We have moved our technical lead to be more involved in the technical decision and stories preparation, always under approval of the PO but she is now more accountable rather than responsible for the backlog.
Job Stories can be extremely useful if the specific user doesn't really matter. Here's a great introduction to them: www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/job-stories-offer-a-viable-alternative-to-user-stories
Should the Product Owner come to refinement sessions with acceptance criteria already written or should they bring an idea for a story to the team and co-create the acceptance criteria?
Good question. My ideal is that the product owner comes having thought about the acceptance criteria but hasn't written them yet and hasn't tried to think of everything. That way the PO is prepared but the co-creation you mention is important.
Our PO is split between too many scrum teams and we have had a hiring freeze all year and teams have basically no people to do the work. Hes also in a different timezone and there's nobody to delegate to. Not sure how to navigate this without angering people.
This is very unfortunate in many ways. Your best option is likely to try to convince someone that the organization will accomplish more by by doing fewer projects at a time. The increased focus will finish the first set of projects more quickly and then teams can move onto second and third projects. Alternatively you may just have to live with the situation until there's an opening to fix at least one of those issues at a time. Good luck.
Ideally, yes. If the PO is sincerely busy then do what you can to help. If being overworked looks to be the norm, see if you can work with the PO to remove some of their responsibilities.
We have moved our technical lead to be more involved in the technical decision and stories preparation, always under approval of the PO but she is now more accountable rather than responsible for the backlog.
Wonderful!
I hadn't heard of Job Stories, but I have heard of Jobs to be Done. Looking up Job Stories now. Thanks!
Job Stories can be extremely useful if the specific user doesn't really matter. Here's a great introduction to them: www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/job-stories-offer-a-viable-alternative-to-user-stories
@@MountainGoatSoftware I found that via Google search, so your SEO is working :)
Job stories resulted from Christensen's work on jobs to be done.
😀
Should the Product Owner come to refinement sessions with acceptance criteria already written or should they bring an idea for a story to the team and co-create the acceptance criteria?
Good question. My ideal is that the product owner comes having thought about the acceptance criteria but hasn't written them yet and hasn't tried to think of everything. That way the PO is prepared but the co-creation you mention is important.
Our PO is split between too many scrum teams and we have had a hiring freeze all year and teams have basically no people to do the work. Hes also in a different timezone and there's nobody to delegate to. Not sure how to navigate this without angering people.
This is very unfortunate in many ways. Your best option is likely to try to convince someone that the organization will accomplish more by by doing fewer projects at a time. The increased focus will finish the first set of projects more quickly and then teams can move onto second and third projects. Alternatively you may just have to live with the situation until there's an opening to fix at least one of those issues at a time. Good luck.
@@MountainGoatSoftware thank you for the thoughtful response!
As a SM should I be assisting the PO in story writing to reduce his workload?
Ideally, yes. If the PO is sincerely busy then do what you can to help. If being overworked looks to be the norm, see if you can work with the PO to remove some of their responsibilities.
Thank you so much for the quick reply!