Heather asked me yesterday “who owns accessibility?” That’s a fun question. I replied:
Accessibility is not owned. Who owns quality? It’s a team responsibility. To the extent that accessibility compliance, or release date, or the P&L is a “feature” of a piece of software it is owned by the PM, but each function has its responsibilities in accomplishing accessibility. Making these responsibilities explicit is necessary.
The folks with responsibilities mainly include UX (designing for accessibility), FED (engineering for accessibility), QA (inspection), and PM/PO (prioritization). These aren’t collected in one person’s purview around here until the CEO, so that’s not the answer to your question.
If we are to be product-led and not sales-led, PM has to insist on it (and manage competing priorities), maybe that’s part of the answer.
The “ownership” urge seems to sometimes dilute or deprioritize the responsibilities of others, which is a shame because we must work in concert.