The Product Owner as Judge

Here’s a scenario we’ve seen many times and one that, as you may recall, occurred in the nonprofit example at the beginning of this chapter:

To prepare for each sprint review, the Scrum master and development team create an agenda to explain to the product owner what the team accomplished during the sprint. During the sprint review, the development team goes through each item, and the product owner approves or rejects the items for completeness. Regardless of whether any stakeholders are present, this process of acceptance or rejection is often the cause of much strife and angst for the development team.

The sprint review isn’t an event where the product owner is supposed to act like a judge with a gavel. This behavior is a symptom of a lack of communication between the development team and product owner, and it breeds contempt within the dev team. If you see this anti-pattern developing, it’s time to find ways to improve communication.

The development team and product owner should communicate throughout sprints so that the dev team’s work is transparent and the PO is available to provide clarity around the PBIs in the current sprint. Without this kind of dialog, the product owner may end up being surprised during a sprint review, and the stakeholders may be equally if not more surprised. The product owner may in turn not be able to answer tough questions from stakeholders about the direction of the project or what the purpose of the last sprint was. This can lead to the development team having to do massive amounts of re-work, which is frustrating for everyone.

Product owners typically have a lot of clout, so development teams may be intimidated and unsure of how to request better communication. This issue can be exacerbated if the product owner disappears after sprint planning—the dev team may interpret this as the product owner being haughty and unapproachable, though in all likelihood the PO is probably just busy and may simply not realize how important it is to be available to the dev team throughout every sprint.

Appropriate product owner-development team communication prevents re-work, creates transparency, and heightens the chance of a development team completing the sprint goal. To encourage such collaboration, during sprint retrospectives, ask both the development team and the product owner whether they feel like their level of collaboration is appropriate to prevent misunderstandings between them. This will give them an opportunity to discuss ways to improve how they communicate with each other.

If you hear dev team members expressing frustration about the PO not being available, encourage the dev team to bring this up with the product owner so they’re aware of it. Conversely, if you notice that the PO is surprised by some of the things the dev team brings up during the sprint review, work with the dev team to make sure they’re keeping the product owner apprised of the team’s progress throughout each sprint. You don’t want frustrations like these to fester and cause rifts in your Scrum team. Your job is to foster a positive relationship between the development team and the product owner. Scrum cannot work well if these two roles cannot effectively collaborate. Frequent communication keeps everyone happy and on the same page.