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How does a project without PO looks like?

Last post 01:29 pm March 24, 2023 by Ian Mitchell
1 reply
12:30 pm March 24, 2023

There is a project I depend on to reach my overarching goal.

The project had a 50% dedicated Business Analyst, 2 developers (contractors), an Architect, a Domain Expert that is an internal Stakeholder for internal company users and a Stakeholder that is an account manager for external clients/users. It was not clear who was the PO and there was no Scrum Master. They do have dailies and sprint review, run by the Architect.

It's a big company.

The BA left and was supposedly replaced by the Domain Expert/Internal Stakeholder. The Architect role was handed over to one of the senior developers.

After 6 months development, I started to join the daily meeting and dive deep into the project. What do you think it happened and what is the current situation?

Hope this quiz-question will be a enough stimulating and I'd like to see if my current view of what is happening it's meaningful and can shed some light on the Product Owner role.

 


01:29 pm March 24, 2023

The current situation is that there is a lack of transparency over progress, due at least in part to confusion over Scrum terms of reference and what they mean.

Work is presumably being undertaken and people are not working for free. My advice in the first instance  is to follow the money. Find out who will eventually be held accountable for value, or the lack thereof, and who in addition to yourself is likely to end up being disappointed.

If value cannot be clearly accounted for, perhaps the wisest thing to do is to stop, and to find more clearly valuable things to work on.


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