The purpose of the Product Owner accountability in Scrum is to maximize the value of the Product. It boggles the mind that some organizations have existed for years without a single person responsible for product value. Consider most organizations today. They have an IT team, a business team, and executives who decide which projects to run each year. But day in and day out, no single person is responsible for the value the product delivers. How can this be? Scrum solves this with the Product Owner accountability. In Scrum, the Product Owner is the person who determines what the Product's Scrum team will do next. The Product Owner’s primary purpose is to maximize the product's value resulting from the Scrum Team’s work. They create a single to-do list for the Scrum Team. The Product Owner weighs many competing priorities within and outside of the organization. How this is carried out varies based on the individual, the company, and even the product. Product Owners must understand the organization's business strategy and use that information to create the vision and strategy for the Product. The Product Owner role is critical to the success of the Product.