Karmængine

Following these steps you can not only crush all loyalty, optimism, and quality in your Product Owner, but you can make him tear the very hair from his scalp:

1. Make a business decision without consulting the partners in the business.
2. Find a buffoon who has never heard of Agile and make him Project Manager.
3. Task the Project Manager with making the business decision a reality, using the Product Owner’s team.
4. Don’t brief the development team or the Product Owner on the situation.
5. Put a distance of half a continent between the Product Owner (and team) and the Project Manager.
6. Watch as the Project Manager drowns the Product Owner with outdated waterfall documents and processes.
7. Watch as the Product Owner tries to stay afloat and keep the Scrum process happening.
8. Watch as the Project Manager contradicts himself as he struggles to employ waterfall properly.
9. Watch as the Project Manager fails to understand even the basic principles of Agile methodology.
10. Watch as the Product Owner struggles to meet the waterfall requirements in the Scrum environment.
11. Watch as the Product Owner lacerates himself on the rocks at the bottom of the waterfall, pulling the team with him.
12. Watch as the Project Manager follows his Gantt chart like a blind man with a guide-stick, and tries to demonstrate the product which wasn’t made to the company owners.
13. Listen as the Project Manager points fingers, blames, attacks team members on a personal level, and tries to play the Scrum Master against the Product Owner.
14. Listen as the Scrum Master gives in and allows the Project Manager to dictate deadlines and content of sprints.
15. Watch the mutant team stretching themselves around ’scrumfall’ methodology.
16. Listen as the Project Manager burns everyone’s ears with stories of his own success.
17. Watch as the team grows hatred for the Project Manager.
18. Watch as the Product Owner abandons the company.

Did I mention the word ‘buffoon‘? It doesn’t feel right to limit the description to a single word, but, as I’ve learnt, using many words to describe nothing is one of the traits of such a person.