What Team Does the Product Owner/Responsible Person Belong To?

In my post, When You Have No Product Owner at All, I said

That’s because agile needs a responsible person who is not part of the cross-functional technical team to rank the backlog so the team knows the order of the work. Without that person, the team does not know what to do.

I’ve had an offline conversation about what team does that person belong to? In my perfect world, that person belongs to a cross-functional team of their own that hashes out what they want. Then, that person brings the information to the technical team. This responsible person works with the technical team. Is this person a member of the team? Or just works with the team? What is team membership?

I suppose if there was a single customer (I have never been in this position), that single customer would sit with the team. But I have only had the experience of more people who want lots of features from the team or teams. That responsible person needs to take the ideas, organize the funnel, manage the wants and needs, as a person who lives on a cross-functional team.

But hey, it’s Monday, and I could be wrong. So, please, tell me what you think.

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