absent po Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Caterina Palmiotto: The Phantom Product Owner, How Lack of Decision-Making Impacts the Team and Kills Innovation

The Great Product Owner: The Collaboration Between PO and Team as Key to PO Success

In this segment, Caterina shares a story of a great Product Owner who worked closely with their team. The PO took the time to share the high-level vision and timeline for a new module, collected doubts and comments from the team, and presented user stories with enough information to start a discussion. The PO listened to all suggestions and was available every day to collaborate. The refinement process was done in two parts, with the second part focused on investigating technical aspects. The PO even participated in retrospectives and worked with the team to improve the product based on either technical or functional ideas by the team. Caterina emphasizes the importance of building this kind of productive collaboration between POs and their teams, with the help of Scrum Masters.

The Bad Product Owner: The Phantom PO, How Lack of Decision-Making Impacts the Team and Kills Innovation

In this segment, Caterina talks about a Product Owner who only wrote user stories but was unable to make decisions. The Product Owner always needed to report to his boss, which caused a delay in decision-making. This led to delays in the team’s work, resulting in not completing the story in the sprint. Additionally, the team lost trust in the PO, and did not have enough information or support from the PO to bring their contribution to the product through technical innovation. Eventually, the team started to make decisions on their own and stopped suggesting ideas to the PO. Caterina emphasizes the importance of Product Owners being able to make decisions and not causing delays in the team’s work.

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 Caterina Palmiotto

Caterina started as a software developer but soon realized that she was passionate about team dynamics and communication, and embraced agility from the moment she saw it.

Caterina believes a team can be more than the sum of its parts and that growing the right culture is essential. When people are surrounded by good examples they will be motivated to do their best. So the first step is doing your best to be a good example of the culture you want to nurture.

You can link with Caterina Palmiotto on LinkedIn.

Jill Stott: The Product Ownership perfect storm, and how to solve it with the help of the Scrum team

The Great Product Owner: Willing to learn, and ready to experiment, the secret to great newbie PO’s!

This PO had never heard about Scrum before they started their work as PO for a Scrum team. They were also new to Agile in general. However, the PO decided and took action on learning quickly what was expected, and sought out a strong collaboration with the team, participating in their retros, and by being willing to try new things that might have seemed confusing or even scary at first.

The Bad Product Owner: Unable to make decisions, and with low confidence, the PO perfect storm! And how to solve it!

This Product Owner was not empowered by their stakeholders, and therefore not confident. To add to the problems, the PO was also not available, and took a long time to be able to make decisions. This led to the team sometimes having very undefined and unclear requirements. When the team asked questions, the PO was often not able to answer their questions, nor did they take those questions forward to someone who could answer them. The scene was set for a disaster, but thankfully something happened that changed the dynamics. Listen in to learn how Jill and the teams were able to change things, and ultimately got to a point where they got what they needed from the PO.

About Jill Stott

Jill Stott is here to make friends! She’s worked in IT for too many years to count. She is passionate about assisting ScrumMasters to be successful and happy in their roles. Jill knows that there is no such thing as a perfect chocolate chip cookie and she isn’t afraid to use puppets.

You can link with Jill Stott on LinkedIn.

Nousheen Manzoor: The many anti-patterns that emerge when the Scrum Product Owner does not understand their role

The Great Product Owner: The balance of skills that enables delivery of customer value!

A great Product Owner finds a balance between helping, and attending to the customer needs, and what the team needs to succeed. Great Product Owners also build relationships with the team and their stakeholders. Even if a great PO might not be technical, they are able to create a common language with the team, so that both can inform each other and come to decisions that help the team succeed in the ultimate goal of delivering customer value!

The Bad Product Owner: The many anti-patterns that emerge when the PO does not understand their role

In this segment, we discuss several Product Owner anti-patterns. We start with the problem that many people in the role don’t have a deep enough understanding of the role, and it’s expectations, even if they are quite clearly defined in the Scrum Guide. From that lack of understanding many patterns can emerge, from not being able to contain/manage the scope to lack of understanding that the PO is there to help the team succeed, and not to be a “demanding tyrant customer” to the team! Listen in to learn about some of the critical anti-patterns that emerge when people don’t understand the PO role sufficiently well.

In this segment, we refer to the Coach Your PO e-course, which outlines some of the aspects to cover with PO’s and how to do it.

About Nousheen Manzoor

Nousheen believes that the future of leadership is kindness and empathy, and the same goes for any role which involves individuals and teams, like the Scrum Master role!

You can link with Nousheen Manzoor on LinkedIn.

Ruta Hardikar: The Product Owner that skipped the Sprint Reviews, and what that caused for the Scrum team

The Great Product Owner: The Customer advocate Product Owner

This Product Owner was very close to the customer, and listened to their needs as well as the struggles they had with the product. Through their work, the PO tried to focus on adding to the backlog stories that would help the customer directly, and would often act as the customer when talking to the team. They were able to focus on prioritization, and prioritized the work for the team. The PO was also able to create clear priorities and have conversations with the team about the 3 V’s: Vision, Value, and Validation.

The Bad Product Owner: The Product Owner that skipped the Sprint Reviews, and what that caused for the Scrum team

The processes we have in place influence the choices, and the focus of the Product Owners. In this segment, we talk about a team and their Product Owner that did not host a Sprint Review. Instead, the PO would focus on reviews with individuals, separate discussion with single stakeholders. However, that meant that other stakeholders would not know what the team had worked on during the Sprint. Furthermore, the team was not involved, and did not have the chance to show, and be proud of what they had accomplished during the Sprint. This was an anti-pattern that Ruta tried to overcome. Listen in to learn how Ruta tackled this anti-pattern.

About Ruta Hardikar

Ruta has over 8 years experience with Agile, and has taken the roles of Agile Coach, Scrum Master, Release Train Engineer (RTE in SAFe), working with GM Financial.

You can link with Ruta Hardikar on LinkedIn.

Pedro Silva: Blaming the Scrum team, and other Product Owner anti-patterns

The Great Product Owner: Makes the team feel the PO is also part of the team

This Product Owner was very open to taking into account the needs and requests by the team, and spent time with the team, trying to understand those. The PO felt ownership over the outcome the team was able to deliver, and tried to help the team achieve what was needed. This was a PO that felt, and made the team feel they were part of the team!

The Bad Product Owner: Blaming the team, and other anti-patterns

This Product Owner was very distant from the team, and did not see themselves as part of the development process. It was a case of the PO missing the “owner” in the role name. Although they shared what needed to be done, they did not spend time with the team working through the requirements. Then, in the Sprint reviews, he would throw the team under the bus, and criticise them openly. This was just one of the many anti-patterns, listen in to learn about the other major anti-patterns this PO displayed.

About Pedro Silva

Pedro considers himself a Scrum Master supporting software development teams while keeping his focus on their growth towards the efficient delivery of value, while having a blast.

You can link with Pedro Silva on LinkedIn.