Scrum with a dud PO
Product Owners come in most shapes and sizes. Some of those shapes and sizes don’t quite fit into the development process – and here’s some suggested points from which you can conclude whether or not you have a dud PO.
You have a dud P.O. if:
- The P.O. doesn’t come to the Sprint Planning Meeting.
- The P.O. comes to the planning meeting without a crystal clear idea of what needs to be developed next.
- The P.O. estimates or influences the team’s estimates for stories.
- The P.O. commits the team to the work, instead of the team committing to the P.O.
- During the Sprint the P.O. interrupts each developer several times a day to ask “how’s it going?”
- During retrospectives the P.O. is the only one talking.
Now, of course there are other points, but these seem to be the most revealing. But how to ‘do scrum’ with a dud P.O.?
Should you?
Yes. You should.
The P.O., no matter how much of a dud he is, is still an important part of the process. At worst he is still a human shield to protect the developers from the stakeholders.
A pitbull of a stakholder, shaking with anger, asks: “You developed an unusable pile of crap! Who’s responsible?”
“The Product Owner!” they all shout, pointing their wavering fingers at the P.O.
At best, he is the sphere around which the whole development cycle revolves.
