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CPPO calls in for additional meetings

Last post 06:39 pm March 12, 2021 by Ian Mitchell
5 replies
05:04 pm March 11, 2021

Hi, I don`t know how to deal with a CPPO who constantly interrupts the teams with meetings. He is asking for a status update on a weekly basis the meeting should last for 30min. You need to know is set for 10 days.

Any idea how to deal with it?


05:05 pm March 11, 2021

*the sprint is set to 10 days.


07:06 pm March 11, 2021

Is the "CPPO" a stakeholder whose interests are represented by the Product Owner? If so, why isn't the ongoing delivery of value enough?


08:36 pm March 11, 2021

I'm not sure what a "CPPO" is. Google tells me it stands for "Certified Public Procurement Officer", but I don't know if that's right in your context. An explanation of who this individual is and how they fit into the context of the Scrum Team would be helpful.

Generally speaking, though, between the transparency of the Scrum artifacts and the existing Scrum Events, there aren't that many reasons to hold other meetings, especially with stakeholders.

The current status of the Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog should be visible to the appropriate stakeholders. This should give them information about what the team is working on now, what the team's current goals are, and what things the team is most likely to work on next. If there are any concerns, with these, the Product Owner would probably be the best person to address them, which would include triaging urgent requests to determine if it is worth disrupting the team's planned Sprint with it.

For more direct interaction with the team, the Sprint Review provides the best opportunity for the team to invite key stakeholders to see what the team has done and what their upcoming plans are. It's also a good opportunity for the stakeholders to keep the team up-to-date on changes from their perspective that could impact the team's work.

The Sprint cadence should be one that allows the team to synchronize with stakeholders frequently enough to be able to adapt to changes in their context. If a key stakeholder is asking for weekly updates, perhaps a Sprint length of 2 weeks is too long and the team should consider moving to a shorter Sprint cadence. It's not clear from the description is a problem of not having visibility into the team's progress or a need to synchronize - that's something to determine.


03:41 pm March 12, 2021

I'm another that does not know what a CPPO is but I googled and found one definition of Chief Production, Planning and Control Officer.  That could make sense given the context of your question. 

I would say that this is a perfect opportunity for the Scrum Master to fulfill the responsibility to the organization and explain to the CPPO how best to interact with a Scrum Team.  Help them understand how the team works and is constantly adapting. Help them to understand how the Product Owner is the one that could best provide insights into forecasted delivery.  Help them learn how to read the information that is radiated from the Scrum Team.  The Scrum Team should discuss this in a Retrospective to identify ways of improving their communications to the outside organization.

But the Scrum Master should also take this as an opportunity to learn more about the needs from outside the Scrum Team.  Could it be that the Scrum Team is not radiating enough information or is not making the information easy enough to access?  There might be a better way to provide the information that the CPPO needs in real time rather than having to resort to a weekly meeting.  

This isn't a problem of how to deal with a CPPO.  It's a problem of how the Scrum Team radiates information to interested parties without having to interrupt the work that they are doing to achieve the Sprint Goals.


06:39 pm March 12, 2021

If it's a transformational context, I have a sinking feeling that it might stand for Chief People & Performance Officer.


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