PO collaboration Archives - Page 7 of 9 - Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Shahin Sheidaei: The career oriented Scrum Product Owner, an Agile anti-pattern

The Great Product Owner: The great Facilitator

This Product Owner had come from a Marketing Background, and had no experience with Scrum or as a PO. However, the PO was great at facilitation, and listening to the team and stakeholders. People felt heard, and understood by the PO, who was open minded!

The Bad Product Owner: The career-oriented PO

This Product Owner had come from a business background, and was focused on getting a promotion “out of the PO role”. The PO was using Scrumn as a means to further their own career, and that left the Scrum Master and team bitter about the way in which they were treated!

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 Shahin Sheidaei

Shahin Sheidaei is an Agile, Lean and Success Coach,International Speaker, Transformation Expert, and Entrepreneur.

Shahin is a passionate organizational designer focusing on organizational performance, and is also founder and principal coach at Elevate Change Inc.

You can link with Shahin Sheidaei on LinkedIn and connect with Shahin Sheidaei on Twitter.

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.

Ruta Hardikar: Learning to take into account people’s personalities when implementing Scrum in an Agile team

Ruta started working with a new team that had recently adopted Agile. Many of the practices and processes were new to the team, but also to Ruta as the Scrum Master. As Ruta started to push for some changes, she noticed that the Product Owner and Business Analyst on the team wanted to control the Sprint Reviews very carefully, including who was invited to see the team’s deliverables. When Ruta started to ask about why they wanted to control the Sprint Reviews so carefully, she discovered something that helped her understand the why, but also the need to consider people’s personalities when implementing Scrum.

In this episode, we refer to the book The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday.

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.