Clarification on Roles and Responsibilities: Product Owner vs Scrum Master
I'm new as a Product Owner and also new to the fact that there is a Scrum Master in the company. I'm confused and not sure if we're doing things correctly. Sometimes, I want to discuss with the developers their actual availability to work on JIRA tickets (both analysis and development) and find solutions based on their availability during the sprint. However, one of the developers forwarded my invitation to the Scrum Master. In the session, the Scrum Master was there and immediately gave their opinion before I even had a chance to say anything.
What is valid in this situation? Is it correct for the Scrum Master to do this? Is that their role or mine as the PO?
Was this happening in Sprint Planning? Was that the "session" you refer to?
It could be helpful to frame these discussions in the context of the Scrum events (like Sprint Planning) and other activities (like Product Backlog refinement).
No, it was part of a session which is none of the Scrum events. I organised the call because I don't have any other way to communicate directly with them.
It's up to the Developers to work out their capacity in Sprint Planning, but you need to be there to present an ordered and organized Product Backlog of work for them to choose from. You would then collaboratively agree a valuable Sprint Goal and a forecast of work for meeting it. Keep the focus in Sprint Planning on that, rather than trying to address it in some other session.
Putting aside analysis, which I assume is related to backlog refinement, you mentioned you want to discuss with developers their availability to work on development during the Sprint. Is this development work outside of the current Sprint Goal?
You also mentioned that you don’t have any other way to communicate with Developers. Can you elaborate on this a bit more? What is the dynamic like within this team in terms of collaboration and communication?