In certain circumstances the Development Team can order the items in the Product Backlog?

Yes, As Scrum Says. But Only at the Product Owner's discretion.

Please read carefully Product Backlog Refinement Paragraph given in Scrum Guide .
I am Ok with answer of mentioned question.

> This is a trick question to help you remember
> that the Product Owner can delegate his or
> her responsibilities and that in real-world
> situations things can be adapted to suit the
> needs of the organization. Things are not
> always implemented strictly 'by the book'.

That explanation suggests an imperfect understanding of Scrum as a framework and the principle of its implementation. Whilst it is correct to observe that a PO can delegate certain responsibilities, it would be wholly incorrect to extrapolate from this the implication that the framework itself is subject to some sort of compromise.

Essentially, when implementing Scrum, it is the organization that must change and not the framework. Scrum must be implemented in ways that include specific and appropriate practices, but it is not true that the framework itself can be "adapted". All parts of Scrum must be applied if Scrum itself is to be applied.

In other words, as a framework Scrum is something that must be done "by the book" if the specifics of each implementation are to be successfully applied within it. This is very demanding, and so it is worth noting in this regard that "the book" describing the framework (i.e. the Scrum Guide) has been kept to less than 17 pages in length.

Thanks Ian for the replay. However when I gave another thought to the same questions I realized that "development team" is cross functional and may consists of people from business side too, like say business analysts. If this is the case, the product owner may delegate some part of his role, like say 'ordering product backlog', to development team.

The organization where I currently work, we do have a product owner responsible for the whole product backlog, whereas we also have someone called system engineer (equivalent of business analyst) who is kind of a delegate of product owner. The product owner and development team are globally located (PO in Canada, dev team in India), so in the unavailability of product owner, system engineer takes the responsibility to clear development team's doubt about product backlog. System engineer also reserve rights to re-arrange the backlog in the absence of product owner.

I understand that scrum doesn't allow sub roles within development team, but I believe the role of system engineer is maintained the organization just to maintain organizational hierarchy, otherwise system engineer is just a member of development team, with the title 'developer'.

Also I assume, in the absence of such skill set, product owner must not delegate his critical responsibilities like ordering the product backlog, to the development team.

Please point out if I am incorrect.

I just wanted to let you know that we corrected the wording of the tip at scrumstar.com. It seems like "by the book" wasn't the best expression to use because it implied that THE book, the Scrum Guide, should not always be applied. But that's of course not the point.

The point is that sometimes new practitioners don't realize how flexible Scrum is or how easy it is to misinterpret the Scrum Guide.

The Guide is very short and every word matters. It doesn't provide such detailed instructions like, say, the 600-page PMBOK Guide, so without additional training and practical experience it's sometimes easy to get stuck on a wrong idea. The ordering of the Backlog is an example of this.

The PO is responsible for ordering the items, so it's easy to assume that he or she should always order the items. But that's not really what it says. There's flexibility there that allows for all sorts of scenarios and new Scrum Masters should keep this in mind.

The new tip explains: "The goal of this question is to help you remember that Scrum is a flexible framework and that the Product Owner can delegate his or her responsibilities if it suits the needs of the organization."

I had an excellent Development Team who would give direction on dependencies. To that extent, they were adjusting the order of the list. They were also allowed to pull forward small approved backlog items to fill a sprint, using the principle that if they were cracking open a module/window/report, etc., they should check the list for related approved items with low risk.

Hello Ian, What is answer of the question ? Is it "Yes" or "No"

Hi

I am preparing for PSM 1 and I would like to be sure of my understanding that development team (Yes) can order the product backlog items if purely asked as above without the question having a reference of at PO's discretion.

Plz confirm if my understanding is correct.

The Scrum Guide is pretty clear on this:

The Product Owner is the sole person responsible for managing the Product Backlog. Product Backlog management includes:
 Clearly expressing Product Backlog items;
 Ordering the items in the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and missions;
 Optimizing the value of the work the Development Team performs;
 Ensuring that the Product Backlog is visible, transparent, and clear to all, and shows what
the Scrum Team will work on next; and,
 Ensuring the Development Team understands items in the Product Backlog to the level
needed.
The Product Owner may do the above work, or have the Development Team do it. However, the Product Owner remains accountable.

Thanks Ramsay.

Passed PSM 1 today with 91%

There is a difference between accountability and responsibility. The latter can be delegated, while the person delegating ( ie the Product Owner in this context  ) remains accountable.

The answer might varies depending on the wording of the question.

Pat