Lorraine Chambers: When Product Owners Are Spread Thin, And How To Overcome The Absent PO Anti-pattern

The Great Product Owner: The Growth-Oriented PO

This Product Owner (PO) ensured every team member had a voice, fostering an environment for experimentation and ideation. They facilitated developer participation in hackathons and effectively communicated the vision and roadmap. The backlog was consistently well-organized and prioritized. The PO actively shared feedback, motivating the team. They sought opportunities for recognition and took pride in sprint reviews. This PO’s commitment extended to continuous learning and self-improvement through training, events, and meetups, reflecting a growth-oriented mindset nurtured through Lorraine’s coaching.

The Bad Product Owner: When Product Owners Are Spread Thin, And How To Overcome The Absent PO Anti-pattern

Lorraine recounts an experience with a PO that was often absent. The Product Owner was spread thin across multiple teams, leading to scheduling conflicts with scrum events. This resulted in a disorganized backlog and a lack of a clear vision. Open, candid conversations were crucial in highlighting the impact on the team. Together, Lorraine and the PO adjusted the calendar to prioritize the team’s needs. With improved availability, the team thrived. Lorraine also collaborated with the PO to advocate for more dedicated time from management.

The Ultimate Guide to Supporting Product Owners as a Scrum Master

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 Lorraine Chambers

Lorraine’s vision of excellence is summed up in the words of philosopher, Lao Tzu — “A leader is best when people barely know he exists … ” She’s held several roles in the Fintech industry, including Product Owner and Quality Assurance. She’s a native New Yorker that loves travel, music and museums.

You can link with Lorraine Chambers on LinkedIn and connect with Lorraine Chambers on Instagram.

Mirela Mus: The Product Owner’s view on Leadership Impact, Priorities, and Stakeholder Management for Scrum Teams

In this episode, Mirela discussed the challenges of change management and shared valuable tips. She emphasized that change can fail for various reasons and highlighted the importance of impactful leadership to drive successful change. Mirela recommended having a supportive group of people ready to assist in the change process and showcasing examples of successful changes to the team. Collaboration with Product Owners (POs) was emphasized, as they can greatly influence team performance. The ability of a PO to say “no” to higher-ups was discussed. Anti-patterns such as a lack of priorities or structure in prioritization were identified as potential problems at the team level. Mirela provided tips on mapping stakeholders, managing relationships, and helping the PO learn to influence people. In this episode, we refer to the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie. Managing oneself, leveraging asynchronous work, monitoring the PM’s meeting time, and deprioritizing as a cost-cutting measure were additional tips shared in the episode.

Want to Improve Your Change Management Results? Discover the Lean Change Management Approach Today!

As Scrum Master we work with change continuously! Do you have your own change framework that provides the guidance, and queues you need when working with change? The Lean Change Management framework is a fully defined, lean-startup inspired change framework that can be used as the backbone of any change process! You can buy Lean Change Management the book at Amazon. Also available in French, Spanish, German and Portuguese.

About Mirela Mus

Mirela is the founder of Product People, a Product Management Consultancy on a mission to help companies discover and deliver great products faster. They have 41 full-time Product Managers who help companies focus on product-led growth and/or profitability.

You can link with Mirela Mus on LinkedIn and connect with Mirela Mus on Twitter.

BONUS EPISODE: Danilo Tambone shares with us his very Agile Story of personal transformation

Danilo started as a construction project manager, but during the years he transformed himself as well as his career. In this BONUS episode we explore that process of personal transformation that makes Danilo an Agile person, not just a person that does Agile.
We hear the story of how a change in the job market presented Danilo with a challenge, but also an opportunity. Then we explore what steps he took to adopt the ideas of Agile and how he applies those ideas even today in his own personal time management system which he dubs Agile.
Danilo created a time management course to help all of us that feel overwhelmed, but want to use our agile principles in our own personal time management. Danilo introduces the course and offers you a 80% discount (!!) for the first 30 people taking his course. Check it out, go to this Udemy link to access Danilo’s course.

About Danilo Tambone

danilo tambone scrum master toolbox podcast(1)Danilo Tambone is a project management professional with 12 years of experience in the field, he is a PMP and PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner.
Danilo started his career in the Construction Industry (very different from IT), but after the discovery of the agile techniques and their successful application on the job and for his own personal productivity, he has prepared a real career transition in an agile way, and has recently started his new working life as an IT Project Management Consultant.
You can link with Danilo Tambone on LinkedIn, and visit Danilo Tambone’s Udemy profile.

Get The Booklet!
How to deliver on time and eliminate scope creep By scoping projects around outcomes and impacts, not requirements!
Get the Product Owner Booklet!
Avoid scope creep! And learn to scope projects around impacts and outcomes, not requirements!
Get These Valuable Lessons Today!
Down-to-earth, hard-earned Scrum Masters lessons and the Tips from the Trenches e-book table of contents, delivered by email
Enter e-mail to download a clickable PO Cheat Sheet
This handy Coach Your PO cheat-sheet includes questions to help you define the problem, and links to handy, easy techniques to help you coach your Product Owner
Enter e-mail to download a clickable PO Cheat Sheet
This handy Coach Your PO cheat-sheet includes questions to help you define the problem, and links to handy, easy techniques to help you coach your Product Owner
Enter e-mail to download a checklist to help your PO manage their time
This simple checklist and calendar handout, with a coaching article will help you define the minimum enagement your PO must have with the team
Enter e-mail to download a checklist to help your PO manage their time
This simple checklist and calendar handout, with a coaching article will help you define the minimum enagement your PO must have with the team
Internal Conference
Checklist
Internal Conference
Checklist
Download a detailed How-To to help measure success for your team
Motivate your team with the right metrics, and the right way to visualize and track them. Marcus presents a detailed How-To document based on his experience at The Bungsu Hospital
Download a detailed How-To to help measure success for your team
Read about Visualization and TRANSFORM The way your team works
A moving story of how work at the Bungsu Hospital was transformed by a simple tool that you can use to help your team.
Read about Visualization and TRANSFORM The way your team works
A Quick & Practical Guide to Agile Projects for BI
No Spam. Only your book. And you can unsubscribe any time.
Start Reading Now