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Open questions for experienced Product Owners

Last post 02:26 pm February 23, 2025 by Chris Belknap
3 replies
Anne Sunny
01:05 pm February 23, 2025

I am a Product Owner beginner and still with open questions regarding what a Product Owner normally does in following situations, where I would really appreciate for sharing from your experience as Product Owner :) :

  • Is it valid for the Scrum Master to create a JIRA ticket for the next Sprint when the ticket has not yet been analyzed to determine whether it really has the priority assigned by the key users, for example, "Prio High"?
  • As a beginner, I thought it would help me to add JIRA Tickets, Bugs, or Changes as a kind of table to assist in prioritizing tickets. This table would have to be filled out by the key users and would include fields such as: "How many users are experiencing the issue?", "Is there a workaround?", etc. Many users have their own definition of what "Prio High" or "Highest" means, and since they are the ones creating the tickets, they assign the priority themselves, which often does not align with the actual priority criteria. Has anyone here added something like this to a JIRA ticket for key users to fill out so that the PO can determine the ticket's priority? Or do you talk directly with the key users?
  • Some key users have expressed their desire to create dashboards or reports in JIRA to display KPIs, such as the number of open and completed tickets. Would this also fall under the responsibilities of the PO?
  • How do you plan the tickets for the next sprint?
  • We have the issue of limited resources and budget to hire more people. Additionally, the current resources are unable to proceed because they require support from specialists in other systems (e.g., SAP), and those working with SAP do not use Scrum and are occupied with other projects. What can be done in this situation? Let's assume we only have resources available for 30 hours per week (Sprint every two weeks).
  • Which tickets move to the next Sprint? Which tickets go to the Sprint backlog?
  • When is it advisable to have a Sprint longer than two weeks (e.g., three weeks)?
  • What happens if a developer goes on vacation and is the only person who can resolve a ticket, causing progress in the current Sprint to be blocked?
  • What statuses should tickets have to be moved to the next Sprint? What statuses should they have to remain in the Sprint backlog?
Ian Mitchell
01:20 pm February 23, 2025

Tickets aren't moved into the next Sprint. Product Backlog items may be selected by the team during Sprint Planning if they would help to meet a coherent and valuable Sprint Goal. Those items would then represent a forecast of work for the Sprint.

Items can only be selected  if the Developers consider them ready for Sprint Planning, meaning they have been refined, and the Developers are satisfied that they can meet the Definition of Done for that work.

Anne Sunny
01:34 pm February 23, 2025

Thanks for your response, but what happens then with user stories, bugs, changes that could not be complete in the current sprint and the next sprint comes and you as PO have to plan the next sprint?. I mean what is best practices to say "this ticket goes to the next sprint because...". You have tickets with priority and with statuses...and happen then with the ones that are not completed, wouldn't they be part of the Sprint backlog instead of the Product backlog?.

Chris Belknap
02:26 pm February 23, 2025

While a tool such as JIRA might automatically move unfinished work to the next Sprint Backlog, don't let the tool force you into bein a mechanical Product Owner. Unfinished work in Scrum goes back to the Product Backlog, and a Product Owner needs to make a tough call - should we continue to invest budget in these unfinished items or has something other product Backlog it become more important?

Every Sprint is a fresh start. Did the entire Scrum Team reflect on the past Sprint as to why there was unfinished work? The new Sprint starts with a fresh Sprint Goal the Scrum Team crafts, and then self-managing Developers collaborate with the Product Owner on what to select for the Sprint Backlog. 

Some key users have expressed their desire to create dashboards or reports in JIRA to display KPIs, such as the number of open and completed tickets. Would this also fall under the responsibilities of the PO?

Open and completed tickets are not KPIs related to business outcomes. Those are outputs. What if the Scrum Team completes 100% of their "tickets" every Sprint, but their work has dissatisfied end users, leads to revenue loss, poor quality, and heavy technical debt? Would those so-called KPIs then matter?

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