The Absent Product Owner
Anti-pattern
Less than 1 minute to read
Last Updated: Wed 25 Oct 2023 11:15
The Absent Product Owner is frequently too busy to attend to their responsibilities as prescribed by Scrum. Often, this person sees themselves as having a “real” job that doesn’t include the duties of a Product Owner in Scrum. The Absent Product Owner often wished that developers understood that they have other responsibilities and do not have time to groom Product Backlog Items to the level of detail needed by the Team.
Examples of The Absent Product Owner Behaviour:
- Late or missing from meetings like Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and Retrospective
- Preoccupied and dismissive during conversations with the Team
- Not enough PBIs are ready for Sprint Planning
Typical impact
- The Team chooses what to actually deliver in the increment
- The Team chooses to work on things unrelated to the Sprint Goal or PBIs
- The Team sees that Scrum is fundamentally not working and elects to abandon the process.
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