ELSI Product Owner: Integration of Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects in Agile Development processes

Integrating ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) into agile processes is crucial for human-centered design. However, the integration of ELSI within an agile work environment remains a challenge. To address this issue, we propose a new role, the ELSI Product Owner (ELSI-PO), within the Scrum process. The ELSI-PO serves as a mediator and communicator, responsible for negotiating ELSI aspects with stakeholders and ensuring their operationalization throughout the development process. In this paper, we present the steps taken to develop the ELSI-PO concept, we discuss the organizational positioning of the ELSI-PO in Scrum environments and we outline the tasks of the ELSI-PO in different Scrum phases. Our work-in-progress concept offers a solution to meet the growing demands for ELSI as a fixed building block in the agile framework.