How do I implement SCRUM in my environment?
Hi Everyone,
I just completed my PSMI and want to implement the real essence of SCRUM into my organization. The good point here is that I AM the Boss :-) and I'm inclined to bring the change for the better. We currently use SCRUM partially or at least we use the terms.
Here's my problem, We have Project Managers and team that work under him/her. We have the customer dial in on every Scrum review meeting but who do i call the Product owner? the Project Manager who knows almost everything about the project and guides the team technically or the Customer who usually knows what he wants but is not IT savy most of the time and cannot / is not present on other Sprint meetings like Sprint Planning or Sprint retrospective? I believe that I should be SCRUM Master because I facilitate the teams.
We don't actually work on big products - our projects range from Small business applications for customers to AI and Complete business automation solutions. Time span is usually between 6 months to a year. Should i implement SCRUM in its full potentials for projects this size?
Thanks for your time and I'm looking at the community for a solution.
From your reading of the Scrum Guide, should a Product Owner be guiding a team technically, or representing the interests of customers and other stakeholders?
How important do you think it is it for a Development Team to manage themselves technically, and without depending on other authorities such as project managers? Also, if a product is genuinely important to a customer, shouldn’t it be important enough to be represented by a clear Product Owner in events such as Sprint Planning?
The Product owner should be representing a customer for sure. And the Development team should be managing themselves technically yes so then that means that the project manager can be part of the development team since there's no restriction as to who you add to the development team to make it cross-functional.
If i make the Customer the product owner i doubt he / she will properly handle the product backlog because most of the time we have to tell the customer what modules / feature will be needed to make an App usable - So far we never got the customer involved in breaking down the product into a product backlog, usually the project manager did that and then we'd invite the customer to Sprint review meetings. That has worked so far for us so I'm a little skeptical about making him the Product owner. What do you suggest from experience?
A good Product Owner will be accountable for product value, and will try to maximize it sprint by sprint.
What does the Scrum Guide say about a PO having Development Team members do some of the PO’s work? How much of that work do you think could be done by Development Team members in your situation, with the PO still remaining accountable?
If i make the Customer the product owner i doubt he / she will properly handle the product backlog because most of the time we have to tell the customer what modules / feature will be needed to make an App usable
Why do you believe that you and others within the company are better judges of what makes an App usable than the customer?
Keep in mind that the PO's main responsibilities are to maximize the business value delivered by the Development Team, and to understand the needs of the customer.
Your customer is the under the umbrella of a Stakeholder within the Scrum Guide. They put their order in for what they want and are involved in checking the product throughout the process via Sprint Review but the customer should not be the Product Owner.
When you say you have Project Managers and then developers that work under them, are you saying that the Project Manager is the dev team's manager? Or is the Project Manager just managing the project they are working on and the dev team reports to the project manager with the work they have completed or for questions regarding their tasks?
If the PM's are just leading the project itself and not managing the dev team, then the Project Managers would be your Product Owner but they should brush up on the difference between a Project Manager and Product Owner if you truly mean to implement Scrum correctly. I found that a Project Manager will take more of a management style approach when running a project but true Product Owners take a leadership style approach. The difference, management just wants the work done no matter what, doesn't want excuses from their subordinates. Leadership style will consider the concerns brought up and is open to changes if necessary and the changes are possible within the Sprint Goal. If the Project Managers are changed over to be Product Owners, you should look into the PSPO training classes (Professional Scrum Product Owner) and encourage them to be certified. I mean if you're going to implement a new process and framework, may as well go all out.