“Scrum — Our Product Owner is absent all the time”

Are you serious? — episode 30

As a Scrum Master I have seen Product Owners that hardly interact with the rest of the Scrum Team. I have seen the following variations:

• The Product Owner only visited the events (apart from the Daily Scrum) and Refinement Sessions
• The Product Owner only showed up during the Sprint Planning and the Sprint Review
• The Product Owner only showed up during the Sprint Review
• The Product Owner only maintains a Product Backlog and isn’t available for the team.

These are a all signs of a Product Owner who is detached from the Scrum Team. The examples may appear to be more and more extreme, but I’d argue that even the first variation shows a serious issue.

Product Backlog Management

I believe that Product Owners who show this behavior think that their sole responsibility is Product Backlog Management. That they just has to make sure that the Backlog is ordered properly so that the Development Team can pick them up in the right order. That is an over-simplification of Product Backlog Management:

“The Product Owner is the sole person responsible for managing the Product Backlog. Product Backlog management includes:

*Clearly expressing Product Backlog items;

*Ordering the items in the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and missions;

*Optimizing the value of the work the Development Team performs;

*Ensuring that the Product Backlog is visible, transparent, and clear to all, and shows what the Scrum Team will work on next; and,

*Ensuring the Development Team understands items in the Product Backlog to the level needed.” — SG (emphasis added)

The emphasised passages all require interaction with the rest of the Scrum Team. A Product Owner should make sure that the Product Backlog Items are clear to all and that the Development Team knows what to do to bring the value that the Product Backlog Items are intended to bring. This clearly requires more from the Product Owner than participating in the Sprint Planning and Sprint Review. (S)he needs to be engaged in the Refinement as well.

But obviously there is more to the Product Owner role.

Other Product Owner Responsibilities

“The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from work of the Development Team.” — SG

In order to maximize the value of the product a Product Owner must interact with the Development Team throughout the Sprint. (S)he needs to be available to clarify topics and to discuss with the rest of the Scrum Team how to respond to developments that impact the Sprint Goal:

“Scope may be clarified and re-negotiated between the Product Owner and Development Team as more is learned.” — SG

But there’s also the Sprint Retrospective:

“The Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint.” — SG

The Sprint Retrospective is an event for the whole Scrum Team to inspect itself. This -obviously- includes the Product Owner.

Bottom Line

The Product Owner is part of the Scrum Team. The Scrum Team as a whole is responsible to:

“address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.” — SG

The Product Owner is not an outsider. The best Scrum Teams I have seen do have Product Owner who is always available as an active part of the team.

Did you like the article? Then it would be awesome if you’d clap 👏🏻. I am also very keen to learn what you think about this topic.

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