Can one person be both the Scrum Master
and the Product Owner? After all the
Product Owner is just requirements
engineer and the Scrum Master is just
the team personal assistant
right?
And by having the same individual
accountable as the Product Owner and the
Scrum Master,
we can save lots of salary budget
right?
Folks if you're also interested to know
the reason why we should have two
different individuals as the Product
Owner and the Scrum Master,
stick around because we will elaborate
it right after this one.
[Music]
So as many of us already know, in Scrum
there are three accountabilities the
Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the
developer. And when Scrum said that these
are accountabilities ... it means these are
not job titles. It's not even roles.
I've made videos that explain these
three accountabilities ... go check out
those three videos on this channel, if
you haven't watched it already. So here's
the thing ... Scrum guide does not
explicitly say that the Product Owner
and the Scrum Master must be two
different individuals. However, in the
Scrum Master section in Scrum guide,
there is a paragraph that explains the
Scrum Master services to the Product
Owner. So when you think about it, if the
Product Owner and the Scrum Master are
the same individual ...
the company will have a self-serving
individual.
Someone who is not interested in other
people's interests.
Of course we don't want a self-serving
individual in our company
right? The developers may have an
interest in bringing in technical
excellence into the product development
process. They may also want to pay
technical debts in the product. But a
self-serving individual may ignore the
developers interest and ask the
developers just to complete more Product
Backlog items. And as you have already
watched on my other videos ...
this will just lead to a feature factory.
Turning Scrum into a feature factory is
one of the reasons why developers hate
Scrum so much. The developers may also
have an interest to work at a
sustainable pace every Sprint.
Now a self-serving individual may ignore
all of that and treat the Sprint as a
mini-waterfall instead. Quite often mini
waterfall will lead to burn out or
overburden.
Overburden in the software development
industry is quite common and Scrum wants
to avoid seeing developers being
overburdened.
Because when the developers are
overburdened ... they won't enjoy developing
the product. And that usually leads to
low quality products. Scrum has always
been about quality first. And that's why
the Definition of Done needs to be made
transparent to everyone in the company
so everyone understands the level of
quality the Scrum team strives for.
Besides avoiding a self-serving
individual in the company, by having two
different individuals as the Product
Owner and the Scrum Master, these two
individuals will be more focused so they
can be great at their respective areas.
As someone who is accountable for
maximizing the value of the product, the
Product Owner needs to have access to
the budget for developing the product. We
can't expect someone to be accountable
with the return on investment of the
product if we don't allow them to manage
the budget to maximize the return on
investment of the product. The Product
Owner needs to be entrepreneurial.
Being entrepreneurial requires vision.
The Product Owner therefore needs to
have long-term vision for the product.
Besides vision, being entrepreneurial
requires looking outwards at the problem
that the customer is facing.
Being entrepreneurial requires the
Product Owner to understand the current
market trends and the competition
landscape.
In some industries, the Product Owner
needs to be aware of the current global
issues and the latest government
regulation. Now as you can see, the
Product Owner is an outward looking
individual. They must be in tune and find
opportunities outside of the company
that can maximize the value of the
product. Now if the Product Owner is a
more outward looking individual, the
Scrum Master focuses on looking inside
the company and finding opportunities to
improve the Scrum team's effectiveness
in delivering valuable and releasable
products.
The Scrum Master needs to view the whole
company systemically because sometimes
the factors that contribute to the Scrum
team ineffectiveness may come from those
outside of the Scrum team.
Sometimes it is the company's internal
politics and bureaucracies that is
impeding the Scrum team to deliver
valuable and releasable products.
The Scrum Master should not be limited
only to working inside the Scrum team
though.
Limiting the Scrum Master only to the
Scrum team will only lead to sub-optimal
performance. The Scrum Master should be
empowered to make a change in the
company so they're able to improve the
Scrum team's effectiveness to an optimal
level. Check out my video on how to
measure the Scrum team's effectiveness
by clicking the card up here, if you
haven't already watched that video.
Because the focus of the Product Owner
and the Scrum Master is different, the
skill sets required to be an awesome
Product Owner and an awesome Scrum
Master are also different. As an
entrepreneur in the company, the Product
Owner needs to be effective in managing
the budget for developing the product.
That means they need to be financially
savvy and needs to know accounting.
Besides financial metrics, they need to
know how to interpret the correlation of
evidence-based management or EBM metrics.
They need to have the knowledge to make
a future projection based on these
metrics.
The Product Owner must also have
knowledge to craft small experiments
that will validate assumptions from the
stakeholders and also their own. The
Product Owner also needs to have
negotiation and bargaining skills so
they know how to handle conflicting
needs from the stakeholders. The Product
Owner should never be the proxy
between the stakeholders and the
developers. The Product Owner also needs
to be good in making sales pitches to
get buy-ins from the customers. The
stakeholders and also the developers. And
of course, the Product Owner needs to
have skills in product management. On
this channel, we have already quite a lot
of videos on Scrum Master. From the eight
Scrum Master hats video that I have
already made, we can break down the
skills that the Scrum Master needs to
have. The Scrum Master needs to have
effective teaching, coaching and
facilitation skills .. that is for sure. The
Scrum Master may have technical skills
that they can use for mentoring others
in the company too. They need to know
several agile practices that they can
use for mentoring and teaching the
developers and also others outside of
the Scrum team.
They need to know how to use the
evidence-based management metrics to
improve the Scrum team's effectiveness.
On top of that, the Scrum Master needs to
know lean thinking and systems thinking
too. As written on Scrum guide, the Scrum
Master is required to advise the company
on how to roll out Scrum throughout the
company, therefore they need to
understand organizational design and the
psychology of change as such the rollout
throughout the company does not cause
resistance and confusion. And of course
the Scrum Master needs to master Scrum
beyond just what's written on the Scrum
guide. Now many of us already know that
the Scrum Master is a true leader who
serves. I often describe the Scrum Master
as a leader who leads from behind.
Well the Product Owner is also a leader.
They lead from the front. They lead
people towards the long-term vision of
the product. That's why the Product Owner
needs to be an inspiring leader. As
leaders, both the Product Owner and the
Scrum Master are people-centric and great
communicators. Together with synergy,
they're able to engage everyone in the
company with the process to develop the
product and towards the vision of the
product. As we already know, focus is one
of the Scrum values. When the product
owner and the Scrum Master are two
different individuals there will be more
focus. The Scrum Master focuses on making
systemic changes in the company that
will lead to delivery effectiveness so
the Product Owner does not need to get
drowned in internal company politics and
can focus on maximizing the value of the
product. When we have a self-serving
individual in the company, either the
value of the product does not reach its
real potential. Or change in a company is
slower than it should be. But when the
Product Owner and the Scrum Master are
two different individuals, there will be
checks and balances. With those checks
and balances, the Product Owner and the
Scrum Master will sharpen each other so
they can be more awesome at what they do.
Those checks and balances should also
result in a higher quality and valuable
product.
That is all from me today folks. Thank
you for watching today's video until the
end. Hopefully today's video helps you
see the value of having two different
individuals as the Product Owner and the
Scrum Master at your company. And
hopefully from today's video you will
come up with a list of action items to
leverage your Product Owner and your
Scrum Master to be more awesome than
they already are rather than putting
unnecessary layers above them.
And if you liked today's video folks
don't forget to click that like button
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the next video folks.
Now deliver something amazing to your
customers.
Bye now.