Scrumbanwa!
Good Evening.
A question, if you’ll permit me.
What happens at the end of every single day?
Answer: Sunset.
And, what happens at the end of every Sprint, grasshopper? Something beautiful, multi-coloured, and romantic?
No! What happens is hectic, important, and the most valuable things which Scrum has to offer.
That is:
- Retrospective meeting(s)
- Deployment of completed work
That’s right. The time between Sprints is the only moment of the development cycle which is important to me, the product owner.
But why do I make this outrageous statement? Because I’m interested in value. I am interested in what new features I can give the users, and how we can improve the team’s performance for the next sprint.
I don’t care what the team does during the sprint. They can play monopoly on the ceiling wearing chicken-suits and it won’t make me worry. They could establish their own company selling exclamation marks on ice cubes; it would make no difference to me. What I care about is what happens at the end of the sprint. I expect results, and if the team produces them, they are making me happy. I am ecstatic if they then find a way to improve themselves for the next sprint.
So, dear scrum practitioner. If you feel that your product owner is ‘looking over your shoulder’ during sprints, and poking you in the fork to keep you visibly working – tell him/her to get stuffed! The result is what the product owner should be interested in, and the process should only be addressed during the retrospective meeting, which occurs outside of the sprint.
If you’re going to be prodded in the gullet by anyone during the sprint, it should be your Scrum Master.
