anti-patterns Archives - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Junaid Shaikh: Product Owner Anti-Patterns, From Team Owner to Product Owner, And The PO Who Got It Right

The Great Product Owner: Building Impactful Relationships That Get Things Done

The best PO Junaid has worked with had four qualities: clear, concise communication; an open mindset willing to be coached; courage to say “no” when needed; and the discipline to define the “what” and leave the “how” to the team. This PO started with five sources of truth — Excel tabs, whiteboards, JIRA, and other tools. When Junaid pointed out that five sources of truth is the opposite of transparency (one of Scrum’s three pillars), the PO asked for help. Junaid’s response: “I can’t do the push-ups for you.” Together, they consolidated everything into one tool. The team was happier, and the PO managed the backlog much better.

The key lesson: great product owners trust their team, communicate clearly, prioritize ruthlessly, and have the courage to say no. And they don’t try to own the team.

The Bad Product Owner: Unclear Decision Rights

Junaid opens with a line that cuts straight to the most common PO anti-pattern: “You are the product owner, not the team owner.” When he sees a PO slipping into command-and-control mode, he asks them one question: “What is your role?” They say “Product Owner.” He says: “Exactly. You own the product, not the team. If you were meant to own the team, we’d call you a project manager.”

The worst case he witnessed: a PO who was so possessive of “his” team that he required approval on everything — processes, tools, even holiday requests. In sprint planning, he would assign stories to individual team members (“Mr. X, you take this one”). He’d estimate the work himself, and when developers pushed back, he’d override them: “I was a developer, I know how long this takes.”

For approaching PO anti-patterns, Junaid has a deliberate style: he doesn’t confront upfront. He observes, takes notes, and starts by solving a smaller impediment to demonstrate he’s there to help. Once trust is built, he brings in coaching tools — first teaching the basics (“this is what the PO role is in Scrum”), then gradually coaching on specific anti-patterns observed in practice. He targets 10-15% improvement at a time. Six months later, you’ve already achieved 30-40% improvement.

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About Junaid Shaikh

Junaid Shaikh is an energetic Agile Coach with a natural flair for Agile and Scrum, shaped by recent experiences at software giants like Ericsson and hardware leaders ABB. In his work, he champions collaboration, curiosity, and continuous improvement. Beyond coaching, he brings the same passion to cricket, table tennis, carrom, and his newest sporting obsession — padel. You can link with Junaid Shaikh on LinkedIn.

Karim Harbott: The Day I Discovered I Was a Scrum Project Manager, Not a Scrum Master

“I was telling the team what to do, instead of helping the team to be better on their own. There’s a lot more to being a Scrum Master than Agile—working with people is such a different skillset.” – Karim Harbott

Karim thought he had mastered Scrum. He had read the books, understood the framework, and was getting things done. His team seemed to be moving forward smoothly—until he stepped away for a few weeks.

But, when he returned, everything had fallen apart. The team couldn’t function without him constantly directing their work. That’s when Karim realized he had fallen into one of the most common anti-patterns in Agile: the Scrum Project Manager.

Instead of enabling his team to be more effective, he had become their bottleneck. Every decision flowed through him, every task needed his approval, and the team had learned to wait for his direction rather than taking ownership themselves. The wake-up call was brutal but necessary.

Karim discovered that pushing project management responsibilities to the people doing the work—as David Marquet advocates—was far more powerful than being the hero who solves all problems. The real skill wasn’t in telling people what to do; it was in creating an environment where they could figure it out themselves. Geoff Watts calls this servant leadership, and Karim learned it the hard way: a great Scrum Master makes themselves progressively less necessary, not more indispensable.

Self-reflection Question: Are you enabling your team to be more effective, or have you become the person they can’t function without?

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

About Karim Harbott

Karim is a consultant, trainer, and non-executive director. He bridges the gap between strategy, business agility, digital transformation, innovation, AI, and board governance. He is a Certified Scrum Trainer, and is the author of The 6 Enablers of Business Agility.

You can link with Karim Harbott on LinkedIn.

Harri Tunturivuori: When Suggestions Sound Like Orders, The Cost of Micro-Management in Agile Teams

In this episode, Harri recounts a challenging experience he had while working with a team that had a new manager. The manager was promoted from within the team and was a high-performing team member, but lacked good leadership skills. He couldn’t let go of the technical skills and ended up micro-managing the team.

The manager would step in and give suggestions to the team members, but it came out as an order. He even wrote the solution in the user stories, which resulted in the team disengaging because the manager was bossing them.

Some team members quit their jobs, and others became demotivated. Harri felt helpless in the situation and eventually came up with tips to deal with it, including having a conversation with the manager, preparing for the conversation, and being understanding. The team’s feedback was collected, and facts were presented to the manager on how this behavior was affecting the team.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone dealing with anti-patterns in their team dynamics.

Featured Book of the Week: Scrum Mastery by Geoff Watts

Harri’s most influential book is Scrum Mastery by Geoff Watts, who has been a past guest on the podcast. The book offers many practical tips and advice for Scrum Masters, emphasizing the importance of being a servant leader. Harri found the book funny, which made it a pleasant read. He appreciated the tips provided in the book, which can help Scrum Masters go from being good to great. Geoff Watts is a well-known author in the field of Scrum and agile software development, and his book has been highly recommended by professionals in the industry. If you are a Scrum Master looking for practical advice to improve your leadership skills, Scrum Mastery is definitely worth checking out.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

About Harri Tunturivuori

Harri is an experienced leader, Scrum Master, and Agile Coach who was introduced to the world of agile software development in 2010. Since then, Harri has had the pleasure of leading great agile teams in various forms.

Harri enjoys working in a fun environment where there is room for innovation, and Harri is driven by the challenge of growing a group of good people into a great team.

You can link with Harri Tunturivuori on LinkedIn.

Daniel Westermayr: The Group Mentality vs. Creating Real Agile Product Teams

In this episode, Daniel discusses the overuse of the word “team” and the importance of true teams in product development. He highlights the need for preconditions for a team, and notes that sometimes teams don’t even have a shared goal. Daniel also warns against the “it’s done, just needs to be tested” anti-pattern and explains how it can lead to problems with team collaboration. We discuss the use of Causal Loop Diagram to find hypotheses, and mention a talk by Jeff Patton on the client-vendor anti-pattern. Finally, Daniel emphasizes the need to remove the notion that one party needs to own the game in the client-vendor relationship.

Featured Book of the Week: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

In this segment, Daniel Westermayr discusses the importance of data-driven decision making in product development. He references the book “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, which highlights the biases and faulty intuitions that can arise in decision making. Daniel emphasizes the need to use data to inform decisions and cites the book “Out of the Crisis” by W. Edwards Deming as an important resource. He also provides a link to a talk by Russell Ackoff about Deming’s approach.

Transform Your Agile Teams with Hard-Earned Lessons from Super-Experienced Scrum Masters

About Daniel Westermayr

Daniel is a Kanban Trainer with a knack for all things Lean and Theory of Constraints. He wants to help teams achieve and measure their continuous improvements.

You can link with Daniel Westermayr on LinkedIn.

Mike Salogub: The ex-developer skills that help Product Owners excel at Agile software development

The Great Product Owner: The ex-developer skills that help PO’s excel with Agile software development

This segment describes an example of a great Product Owner who was also a developer before (like the anti-pattern example). However, this PO had a deep understanding of the product and the business, thought ahead and talked about opportunities with stakeholders. She made tradeoff decisions using her experience, talked to the team on their terms, and went to bat for the team. There was a great chemistry between the Scrum Master and the PO.

The Bad Product Owner: The ex-developer skills that destroy the PO’s performance

In this segment, Mike discusses Product Owner anti-patterns, including POs who think they are the boss, those who are clueless, and those with a development background who second-guess the team. The segment advises that POs should focus on overall aspects such as working with stakeholders, and recommends setting expectations on the role with each PO. The segment also emphasizes the importance of being deliberate about how we integrate our background in our future positions.

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 Mike Salogub

Mike’s an accomplished, committed and creative Scrum Master with over 10+ years of expanding horizons in the healthcare technology industry. Focused on continuous improvement using data to inform business decisions, and driving innovation to meet the needs of patients.

You can link with Mike Salogub on LinkedIn and connect with Mike Salogub on Twitter.