Trying to Hire a Product Owner? Read This!

Recently, someone asked Collaborative Leadership Team about a good Product Owner job description. Did we have one?

The short answer we provided was no. The longer answer involves questions that need answering of course. Why is a Product Owner being hired? If the company has been in existence for any amount of time and has an existing product, there already is a Product Owner there. That person’s title may not be “product owner” but there is somebody performing in that capacity or the product and/or company wouldn't exist. Scrum isn’t something done in addition to doing work. It is a different way of doing the work.

Follow up questions would need asking of whoever is performing in that role currently. Do they know that Scrum is a different way to do the work? Do they not want to use Scrum to do the work? Are they saying they don’t want to be involved with that product any longer? Is that person leaving the company or moving to a different role?

Product Owners need extensive market, customer and product knowledge. It's rare for someone off the street to walk in with that.

Or is this a case of fake Scrum. The question to ask is this: Does the company want a Business Analyst but they are calling it P.O.? Or do they want a Project Manager but they say it’s a P.O. role?

According to the official Scrum Guide (https://scrumguides.org) Product Owners’ decisions are respected; they are not overturned. Another question to ask an organization who is hiring for a Product Owner, as opposed to identifying one, is about authority. Product Owner’s have the authority to make decisions about the Product. Those decisions are respected. , a Product Owner will seek input before making a decision but asking for input is not the same as having to ask for permission.

There are companies moving into a new market but still want a knowledgeable Product Owner. They might have to look outside the company.

But that’s another question to ask about why this position is available.

Ok how do you identify a Product Owner in the company? Start with what the Product is. Look at your company from the point of view from a paying Customer. What is your Product. Let’s say you sell insurance. The “system” is not the product. The coverage is. There would be someone who has the knowledge, the authority over scope, schedule and budget or you wouldn’t be able to offer that insurance. When you find that person, you have identified your Product Owner. Start by asking the questions at the beginning of this post about wanting to do their work differently.

If you’d like to learn how to be an exceptional Product Owner, please join us for an In Person, socially distanced class or a Virtual class here

Is "Definition of Ready" Part of Scrum?

Is “Definition of Ready” part of Scrum?

The short answer is no. If you read the free, official Scrum Guide (https://scrumguides.org/ ) you can verify this answer for yourself.

So “Why isn’t there a Definition of Ready in Scrum?” may be a follow up question that requires a longer answer.

Scrum is about approaching work differently. It is the Product Owner’s responsibility to refine Product Backlog Items (PBIs) soliciting input from stakeholders, customers, subject matter experts, etc. to determine if the item or idea is worth pursuing. If they decide the PBI is something they want to pursue with the Development Team, the Product Owner (P.O.) engages the Development Team for further refinement on the item.

This requires the P.O. and Development Team to engage in a pretty advanced technique that is becoming harder for people to understand.  It’s called talking to each other.  That’s right! The Product Owner and the Development Team engage in conversation, in collaboration, in discussion which is refinement.

While some in the Agile and Scrum community propose Definition of Ready as a good idea, our experience at CoLeadTeam is that it’s causing damage and doing harm in many Scrum adoptions.

Here are just 3 of the anti-patterns we see as a result of a well-intentioned “coach” or Scrum Master prescriptively calling for a Definition of Ready:

·       Development Team Excuses: a Definition of Ready gives an unmotivated Development Team an excuse to push back on work the P.O. brings to them. The P.O. is responsible for the who, what and why. We are looking for motivated, cross-functional Development Team members to creatively come up with the solution. If they are used to being spoon-fed every detail so that they do not need to engage in creative product development, a Definition of Ready only negatively reinforces bad behavior that we are not looking for in Agile or in Scrum adoptions.

·       Big Up-Front Requirements Gathering: a Definition of Ready forces locking into up front requirements gathering which is the opposite mindset and behavior desired when using Agile or Scrum. The value of a proactive P.O. is bringing work to the Development Team just enough, just in time to keep the organization “nimble” or “agile”. It enables them to turn on a dime for a dime. Big up-front requirements gathering is pure waste. By the time the item makes it into the hands of the Development Team getting through the Definition of Ready, things have changed.

·       Avoiding Talking to Each Other: a Definition of Ready also enables the bad behavior of not talking to each other. Which is…the whole point. Recall the first value in the Agile Manifesto “individuals and interactions over processes and tools” or the third value “customer collaboration over contract negotiation”.  The very act of holding Product Backlog refinement between the P.O. and Development Team is to allow the emergence of detail. Those details can be captured as they emerge. To insist that they are written down early in a process isn’t approaching work differently at all. It’s doing work the old way but calling it something else.

Hopefully this “longer answer” has been helpful. While some maintain Definition of Ready would be an improvement to the Scrum framework, that’s not what CoLeadTeam is seeing in the world of work. Please leave us a comment with your thoughts about Definition of Ready!

- Angela Johnson

Learn more about scrum by attending one of our upcoming trainings! Check out our course schedule here.

"So Tell Me More About This 'Kanban' Thing. . ."

"So tell me more about this ‘Kanban’ thing..."

Is this another stereotypical Zoom class?

No one sided chalk talk learning here. TKP uses cutting edge concepts to help adults learn. Group discussions, simulations and self-directed modules allow participants to engage instead of endure. By the end of the session you’ll know how to apply Kanban to both work and home. 

How does Kanban help my team? 

The Kanban method is an attempt to balance supply and demand. Any organization or non-profit has a perceived level of ability to deliver work. That same organization also has a variable amount of demand for that work. Kanban shows us how far out of balance those two things are and shows some choices to better align them. 

Kanban enables organizations making decisions using actual data instead of guesses or hopes. Kanban also enables workers to achieve organizational goals instead of running out the clock. These results are what to expect out of the Kanban method. 

How does it help me? 

Being part of a struggling team is stressful. Negative feedback from all sides leads to checking out and little desire to fix things. Just being told to make it happen instead of making it better. 

The Conference Board reports that 46.3 percent of workers are unsatisfied overall at their job. Consider that for a second. Almost half of the workforce is unhappy.  (Levanon, Gad, et al., 2019)

And that was pre-Covid! Working from home brings more stress and more demands, but it doesn't have to be like this. 

Tools exist to see our work in a different light. The Team Kanban Practitioner course shows actionable learning instead of theory and more guesses to improve your work environment immediately. 

Join us and see! Check out our course schedule here.

Levanon, Gad, et al. “Job Satisfaction 2019.” The Conference Board, Aug. 2019, www.conference-board.org/publications/publicationdetail.cfm?publicationid=8736.

Get your Hands Off Everyone's Work!

Hey Remote ScrumMaster…” Get your Hands Off Everyone’s Work”!

In Certified ScrumMaster (CSM) courses, Scrum myths are busted.  One such myth is the ScrumMaster is an administrative assistant to a Development Team, to a Product Owner or to an Organization.  Our #CSM is now being offered virtually and you’re working as a Remote Scrum Master so hasn’t that changed?  No! It becomes even more important for Scrum Masters to get their hands off of everyone’s work in a virtual world.

The Scrum Guide notes that the Scrum Master is the Servant Leader to a Development Team, to the Product Owner and to the Organization:  http://scrumguides.org/ 

The guide describes this service as coaching, guiding, enabling understanding, enabling outcomes and so on.  It does not describe or prescribe the ScrumMaster as typing or writing anything for anyone.

Getting Your Hands Off the Team’s Work

When ScrumMasters insist on “taking notes” or scribing at Scrum Events they are actually:  

• Taking away the Development Team’s Learning Opportunities

• Taking away the Development Team’s Accountability

• Taking away the Development Team’s Group Memory

Will the team ever learn accountability and collective ownership if there’s an admin who takes that away from them?  No. According to brain science the people who write the most learn the most.  Does your organization really want a team of producers knowing the least about what they are doing but one administrator who continues to learn?  Organization leaders say they want accountability, they say they want high performing teams who continue to learn and yet the first thing they do is put in layers of Adult Daycare Providers in place they call Scrum Masters and begin taking away learning opportunities and accountability.

Getting Your Hands Off the Product Owner’s Work Too

A great ScrumMaster also needs to serve the Product Owner.  Coaching the Product Owner on proactive refinement and stakeholder management doesn’t mean touching their backlog, creating burndown charts for them and being a go between with stakeholders. The Product Backlog is for the Product Owner.  It is the way they manage the work that is needed for the Product.  The Product Owner is the stakeholder manager. It is their responsibility to build a forecast, keep it up to date and keep the stakeholders informed about what is happening with the Product. The Scrum Master can assist in not only coaching the Product Owner on doing work differently, but also teaching and coaching stakeholders on things working differently in Scrum. Scrum Masters who pursue advanced credentials and improve their neutral facilitation skills can add a lot of value to facilitate those conversations because the Product Owner of all people is NOT neutral.  If they go down rabbit holes with stakeholders and nothing gets decided, how productive is that?  Effective Scrum Masters keep the producers producing and it’s not by doing the work for them.

This Doesn’t Change when You work Remotely

The need for effective Scrum Mastery doesn’t go away when working remotely…it is needed more than ever! It will take more preparation and focus from a Scrum Master given the tools involved and reading emotions over web cameras.  Which is pretty hard to do if you think your job has anything to do with typing or writing notes. Let’s get you started with 5 things you need to be doing right now as a Remote Scrum Master:

• Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools.  YES you may be using a tool to “dial in” or connect with each other but that isn’t a license to forget about the Individuals and the Interactions. Do people have the correct information?  Do people know how to turn on their web camera? Do people know how to find the mute button? Do people know how to use the chat? Are you assuming the answer is yes to all this without having checked in with the people in question? Effective Scrum Masters prepare and ensure everyone is prepared

• Those Interactions. If you had not facilitated the creation of a working agreement before being forced into a virtual world, you are behind the curve. There needs to be a working agreement for the Scrum Team (PO, SM and Development Team) that includes what behaviors are acceptable and which ones are not acceptable. Briefly remind everyone of these agreements at the start of your session. If there are visitors from outside the Scrum Team joining, ensure that they understand the “ground rules”.

• Set Office Hours. People may have kids being homeschooled, have pets to care for or extended family staying with them. As a Scrum Team, talk to each other and determine if there are any hours that need to be respected for people or pet duty and block those as not available. Conversely, show those Office Hours that are fair game for conversations via phone calls, chats or web cam.

• Simplicity…Avoid Cognitive Overload. This is a real thing. It’s a big change for someone to learn how to use a web camera and integrated audio on a tool unfamiliar to them. Especially if people try add virtual polling, white boards, chat windows, estimation tools, backlogs, games, email and more. Keep it simple! Start slowly and build up to being able to add in functionality if it’s useful. Why make someone search for a virtual hand to raise when they can raise their real one on camera? Same with a thumbs up or down.

• Avoid System Overload Too. Many of these tools eat up bandwidth and computer resources. How effective is your online conversation when people can’t hear you due to your computer’s fan humming loudly working overtime? They won’t see or hear you when your machine keeps crashing. The fewer devices plugged in and the fewer pieces of software running simultaneously the better. People can write things down for themselves and enter it into another tool later…don’t try to cram too much technology into each online session.

Conclusion

The Remote Scrum Master is still not an administrative assistant or a secretary.  They are the master of the Scrum framework.  A process enabler.  An advocate for the Development Team, the Product Owner and the Organization.  Great Scrum Masters who focus on servant leadership and outcomes enable delivery of business value with each Sprint.  Keep your hands off everyone’s work!

Hone in & elevate your skills as a Scrum Master by checking out The Scrum Master Files!

Willing to Pay More for Toilet Paper than Professional Development?

If you answered yes, this article is not for you. If you answered no, read on.

COVID-19. Coronavirus. Pandemic. These words dominate our headlines and have changed all our lives. Everyone's forced to adapt. If you have tried to buy toilet paper or hand sanitizer you know what I’m talking about. Even if you try to buy online, some firms who claim to have stock want prices ranging from $20-$50 and even travel size hand sanitizers are selling in that range. Our lives are turned upside down! Don’t worry…this post is not about politics or supply chains but is one observation about the world of work since stay at home orders began.

Now more than ever organizations need to learn how to work. To change, to adapt, to be “agile”. To continue serving the world of work without lowering quality standards, the Scrum Alliance has pivoted and is allowing Certified Scrum Trainers® (CST®) to lead Certified ScrumMaster® (CSM®) and Certified Scrum Product Owner® (CSPO®) courses virtually. These courses have become industry standard based on the Scrum Alliance reputation and high-quality standards for its trainers.

My profession is guiding business agility. I help individuals and organizations perform work . This requires making structural and behavioral changes. The certifying body I choose to represent is the Scrum Alliance. The Scrum Alliance is a non-profit organization whose mission is to transform the world of work (scrumalliance.org). I could represent for profit organizations who only care about their bottom line. That’s not what gets me out of bed every day. Making real change, positive change, in the organizations I serve is what gets me racing to work every day.

In the last 3 weeks my inbox has been hit hard with advertisements from every FOR profit service corporation that I know of, and many that I didn’t know existed before, offering to sell me 100-120 hours of Scrum “certified” prep training and Agile project training for the low, low price of anywhere between $20-$50 per person. These companies have fooled students and prospective students before the pandemic! I hear stories of wasted time and wasted money from students and companies who wind up with no recognized credential and not knowing where to begin with Scrum or Agile.

These companies have no affiliation with an accredited Scrum or Agile organization, no experience implementing the frameworks they are advertising to teach, no credibility in the Agile or Scrum space, list no trainer name, no biography and no recognized credentials. Now, they are counting on people being at home. They are counting on people suddenly out of work who have an opportunity to re-skill or educate. They are counting on companies needing to educate a distributed workforce. Most of all, with their pricing structure, they are counting on volume.

Please don’t assume I’m sharing this because I feel threatened by these organizations. I don’t. These organizations are chasing anyone and everyone. If companies believe they will be able to educate their workforce on agility and reinvent the way work has been done through these types of organizations, then they probably aren’t serious about making real change anyway. And what does it say about a company who is only willing to invest in their people, their future for the same price they will pay for toilet paper or hand sanitizer right now? Those are not the people who want to make real change.

The hard part is to explain to a student, prospective student, or company that what they spent their time and money on is not the CSM® or the CSPO®. When we start talking about the Scrum framework or Agile, what the student or company learned in the 100-120 hours spent doesn’t resemble Scrum or Agile at all. Now the student or company is even more confused. The FREE, official Scrum Guide is available to anyone at: scrumguides.org The Agile Manifesto is also free and available to anyone at: agilemanifesto.org.

If you're interested in learning about Scrum or Agile, check out the free sites referenced in this post. The Scrum Alliance also shares many free blogs, videos and webinars for anyone to learn more if funds are tight and better spent on toilet paper and hand sanitizer right now. Our website also hosts free podcasts and blogs to provide education. Scrum Alliance credential holders can also earn free Scrum Education Units (SEUs) by taking advantage of the free content on scrumalliance.org or coleadteam.com.

If you're interested in earning the official CSM® or CSPO® credential, and want to avoid click-bait or bait-and-switch ads from imposters, the best source to learn more and to register for a class is: scrumalliance.org. If you have recently lost your job and will be pursuing assistance through the MN Department of Employment and Economic Development, CoLeadTeam is an approved provider: https://apps.deed.state.mn.us/lmi/cpt/EducationResults.

We hope you’ll join us in changing the way the world does work. Stay safe and wash your hands!