Common Misconceptions and Negative Implications
· It is a common practice for a Product Owner to come up with a set of requirements in the Sprint Planning and disappear during the Sprint. Then appear directly at the Sprint Review forum and conduct the review of the Developers work during the Sprint Review.
· By doing this, an important opportunity of giving feedback continuously is lost. The feedback becomes a big-bang-end-of-the-sprint activity
· Since Product Owner is seeing the product first time during the Sprint Review, it can become difficult to take feedback from stakeholders
· If Product Owner brings along the stakeholders to do a Sprint Review, the Product Owner ends up acting like the “Other party” and does not build confidence in the team doing the work
- When the Product Owner sees the newly increment only at review time, Sprint Review becomes a gate that holds back value from reaching the users. When the Product Owner sees the increment during Sprint an opportunity is created to release value earlier
Recommendations
· The Product Owner owns the product. Therefore, it is important for the Product Owner to participate in the product development continuously and constantly provide feedback.
· The Product Owner has to build confidence with the Developers. Developers being left alone is not a great idea. The Product Owner should not behave like an outsider and should not sit on the other side of the table. Once the Product Owner wears the “Product Owner Hat”, he/she is first part of the Scrum Team and then part of the Customer or Client or Stakeholder team
· Developers must not fear the Product Owner. Feedback is not a cause for worry. Feedback is good. The earlier you receive the feedback, the better it is for the Product
· Typical steps in the Sprint Review that are seen useful by many teams could be as below
o The Product Owner should invite the relevant stakeholders for a Sprint Review
o During the Sprint Review forum, the Product Owner should sit with the Developers
o The Product Owner should thank the Developers in front of the stakeholders for the work done
o The Product Owner should take ownership of the product during the Sprint Review and collaborate with stakeholders to make it a working session
o During the Sprint Review, the feedback should be from Stakeholders and not from the PO. The PO feedback is assumed to have been taken already during the Sprint
o The stakeholders and Product Owner should think about the next steps based on market place conditions and make adjustments to the Product Backlog
Conclusions
· Sprint Review should be a working session between entire Scrum Team and Stakeholders
· Product Owner should be reviewing the product with stakeholders with help of the Developers
· Product Owner should have provided feedback to the developers continuously throughout the Sprint and should not be seeing the product first time during the Sprint Review