Certified Scrum Product Owner
Give Product Owners A Certified Foundation For Better Product Decisions
Certified Scrum Product Owner is a private two-day Scrum Alliance certification course for organizations that want product owners to build a shared foundation in Scrum, product ownership, stakeholder collaboration, prioritization, and backlog management.
Chosen by companies in SaaS, Healthcare, Government, Consulting, Financial Services, Retail, Energy, and more.
Product Ownership Without A Shared Foundation
- The backlog becomes bloated with requests, ideas, and someday items
- Priorities are unclear because everything seems important
- Stakeholders pull the product in competing directions
- Product owners have responsibility but limited authority to make tradeoffs
- Teams lack clarity about value, users, priorities, and upcoming work
Product Owners With A Practical Certified Foundation
- Make clearer product decisions within Scrum
- Turn stakeholder input into ordered backlog choices
- Set decision boundaries for the Product Owner role
- Use Scrum to improve product focus and feedback
- Complete the required course step for CSPO certification
When Is Certification The Best Choice?
Choose The Right Workshop
| Choose Certified Scrum Product Owner if… | Choose Effective Product Owner if… |
|---|---|
| Your organization requires Scrum Alliance certification. | Your product owners already understand Scrum and need stronger product ownership skills. |
| Participants need an industry-recognized Scrum credential. | You want the workshop tailored to your products, stakeholders, and current challenges. |
| You want everyone to build a shared product ownership foundation using the Scrum Alliance curriculum. | Your goal is improving product direction, prioritization, stakeholder decisions, and backlog management rather than earning a certification. |
Compare Both Workshops
See a more detailed side-by-side comparison of the two workshops to decide whether certification or deeper, configurable product ownership development is the better fit for your teams.
What Participants Will Be Able To Do
Earn CSPO Certification - Complete the required course and, at this time, earn the Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Product Owner certification without a separate test.
Make Product Ownership Decisions In Scrum - Set clear decision boundaries for the Product Owner role and make choices that fit with Developers and the Scrum Master.
Understand Customers And Users - Use customer, user, and stakeholder understanding to make better choices about product direction and backlog items.
Prioritize And Make Tradeoffs - Decide what matters most when value, risk, urgency, effort, and stakeholder expectations compete.
Manage A Useful Product Backlog - Refine, order, split, and explain Product Backlog items so teams can understand the work and the value behind it.
How The Course Works
Certified Scrum Product Owner is a practical two-day certification course. Participants work through the required Scrum Alliance learning objectives while discussing how product ownership applies in real organizations.
Because this is a certification course, the curriculum is less customizable than Effective Product Owner. We can connect examples and discussion to participants’ context, but the course must cover the CSPO learning objectives and meet Scrum Alliance certification requirements.
- Scrum Alliance Certified Scrum Product Owner course
- Delivered in two days
- Delivered live online or in person
- Private course for your organization
- Covers required CSPO learning objectives
- Participants earn the CSPO certification after successful course completion
Course Outline
- Agile and Scrum foundations
- Product Owner accountability, responsibilities, and decision boundaries
- Product vision, product goals, and communicating direction
- Customers, users, stakeholders, personas, and user roles
- Product Backlog management, refinement, user stories, and story splitting
- Prioritization, value, risk, urgency, and stakeholder tradeoffs
- Planning with velocity ranges, fixed-date plans, and fixed-scope plans
- Collaboration with Developers, Scrum Masters, and the wider organization
Resources Participants Can Keep Using
Participants receive resources that support their product ownership work beyond the course, including:
- MGS AI Toolkit for story writing, story splitting, backlog refinement, prioritization, and product planning
- Tools and prompts for discussing prioritization and tradeoffs
- Reference materials for Scrum, product ownership, stakeholders, and Product Backlog management
- Guidance participants can revisit while applying CSPO ideas at work
Taught By Certified Scrum Trainers With Practical Product Ownership Experience
Certified Scrum Product Owner at Mountain Goat Software is grounded in Mike Cohn’s practical approach to Scrum, user stories, agile estimating, planning, and product backlog decisions.
Mike is a co-founder of both the Scrum Alliance and the Agile Alliance and the author of three bestselling agile books: User Stories Applied, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile.
Participants learn the required CSPO material from Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum Trainers who understand product ownership as a decision-making role spanning users, stakeholders, priorities, refinement, planning, and team focus.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who Should Attend?
This course is useful for product owners, product managers, business analysts, stakeholders, Scrum Masters, and others who want a Scrum Alliance-certified foundation in product ownership.
Does This Course Include Certification?
Yes. This course satisfies the required training step for Certified Scrum Product Owner. At this time, Scrum Alliance does not require a separate CSPO test. Successful completion of the course results in CSPO certification.
How does this differ from the Effective Product Owner workshop?
Certified Scrum Product Owner is a certification course. It must cover Scrum Alliance learning objectives, so the curriculum is fixed and less customizable.
Effective Product Owner is more customizable and goes deeper into product direction, prioritization, stakeholder tradeoffs, backlog decisions, planning, and the difficult situations product owners face in organizations.
Can This Course Be Customized?
Only lightly. We can use examples and discussion that connect to your organization, but the course must satisfy Scrum Alliance learning objectives. If you want a more customizable product owner workshop, Effective Product Owner is usually the better fit.
Do We Sell Individual Seats?
No. Mountain Goat Software focuses on private training for organizations. We can discuss a private Certified Scrum Product Owner course for your company.