The Great Product Owner: Available and part of the team, the key aspects of a great PO
This particular PO helped Priyanka learn her role as a Scrum Master. But that wasn’t all. This PO knew and understood well the business and product they owned. They would quickly answer the team’s questions and make themselves available to the team. The PO also knew, and was able to put time aside to listen to the team’s ideas and was always prepared with a Plan B in case some idea was not possible. Finally, the PO felt they were part of the team, and were there to enable the team to succeed!
The Bad Product Owner: The PO that burned out, and created a big problem for themselves and the team
This PO was not only a Product Owner, but they also played the Scrum Master role in the team. It was easy to see that the PO was overloaded, but in this case the PO also was involved in “everything else”. Over time, the PO burned out and the team suffered. This taught an important lesson to Priyanka: we must help the PO’s understand their role, and when to step back. The wrong expectations can create huge problems for the team and the PO themselves!
Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.
About Priyanka Gorai
Priyanka started her journey as a Software Test Engineer in 2014 and has more than 7 years in the software industry. Priyanka was thrilled by the concept of servant leadership in agile software development, and started supporting her team and then became a full-time Scrum Master. She is very passionate about agile development and wants to share that passion with others. She’s also learned that while improving individuals or a team, one can improve themselves.
You can link with Priyanka Gorai on LinkedIn.
