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For Product Owners

Practice saying no to a sponsor without losing them.

Rank the backlog by value, hold the scope line when a sponsor wants more, accept or reject work against the Definition of Done, and decide what ships, with five AI teammates who push back.

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18 steps · 5 phases · 8 scenarios

Ranking the backlog from the Product Owner seat: the learner posts the candidate backlog ranked by business value, and the developers challenge the order.

1/5 Rank the backlog by value, and hear the team challenge it.

Screens from the real product, taken with a demo account.

Sound familiar?

  • You are studying for a Product Owner certificate, and the questions describe trade-offs you have never had to make.
  • Ordering a backlog by value and by dependency is easy to explain and hard to do when everything looks important.
  • Saying no to a stakeholder, and keeping them on side, only gets learned in front of a stakeholder.

What you get

Practice that fits the Product Owner seat

  • Rank the backlog by value and by dependency

    The team ranks the backlog by value and risk and agrees the Definition of Done. Ordering mistakes are challenged in character, so you learn why a ranking does not hold.

  • Handle change requests mid-release

    A change request arrives while the sprint is running. You triage it for a future sprint and the current sprint stays as committed.

  • Accept or reject work honestly

    At the review you accept or reject each story against the Definition of Done, and your scorecard records what you decided and why.

Phase by phase

Every step of a full Scrum project, from the Product Owner's seat

You take the Product Owner seat for the whole run, and every step happens in front of you, in order. In some you are at the table and in others you watch the team work, so you see the whole project and not only your own part.

steps, from vision to release
18
of them with you at the table, and 5 where you watch
13
decisions that are yours to make; the AI team makes the rest in front of you
5
  1. 01

    Initiate

    Agree why the project exists, who is involved and what the first release must deliver.

    You shape the vision with the Sponsor and keep the first release small enough to deliver.

    Steps in this phase

    1. 1.1 Create project vision & charter Workshop At the table
    2. 1.2 Identify Scrum Master & business stakeholder(s) Workshop At the table
    3. 1.3 Form Scrum team Workshop At the table
    4. 1.4 Develop epics & personas Workshop At the table
    5. 1.5 Create prioritized backlog & DoD Workshop At the table
    6. 1.6 Conduct release planning Planning At the table

    What you do

    • Shape the vision and the charter with the Sponsor, and agree who holds each role.
    • Join the round-table workshop that turns the vision into epics, and draw the line between release one and the deferred work when the Sponsor pushes for a feature.
    • Rank the backlog by value and risk with the team, and agree the Definition of Done.
    • Plan the release with the team.
    Decisions that are yours (2)
    • Where do you draw the line between release 1 and the deferred work?
    • Do you approve the ranked backlog and the Definition of Done?

    You practise

    • Backlog ordering
    • Scope control
    • Stakeholder management
  2. 02

    Plan and Estimate

    Turn the top of the backlog into a sprint the team can honestly commit to.

    The team turns the top of the backlog into a sprint it can honestly commit to. You are in the room for the stories and the poker, and you watch while the developers break the work down.

    Steps in this phase

    1. 2.1 Create user stories Working session At the table
    2. 2.2 Estimate & commit user stories Planning poker At the table
    3. 2.3 Identify tasks Working session Watching
    4. 2.4 Estimate tasks Working session Watching
    5. 2.5 Update sprint backlog Planning Watching

    What you do

    • Take part in drafting the user stories and their acceptance criteria.
    • Be there while the team runs planning poker and commits the sprint.
    • Watch the developers break the stories into tasks, estimate them and freeze the sprint baseline.

    Decisions that are yours

    None in this phase: the AI team decides in front of you, and you see why.

    You practise

    • Thin slicing
    • Estimation
  3. 03

    Implement

    Keep the sprint on track: run the board, hold the standup and protect the sprint scope.

    The sprint runs with the developers in charge of how the work is done, and a change request arrives.

    Steps in this phase

    1. 3.1 Create deliverables Working session Watching
    2. 3.2 Conduct daily standup Standup Watching
    3. 3.3 Refine prioritized backlog Backlog refinement At the table

    What you do

    • Follow the board and the daily standup as an observer, while the team runs them.
    • Triage a mid-sprint change request: the current sprint stays as committed and the request waits for a future sprint.
    Decisions that are yours (1)
    • What do you do with the change request?

    You practise

    • Scope control
    • Stakeholder management
  4. 04

    Review and Retrospect

    Show what was built, decide what counts as done and improve how the team works.

    The sprint ends with a demonstration and a look back.

    Steps in this phase

    1. 4.1 Demonstrate & validate sprint Review At the table
    2. 4.2 Retrospect sprint Retrospective At the table

    What you do

    • Watch the developers demonstrate the increment to the Sponsor, then accept or reject each story against the Definition of Done.
    • Take part in the retrospective and the team's top improvements.
    Decisions that are yours (1)
    • Do you confirm the acceptance register, and where does rejected work go?

    You practise

    • Definition of Done
    • Honest demos
  5. 05

    Release

    Ship the working product and capture what the team learned.

    The product ships and the team closes the project.

    Steps in this phase

    1. 5.1 Ship deliverables Cutover At the table
    2. 5.2 Retrospect release Retrospective At the table

    What you do

    • Authorise the release at the cutover while the Sponsor accepts the deliverables.
    • Look back with the whole team on the value delivered and the return on investment.
    Decisions that are yours (1)
    • Do you execute the cutover? It cannot be undone.

    You practise

    • Release planning
    • Value visibility

Through the Product Owner’s eyes

8 projects, and what each asks of you

Every project runs the same 18-step process. Only the fictional business, the stakes and the pressure on the team change.

  • Beginner Web app 4 sprints $40,000 budget Start here

    E-commerce Storefront

    Help a family-run homewares shop go from craft-fair stall to launch-ready online store before the holiday rush.

    As a Product Owner: Value alone does not order a backlog: checkout ranks above the catalogue until you notice it cannot work without it. Decide what the shipping story is really worth, keep the marketplace out of release 1, and reject a page that works but is slow on a phone, because the customers you wrote the stories for are on phones.

  • Intermediate Mobile app 5 sprints $60,000 budget Start here

    Fitness App

    Ship an app-store-ready fitness app for an investor demo, with one very tempting risky feature.

    As a Product Owner: The magic can wait; the first slice cannot. Let people enter a workout by hand before you let the app read a watch, put the wearable import in release 2, and plan release 1 around the days the store takes to review it. Accept only what you have seen working on a real phone, not on a simulator with seeded data.

  • Intermediate Web app 4 sprints $35,000 budget Start here

    Donation Portal

    Build a donation portal for a food bank where everyone has an opinion, and only a few get a vote.

    As a Product Owner: A request that arrives through the Executive Director still comes from the board chair, a donor or the volunteer coordinator, and it is still a suggestion until you decide it. Say no kindly and say what you can do instead, size every ask against what the team can finish before 2 December, and keep the Definition of Done honest for the donor who gives by cheque and will meet your page with large print and a wary eye.

  • Beginner Web app 4 sprints $45,000 budget

    Tutor Booking Web App

    Take a tutoring collective from a sponsor's first request to a launch-ready booking app.

    What it asks of a Product Owner

    Value alone does not order a backlog: booking ranks above availability until you notice that a family cannot book a slot that does not exist. Hold the line on calendar sync, give the Sponsor a smaller promise for later, and accept only the stories that meet the Definition of Done.

  • Advanced Mobile app 5 sprints $120,000 budget

    Mobile Banking App

    Launch a credit-union mobile app where "done" means secure, reviewed and auditable.

    What it asks of a Product Owner

    A requirement from the compliance officer is not a request, and the way to treat it is to re-plan: decide what moves to make room, tell the Chief Executive what it costs, and never pretend it is optional. Put the audit log early, because a transfer without one is not finished however well it works, and when the pen test finds a flaw, decide in the open between fixing it and moving the date. Accept only what has had its security review.

  • Advanced API 4 sprints $70,000 budget

    Logistics API

    Ship a partner-facing API where other people's code depends on every decision you make.

    What it asks of a Product Owner

    A published contract is a promise, and the way to keep it is to change it by adding. When the partner had already started building and the request was to collapse twelve statuses into six, the answer was not yes and not no: it was a new field now, a version, and a notice before anything was removed. Write acceptance criteria a client could test, count the docs and the contract tests as part of done, and hold release one to what the partner needs on the first day.

  • Expert Data platform 5 sprints $108,000 budget

    Hospital Data Platform

    Deliver hospital operations dashboards where every story passes its tests and the data still lies.

    What it asks of a Product Owner

    A definition is a requirement, and agreeing what an occupied bed means is real work that blocks everything built on it. Keep the data-quality checks in release one, however invisible the sponsor finds them, and judge each story on the real extract and not on the clean sample: a story that passes on sample data and fails on the real thing is not done. When the sponsor wants a visible win, offer her the numbers that show the data getting better.

  • Expert Migration 6 sprints $128,000 budget

    Legacy Migration

    Replace a 15-year-old billing system with zero new features and a sponsor who cannot see progress.

    What it asks of a Product Owner

    The parity harness had a modest value on paper and was the first thing to build, because everything else is judged against it. Rank it first, refuse the add-ons that take its sprint, and decide the council tariff against the change freeze in the open, with the cost of each choice written down. Present a review made of metrics, and say plainly how much of the old system's behaviour is proved to match and how much is not.

See every project in detail

Skills you build

What you practise, and where

How it works

  1. 01

    Pick a project and the Product Owner seat

    Choose one of 8 scenarios. The AI plays the other five roles.

  2. 02

    Go through all 18 steps

    Read the inputs, join the discussion and make the call at the decision gate. One new step unlocks each day, so there is time to think between sessions.

  3. 03

    Read your scorecard

    See how you did and why, export it as a PDF report, then try another seat or a harder project.

Plans

Start free. Upgrade when you're ready.

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Questions people ask

What is Scrumagic?

Scrumagic is a browser-based Scrum training simulator. You take one role on a six-person team and run a fictional project from vision to release, while AI teammates play everyone else.

Is this a certification, or exam prep?

Scrumagic is not an official certification and it does not replace one. If you are studying for an exam, it gives you hands-on practice with the situations the questions describe. Beyond the exam, it builds practical knowledge and real experience of running a whole project, and your result is a scorecard, not a certificate.

How long does a run take?

It depends on the scenario and how many sprints it has. One new step unlocks each day, so a run unfolds over days, not in one sitting. Phase 1 has six steps, so it takes at least six days. Each scenario card lists its sprints and budget.

What do I get for free?

Phase 1 of any scenario, in any role, with no credit card. Phase 1 covers vision and charter through release planning. One new step unlocks each day, and Pro adds Phases 2 to 5.

How is my score calculated?

From the decisions you record: budget adherence, estimation accuracy, business value delivered and Scrum compliance. Fixed rules compute it, never how the conversation felt. When a run ends you can export the scorecard as a PDF report.

Which roles can I play?

Scrum Master, Product Owner or Developer. Every scenario can be played in all three, and the AI teammates play the other roles.

Practising another role?

Ready to run your first sprint?

Pick a project and take the Product Owner seat. Your AI team is waiting.

Start the Product Owner simulation Go to your dashboard

Free plan · No credit card

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