Why would you expect a Product Owner to care that the Scrum Team adheres to its Definition of Done? (choose the best two answers)

Question

Options

• AThe Product Owner should not concern themselves with meeting the Definition
• BTo be able to punish the team when they do not meet their velocity goal for the Sprint.
• CTo forecast the team's productivity over time.
• DThe Definition of Done can affect the product's total cost of ownership.
• ETo have complete transparency into what has been done at the end of each

Explanation

D and E are correct. The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing product value, so DoD matters on two levels: it ensures transparency (E) - the PO can trust that any Increment labeled "Done" truly meets the agreed standard, enabling honest Sprint Reviews and backlog decisions - and it protects economic sustainability (D) - when teams skip DoD criteria, they accumulate technical debt, defects, and rework that inflate the product's total cost of ownership over time.

Why the others are wrong:

• A is simply false; the PO is explicitly a stakeholder in product quality and directly depends on DoD to assess what's shippable.
• B confuses Scrum values with punitive management - Scrum has no punishment mechanism, and velocity is a separate concept from DoD.
• C is a near-miss; forecasting productivity relates to velocity and capacity, not to whether DoD criteria are met.

Memory tip: Think of the PO's two core concerns - "Can I see what's really done?" (transparency → E) and "Will this cost me later?" (quality debt → D). DoD is the PO's quality contract and truth signal rolled into one.

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