End of the PO in our company
Our management has decided to reorganize the engineer teams and terminate all dedicated Product Owner roles. Current PO's will lose their role and be moved to other areas of the company where possible. Team leaders will absorb the role of Product Owner and be the PO for the team.There'll be no dedicated PO.
We have many teams using Scrum. Most of these Scrum teams also have a team leader who is responsible for "general" leadership of the team, the management (i.e. holiday approvals, regular 1 on 1's, admin), leading technically, and where possible also developing software (i.e. writing code). This is a team consuming activity and most leads don't have time to code.
The management now expect the team leader to also take on the role of Product Owner. For team leaders who are already stretched with their current responsibilities, taking on a Product Owner role that I thought was supposed to be dedicated is a huge undertaking. I'm concerned that this is not going to work but maybe I'm wrong because the position of team leader in a Scrum team was also not encouraged. I'm just not sold on the idea of making the team lead PO with all their other responsibilities.
I'm not sure why my management are doing this or where they got the idea from. I'm interested in the opinions, feedback and advice of the forums here in scrum.org. What do you think about this situation?
How many products does your organization have?
You keep talking about all of the teams and dedicated Product Owner roles, but the Product Owner is more closely associated with the product than a single team. If you have 2 or more teams supporting a single product, there would be one Product Owner working with those teams. That has been made more clear in the 2020 Scrum Guide revision but is also consistent with frameworks for scaling Scrum, such as LeSS and Nexus.
In the new organization, will there be someone who is filling the role of Product Owner for each product? Does this person interact with the stakeholders and the team enough to satisfy the responsibilities associated with the Product Owner role?
The management now expect the team leader to also take on the role of Product Owner.
A Product Owner is accountable for maximizing product value, including all investments required to design, develop, release, and support the product over its lifetime. Accountability to stakeholders for value earned, budget lines and for spend may be implied.
- Does that sound like something a "team leader" would do in your organization?
- Why does a self-managing team need a "team leader" in the first place?
- Upon what evidence are management basing this expectation of theirs that a "team leader" can take on the Product Owner role?
If you watch Joshua Partogi's video (08:32), do you feel the Product Owners fit his description of a Product Owner?
Many companies have a Product Management organization. These Product Managers will drive direction of the individual products and ensure the consistency across the entire product offerings. In organizations that have Product Management and also use Scrum, the Product Managers will accomplish the duties designated to the Product Owner role. The title doesn't matter as long as the role's responsibilities are being met.
You seem to have concern about losing the Product Owner but no concern about having a Team Lead. You state
Most of these Scrum teams also have a team leader who is responsible for "general" leadership of the team, the management (i.e. holiday approvals, regular 1 on 1's, admin), leading technically, and where possible also developing software (i.e. writing code).
In the 2017 version of the Scrum Guide the Scrum Team is said to be self-organizing and that no titles are recognized regardless of the work being done. In the 2020 version of the Scrum Guide it is stated that within the Scrum Team there are no sub-teams or hierarchies. So where does the Team Lead fit into the framework as described in the Scrum Guide?
I have worked in organizations (including my current one) where there are Engineering Managers assigned to every team. It may be a dedicated assignment or an assignment across multiple teams. These Engineering Managers do the personnel management duties of your Team Lead but they are also accountable for the delivery activities. The Product Managers are set up in similar ways and are responsible for the Product direction. Together the two satisfy the role of a Scrum Product Owner. In both of the recent Scrum Guide versions there are statements that the Product Owner may do the work or include others in it but ultimately the Product Owner is accountable. In the situation I have described the Product Manager is the one ultimately responsible for the Product so they become the one held accountable.
You do not indicate if there is a Product Management organization in your company. So I don't know if this situation will apply to you. But I offered it up so that you can see a scenario where it could work.
I'm going to wrap up with this thought. Do not confuse what the Scrum Guide defines as a role as a job description. Roles define work that needs to be done by someone. Job Descriptions defines work that a specific individual will do. As an example to illustrate let me refer to something that everyone is familiar with. A Law Enforcement Officer is a role. Around the world there are many job descriptions associated with that role. But in the end, all Law Enforcement Officers do the same work ... upholding the laws of the society in which they reside. While they have the ultimate accountability for upholding the laws it is not uncommon for individual citizens to hold others responsible to various laws.
I hope this helps.