work is crucial for alignment and for making informed decisions about the product's future.

C. All Product Backlog items must be expressed as user stories.

The Scrum Guide is not prescriptive about the format of Product Backlog Items; user stories are a popular practice but not a mandatory rule.

D. All Product Backlog items must be identified before the first Sprint begins.

The Product Backlog is emergent and evolves throughout the product's life. It is never considered complete, which is a core tenet of empiricism.

E. Only the Product Owner can place items on the Product Backlog.

While the Product Owner is accountable for the Product Backlog, they may delegate the work of adding items, and anyone can suggest items for inclusion.

F. The Product Backlog represents the input of all stakeholders and eliminates any need for the Developers to speak to stakeholders.

This statement promotes a communication anti-pattern. Scrum encourages direct collaboration between Developers and stakeholders, particularly during events like the Sprint Review.

1. Schwaber

K.

& Sutherland

J. (2020). The Scrum Guide. Scrum.org.

For A & E: Page 6

"The Product Owner" section states

"The Product Owner is also accountable for effective Product Backlog management

which includes: ... Ordering Product Backlog items... The Product Owner may do the above work or may delegate the responsibility to others. Regardless

the Product Owner remains accountable."

For B & F: Page 9

"Scrum Artifacts" and "Transparency" sections. The guide emphasizes that artifacts must be transparent to enable inspection. The Sprint Review section (Page 11) explicitly details collaboration between the Scrum Team and stakeholders.

For D: Page 9

"Product Backlog" section describes it as "an emergent

ordered list."

2. Paasivaara

M.

Durasiewicz

S.

& Lassenius

C. (2008). Using Scrum in a globally distributed project: a case study. Software Process: Improvement and Practice

13(6)

527-544. https://doi.org/10.1002/spip.402

For A & B: Page 531

Section 3.2

"The product owner was responsible for prioritizing the product backlog... The product backlog was maintained in an Excel sheet on a shared workspace

which was available to all team members." This supports the PO's responsibility for ordering (prioritizing) and the visibility/availability of the backlog.