- 9 April 2021
- Posted by: Erkan Sarıkaya
- Category: AGILE
The Product Owner (PO) had created valuable User Stories from the ideas gathered from those around them and from stakeholders, and by looking at some usage trend reports. Take a look:
As you can see, the Product Owner has already weeded out some ideas they didn’t find valuable, ones that didn’t fit the shared product vision and goal — tossing them in the bin without wasting any time.
How so? Here’s the story:
… A business unit, say a sales representative, passes a request they consider important to the PO. Because this will land an important deal. The Product Owner understands the issue, but there are more valuable items in the Product Backlog (PBL) with higher long-term returns. The business unit immediately grabs the phone and calls the manager. Or no need to call — they fire off an email and ask the PO to change their priority. They’ve escalated the matter to the manager.
What Would You Do as a Leader?
What would you do as a leader? (Think for 2 minutes…)
- I’d pressure the PO to carry out the business unit’s request anyway
- If that fails, I’d talk to the team to strengthen my hand and apply pressure again
- I’d team up with the other stakeholders and apply pressure again to persuade on priority
- Or …
…
…
Even knowing there will be a short-term loss, for the sake of long-term gains I would respect the PO’s decisions and protect them and the team from outside pressure.
See Anzeneering:
PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY & ANZENEERING
The Product Owner Makes the Final Call
The Product Owner — again, as the name suggests 😉 — listens to all stakeholders, requesters, managers, the CEO, teammates, the end user, in other words their internal/external customers, but makes the FINAL DECISION themselves. The organization, the team and the culture they live in must respect the PO’s decisions. The reverse is also true. The PO is chosen from among people whose decisions everyone can respect and who can bring vision and value to the product.
Like the person who makes the last-second GO/NO GO call on the rockets SpaceX launches. Everything is ready, there’s a live broadcast around the world. It’s already been postponed twice.
Everything has been checked 10 times, 3 backup engines were ready just in case. All cameras started rolling from 15 angles, millions are watching…
“3-2-1…”
LAUNCH ABORTED. The product owner has made the decision. Done. Full stop.
Just as they decide whether Sprint outputs get released or cancelled.
The Refinement Meeting
… And the PO has shown up at the “Refinement” meeting with User Stories listing the valuable work in order.
Once the agile team has understood the why and the what of items that are at least 60-65% mature, the search for an answer to the “How” question begins. Experiment (SPIKE) opportunities are evaluated. After estimates are made using sizing practices such as Story Points (SP), T-Shirt Sizing and CFP, “VALUE” is reassessed against the effort. If the effort didn’t turn out to outweigh the value, we now have a squeaky-clean, brand-new work item.
Congratulations, and best of luck with it!
Now, whether it fits into the Sprint or not has become a whole lot easier to tell.
Ref: https://www.van-rooden.nl/blog/2016/03/10/product-backlog-refinement-explained-33/
Enterprise Agile Coach
Erkan Sarıkaya
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Author: Erkan Sarıkaya — Enterprise Agile Coach, founder of GONEX. He writes on enterprise agile transformation, Scrum and agile leadership coaching. You can learn more on the About Us page and read his other posts.