In Scrum, Product Owner is an important role. The PO is accountable for Product Success. However, more often than not we see that only 20% of all the features of a Product are widely used. Why does this happen? IMHO, this happens because POs are often distracted due to various reasons. This leads to certain anti-patterns in the PO role, which I tried to explore.

1. The Product Owner Anti-
Patterns

2. Who is a Product
Owner?

3. Accountable
for the
Product
Success
Maximizes the
value of work
done by
development
team
Manages the
Product
Backlog
Ensures that the
Product Backlog is
visible,
transparent, and
clear to all

5. Inaccessible Product Owner
• PO is not available for a quick feedback.
• PO is completely customer facing.

6. Remedies that worked for me
• Block dedicated PO time
• PO needs to full time, not proxy
• Raise impediment at organization level

7. Inadequate Product Backlog management
• Not enough PBIs are Ready to be picked up
for the next sprints.
• PO does not provide clarity or does not have
enough clarity on PBIs in Product Backlog
• PO does not understand how to make PBIs
meet INVEST criteria.

8. Remedies that worked for me
• Coach PO with advantages for Product
Backlog refinement
• Coach PO why PBIs need to meet INVEST
criteria.

9. Partially completed PBIs accepted
• PO keeps accepting PBIs which are
incomplete.
• Team also does not focus on building a
releasable increment of the product.

10. Remedies that worked for me
• Help PO and team create a DoD and coach
the impact of not delivering a releasable
increment.
• Emphasize on the purpose of the sprint.

11. Failure to Trust
• Identify additional work for the team.
• Create stretch objectives for the team.

12. Remedies that worked for me
• Create a fail safe environment.
• Supporting the culture of self-organization
within boundaries.
• Coaching PO how Trust is the foundation for
Scrum to work.

13. Product Owner is not empowered
• There is a product management team that
directs PO
• No single Product Owner
• Proxy Product Owner
• Role Confusion

14. Remedies that worked for me
• Bring in the clarity associated with the
accountability of each Role in Scrum
framework.
• Create an alignment that PO is accountable
for product success. For PO to succeed the
entire organization must respect the
decisions made by PO.

15. Quantity over quality
• Doing more and more PBIs without focus on
quality
• Churning the backlog without spending
enough time in planning
• New PBIs get added to sprint backlog
• Focus keeps changing
• Unfinished code

16. Remedies that worked for me
• Create a Product vision and make PO and
stakeholders commit to it.
• Have some release plan in place which gives
an overview in which direction we are
moving.
• Emphasize on quality, help define a DoD.

17. Estimates as deadlines
• Holding team estimates as commitment
• Forcing team to adhere to estimates

18. Remedies that worked for me
• Bringing the shared understanding that team
commits to sprint goal.
• Commitment is to collaborate with PO.
• Estimates are only good to bring in some
level of predictability and nothing else.

19. Stakeholder Management
• Stakeholders are not identified from the
start.
• Stakeholders are not invited to reviews for
getting feedback on time.
• Always saying Yes to all the requirements,
ideas coming from stakeholders.

20. Remedies that worked for me
• Identifying the key stakeholders
• Coaching PO that having stakeholders during
reviews helps team to inspect and adapt
quickly.
• Coaching stakeholders how Sprint Review is
an inspect and adapt event which fosters
collaboration.