More with LeSS: Identifying the Product Owner
If you assign an available person as the Product Owner with little to no regard for identifying the Product, there’s a high probability that your Scrum adoption will be less than successful at delivering value.
The first post in this series about descaling Scrum, focused on how to identify the product. If you have successfully identified the product, or used narrowing questions to get to the practical product to start with, the next step is to identify the Product Owner. If you assign an available person as the Product Owner with little to no regard for identifying the Product, there’s a high probability that your Scrum adoption will be less than successful at delivering value. Need the tips on identifying the product again? Visit: https://www.collaborativeleadershipteam.com/blog/less-series-descaling-scrum
Ok let’s say you have effectively identified the product and it’s large or even enormous! The framework included in this series that “descales” the organization when you have up to 50 people working on a large product is Large Scale Scrum (LeSS). When even more people are involved, the product may be a candidate for LeSS Huge which will be explored in the next post in our series. For more information and case studies, visit: https://less.works/
What Changes for Product Ownership in LeSS:
The good news? Nothing does. LeSS is Scrum. Product Owners still:
Are customer focused responsible for maximizing whole product value
Order the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and missions
Are one person, not a committee
Make decisions that are respected by the entire organization
The bad news? If these simple rules laid out in the Scrum Guide (https://scrumguides.org/) are not followed, not only will the Scrum adoption fail to produce valuable, working product, if it’s a large or enormous products mentioned there’s still little chance for success. Indications that these mistakes are being made include Product Owners “in name only” who:
Spend the majority of their time writing things like user stories
Have no authority to make product decisions such as scope, scheduled and budget that are respected
Are order takers saying yes to every request
Know your Development Type
In order to more effectively identify this Product Owner, it’s helpful to know the type of product development we’ll be engaging in:
Product Development: product will be used by a paying customer in the marketplace. If this is your situation where can you look for the Product Owner? In the Product Management group initiating the work. If there is no Product Management group, then the business unit driving the initiative.
Internal Product Development: for one or more users within the company. If this is your situation you can look for the Product Owner in the group that will use this product and/or who is closely involved in the work that the product or system will be used to support.
Project Development: for one external customer where work is “contracted”; this customer includes both the purchasing entity and the users. Does this sound like your situation? The Product Owner is from the company receiving the work/deliverable/system and much like the previous scenario, is hands-on using the system.
Closing Thoughts on Authority
Giving authority to the Product Owner and respecting their decisions are choices any organization is capable of making. If recommended steps have been followed for identifying the product and type of development, the chances of identifying a Product Owner who cannot be trusted with these choices is unlikely. Product Owners are not administrators reporting the results of someone else’s decisions. In order for your organization to deliver more value with less wasted time and wasted money resulting from overturned decisions and go-betweens, it is critical for the Product Owner to have authority over the Product.
To learn more from Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) co-creator, Craig Larman, and to earn a Certified LeSS Practitioner credential register here.
Looking ahead to 2019!
Welcome 2019!
CoLeadTeam remains thankful for 2018 and the clients and students who trust us as guides in business agility. But it’s time to ring in the new year and bring to fruition the new things our team has been working on!
Announcing West End Conference Center:
West End Conference Center will not only be home to CoLeadTeam classes, but will also host a wide variety of workshops and programs from successful authors such as Dr. Harvey Robbins and Michael Nir.
In addition to having training rooms available for rent, West End Conference Center features individual Agile and Scrum coaching, “drop in” work space for individuals and small groups to rent. We’re up and running temporarily at 1550 Utica Ave South, Suite 120 in St. Louis Park. Our new home will be in the same set of towers at 1600 Utica Ave South, Suite 100 in St. Louis Park.
Stay tuned to the West End Conference Center site for grand opening details: https://www.westendconferencecenter.com/
Ignite Agility™ Meetup:
CoLeadTeam’s Ignite Agility™ program provides clients a way to hit the ground running with their Agile and Scrum adoptions. We observe lots of inspired students and graduates become igniters of agility so why limit Ignite Agility™ to adoption kick starts?
In Q1 2019, the West End Conference Center will be home to the Ignite Agility™ Meetup. The meetup will provide individuals a way to network and support others in the community.
To join the conversation and get information about events as they unfold, stay tuned to: https://www.meetup.com/Ignite-Agility/
Scrum Day MN 2019:
Scrum Day MN continues to provide our community an opportunity to learn, network and support one another in the Agile and Scrum communities with proceeds benefiting a local charity. It has outgrown its home! It will still be right here in Minnesota but will relocate in 2019 to the Earle Brown Heritage Center.
Save the date – October 2, 2019.
Stay tuned to the Scrum Day site for details as they unfold: https://www.scrumdaymn.com/
Continued Advanced Agile and Scrum Training:
CoLeadTeam continues to bring advanced Agile and Scrum training to the MN Agile community. Stay tuned to our LinkedIn, Facebook page or website for information on new advanced offerings. In the meantime, check out these opportunities.
We're so excited for everything 2019 has in store- hope to have you tag along with us!
Collaborative Leadership Team Members Earn Prestigious Path to CSP Educator℠ Credentials
MINNEAPOLIS (September 10, 2018) – Collaborative Leadership Team (CoLead Team), an industry leader in providing Scrum and Agile coaching and training, is proud to announce that two of its team members have earned the rigorous Path to CSP Educator℠ credentials enabling them to deliver the Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM℠) certification. CoLead Team Founder and CEO, Angela Johnson and Certified Scrum Trainer, Christian Antoine are two of the first group of ten individuals to achieve this certification in the United States.
Johnson and Antoine part of first group certified in the United States
MINNEAPOLIS (September 10, 2018) – Collaborative Leadership Team (CoLead Team), an industry leader in providing Scrum and Agile coaching and training, is proud to announce that two of its team members have earned the rigorous Path to CSP Educator℠ credentials enabling them to deliver the Advanced Certified Scrum Master (A-CSM℠) certification. CoLead Team Founder and CEO, Angela Johnson and Certified Scrum Trainer, Christian Antoine are two of the first group of ten individuals to achieve this certification in the United States.
“For Christian and I to be among the first group that achieved the Path to CSP Educator is profoundly important to us,” said Johnson. “It demonstrates how committed we are to our own continuous improvement and continual advancement of Scrum. We are passionate about providing a path forward for solving problems and accomplishing business objectives!”
To achieve the Path to CSP Educator certification, Johnson and Antoine had to demonstrate advanced learning techniques that will be used in the program to the Scrum Alliance and undergo Scrum Alliance® approval of their materials and approach.
As a Path to CSP Educator, Johnson and Antoine will serve as mentors to individuals pursuing their A-CSM certification and validate all of the A-CSM learning objectives Those who pursue A-CSM certification must demonstrate their experience working as a Scrum Master and work with a CSP Educator prove their ability to facilitate dialogue and work with teams as an effective Scrum Master.
In addition to being among the first to achieve the CSP Educator status, Johnson is a Certified Scrum Trainer and Certified Less Practitioner and Scrum@Scale Trainer. In 2010, she founded CoLead Teem to provide education and coaching to clients adopting Scrum and Agile. Prior to founding the company, Johnson was an independent Scrum Master consultant to a variety of companies including Jostens, Wells Fargo, Thomson Reuters and Best Buy. A graduate of Hamline University (B.A.) and the University of St. Thomas (M.B.C.), Johnson resides in Wayzata, Minn.
Working with Agile since 2008, Antoine’s diversified experience includes its application within the medical device, finance, healthcare, securities, international law and agricultural industries. He’s a Certified Scrum Trainer and Agile Transformation Coach and consults, trains and coaches teams and companies on Agile at all levels of the organization. He enjoys helping others see there is a different way to approach work, at a sustainable pace, and achieve outcomes that delight customers. Prior to CoLead Team, Antoine worked for Medtronic, Hollstadt & Associates and Computer Science Corporation. He is a graduate of St. John’s University and resides in Golden Valley, Minn.
About Collaborative Leadership Team
Founded in 2010, Collaborative Leadership Team is an industry leader in providing Scrum and Agile coaching and training to companies in a variety of industries including: software, hardware, services, marketing and more. Practicing what they teach, the employees of the Twin Cities-based company use Scrum to manage their services organization. The breadth and depth of Collaborative Leadership Team's experience extends beyond Scrum and includes Kanban, eXtreme Programming, Facilitation and Organizational Change for business agility.
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A New Definition of Insanity – Why Certified ScrumMaster Training?
In Certified ScrumMaster courses I find myself using the old saying “The Definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. Agile approaches such as Scrum are completely different ways of doing work. Yet so many organizations today do not understand this.
In Certified ScrumMaster courses, I find myself using the old saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”. Agile approaches such as Scrum are completely different ways of doing work. Yet so many organizations today do not understand this.
Jeff Sutherland created Scrum largely because the traditional way of doing work, or “Waterfall”, physically delays any business value to the customer. Scrum and other Agile methods deliver value faster if used as directed.
So why do organizations insist on continuing to follow the same, old system development life cycles or build cycles that they were using 20-30 years ago? I call this the New Definition of Insanity since all they have changed is their vocabulary. They say things like Daily Scrum or Product Owner, ScrumMaster, Sprint but in reality they have not gotten something shippable into a customer’s hands any faster than the way they had been working.
If work is not done during a Sprint, there are constructs in Scrum to get to the root cause of this and to prevent this from happening again. Yet so many organizations report they simply “carry work over” to the next Sprint. Working in their old Waterfall ways.
In this day and age of Google, Amazon and Zappos, delighting the customer is key. If organizations cannot deliver value to their customers, someone else will. Are you working the same old way, but using new words to describe it?
Want to learn how Scrum delivers business value more quickly? Click here to view our upcoming classes and register for our next CSM or CSPO course.
Author: Collaborative Leadership Team. Learn more about our coaches and offerings here.
Accountability Layers
In the ocean (as marine biologist and Tom Clancy fans well know) there is a point where warm surface water and cold water from below meet. It’s called the Thermocline layer. It’s where the heat from the sun can’t sufficiently heat the water relative to the cooling currents from below.
Do you know where your accountability layer is?
In the ocean (as marine biologist and Tom Clancy fans well know) there is a point where warm surface water and cold water from below meet. It’s called the Thermocline layer. It’s where the heat from the sun can’t sufficiently heat the water relative to the cooling currents from below.
How does this relate to Agile or Scrum? In a couple of ways, but the one we will focus on in this post is, “Where is your Accountability Layer”?
I’m talking about the level in an organization actually tasked with TCB (Taking Care of Business). In a waterfall project this are usually Project Managers, Resource Managers, Team Leads, etc. These roles use words like “driving” and “managing” staff. Accountability for the success or failure rests here. Sure the QA team missed a bunch of bugs but those were just missed requirements, right? If only we’d have just planned more time to get the right answers first.
Agile approaches, such as Scrum, push this layer down to the team level. The TEAM is accountable for their work. The TEAM plans and executes. The TEAM decides the best way (within the boundaries set by the organization) to achieve the goal and deliver the value.
We still need the folks at the old layer level because the Team will need help, guidance, and organization changes that they can’t manage in addition to their new TCB focus. That assistance has to come from the folks that are best at providing it – the old layer.
I really feel this isn’t often addressed in current thinking about change. Moving this layer is a huge cultural shift in addition to the obvious, practical one. Most species in the ocean live above or below the Thermocline layer- and they don’t usually cross it willingly.
Want to learn more about cultural shifts with Agile and Scrum?
Click here to view our upcoming classes and register for our next CSM or CSPO course.
Author: Collaborative Leadership Team. Learn more about our coaches and offerings here.