Skip to main content

People manager in Scrum

Last post 09:19 am May 9, 2018 by Filip Łukaszewski
3 replies
05:25 pm May 7, 2018

My organization is having some difficulty coming to terms with "People management".  Specific use cases are when team members are questioning why teams are split up certain ways, why we are missing some skillsets, why we continue to say one thing and do another.   I act as the product owner and they ad-hoc approach me.  My first reaction is to take it in to make sure they feel heard, it also is hindering progress on our backlog.  Secondly I tell them to bring up any impediments to the scrum master and bring it up in the retrospective.  



The issue is that the organization believes there has to be a people manager, someone to sit down and manage the team.  Talk about drama, talk about these types of things.  



I have never dealt with a "people manager" in scrum, as most teams deal with their own issues.  Curious as to how others have handled this?  







Side note:  Teams clearly see that they aren't self-organized and are pushed into teams against their will.....approach to that? 


09:31 am May 8, 2018

In my current company we also have people managers. One for POs, one for maybe up to 20 devs (from multiple, various Scrum teams), etc.

I think you could talk with your Scrum Master, maybe with more of these PO-SM pairs, confirm if the management problem is shared, and if it is, you should let the management know, make them realize the negative consequences, and maybe even change their behaviour.

In my company we had a similar problem, and after making the management aware of it, they now try much more to first come to teams, discuss why the changes are needed, and then maybe arrive at a solution together that more or less satisfies everyone. It is not easy, not always works, but worth trying.

Sometime unfortunately people managers try to mange-from-above with the POs... One more bad possibility we are trying to stop.


10:34 am May 8, 2018

Teams clearly see that they aren't self-organized and are pushed into teams against their will.....approach to that? 

As Product Owner, what effect would you say this has on outcomes? Are the teams delivering shippable work every Sprint which you make use of and which demonstrate value?


09:19 am May 9, 2018

Unfortunately Ian, this could still be possible. Maybe less effectively... but still possible.


By posting on our forums you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.

Please note that the first and last name from your Scrum.org member profile will be displayed next to any topic or comment you post on the forums. For privacy concerns, we cannot allow you to post email addresses. All user-submitted content on our Forums may be subject to deletion if it is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use. Scrum.org does not endorse user-submitted content or the content of links to any third-party websites.

Terms of Use

Scrum.org may, at its discretion, remove any post that it deems unsuitable for these forums. Unsuitable post content includes, but is not limited to, Scrum.org Professional-level assessment questions and answers, profanity, insults, racism or sexually explicit content. Using our forum as a platform for the marketing and solicitation of products or services is also prohibited. Forum members who post content deemed unsuitable by Scrum.org may have their access revoked at any time, without warning. Scrum.org may, but is not obliged to, monitor submissions.