Friday 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.

Kirill Golubev: The Pitfalls of a Project Management Mindset in the Product Owner role

The Great Product Owner: Building a strong relationship between Scrum Master and PO, a critical contribution to the success of the team

Kirill talks about how important it is for Scrum Masters to build a close understanding and trusting relationship with the product owner (PO), and how that relationship is critical for the success of the team. He emphasizes that if there is no chemistry between the Scrum Master and PO, it’s better not to join that team. When there is good chemistry, the team will benefit much more from both Scrum Master’s and PO’s presence.

Kirill also stresses that the PO needs to have guts and be clear about prioritizing the backlog. He warns against the anti-pattern of conflict between the Scrum Master and PO.

The Bad Product Owner: The Pitfalls of a Project Management Mindset in the PO role

In this segment, Kirill shares why he thinks that the PO role is a cornerstone role in Scrum and without a PO, a Scrum team cannot even get started properly. We explore how POs that come from the project management field, often have a project management mindset, which hinders their ability to grasp the PO role.

Kirill shares an example of 3 POs for one team who were new to the role and to Agile. The POs did not trust the team to self-manage, and wanted to control everything by telling the team what they had to work on, and when. We discuss how we can help the PO understand that it helps the team to trust and help them self-manage. We also refer to the concepts of Theory X and Theory Y and how, knowing about that can help the PO’s understand their role as a leader.

About Kirill Golubev

Kirill considers himself an Agile and common-sense apologist. He wants to see simple processes in place, when people self-organize and manage themselves without constant push from management.

You can link with Kirill Golubev on LinkedIn.

Juan Rodriguez: What Product Owners do that disengages, and demotivates Scrum teams!

The Great Product Owner: When lack of experience becomes an asset for a PO!

This PO was new to the organization, and didn’t have a lot of knowledge about the product. However, that was not an obstacle for this Product Owner. She took that as an opportunity to ask question, and learn as much as possible from the team. Because of that learning journey, she also learned to be present, and help the team answer some critical questions. Even if she did not know the answer to those questions, she was able to find out who else to involve, and helped the team at the same time as she discovered the product herself.

In this segment, we refer to the book Fish! By Stephen Lundin, and how the PO exemplified the model described in the book: Play, Make the Day, Be There, Choose Your Attitude!

The Bad Product Owner: PO actions the disengage, and demotivate Scrum teams

This was a marketing team working with a sales tool. The Product Owner decided by themselves that the team was “not going fast enough”, and started asking some team members to “work on this project during your lunch break”. When that was found out by the rest of the team, the team felt betrayed, and started to disengage from the work! Listen in to learn how Juan helped the team overcome this disengagement, and how a different attitude completely transformed the team’s attitude!

About Juan Rodriguez

Juan started his career as a Drafter. He then transitioned to Engineering IT support, eventually landing in software development. His first introduction to agile-like practices was in 2014, which did not go that well. A few years later, Juan was introduced to Scrum, where he now enjoys being a Scrum Master.

You can link with Juan Rodriguez on LinkedIn.

Shoaib Naik: When Product Owners don’t understand the team’s work, they actively destroy it!

The Great Product Owner: The PO that helped the Scrum Master improve their game!

A great Product Owner is able to balance the stakeholder expectations and the team expectations. In this episode, we also discuss how the Product Owner can help the Scrum Master in their job, by helping the Scrum Master step back when necessary, and help manage the pressure put on the team. Finally, we talk about how great Product Owners are able to listen to the team.

The Bad Product Owner: When PO’s don’t understand the team’s work, they actively destroy it!

One of the aspects that make Product Owners negatively affect the team, is their inability to understand the importance of some aspects of the team’s work. When the PO does not understand why, and how release planning helps the team, they might be tempted to skip that practice, or shortchange it, leading to problems for the team, and ultimately conflicts. In this episode, we explore how bad Product Owners slowly undermine the team, especially when they don’t speak up! Helping the team speak up, and working through that with the Product Owner are key responsibilities for the Scrum Master!

About Shoaib Naik

Shoaib is a Scrum Master with over 11 years in Software development with experience in different roles, from IT Account Manager, Product Manager to Project Manager in product as well services-based companies.

You can link with Shoaib Naik on LinkedIn, and follow Shoaib Naik’s blog.

Mher Nalbandyan: Coaching a Product Owner on their availability to the Scrum team!

The Great Product Owner: The PO that spoke the team’s language

This Product Owner was able to write stories with acceptance criteria, and descriptions the team members considered understandable. The PO was also able to write descriptive bugs and even did some testing. The PO also had enough technical background to help answer some more detailed questions by the team members. However, most importantly, the PO knew their limits and where to stop providing information.

The Bad Product Owner: Coaching a PO on their availability to the Scrum team!

This PO was not always available, which led to a slow feedback loop. This slow feedback loop, and lack of availability can cause problems and demotivates the team. Mher describes how he raised the topic with the PO to be able to address the needs of the team. In this episode, we talk about the Sprint Checklist, a coaching tool we designed here at the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast to help you discuss the availability topic with the PO.

About Mher Nalbandyan

Mher works at Mbition in Berlin, where they develop the next generation of information systems for Mercedes-Benz.

You can link with Mher Nalbandyan on LinkedIn and connect with Mher Nalbandyan on Twitter.