The Scrum Team is a small unit of professionals focused on attaining the Product Goal. Scrum Teams consist of a Product Owner, Scrum Master and Developers. Each has a clear set of accountabilities. Learn more about the Scrum Team, accountabilities, responsibilities and why these aren’t called “roles.”

In this live session of the Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer webcast, PSTs Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley will answer your burning questions on the topic of Product Backlog Management. (58:17 Minutes)

In this video, Martin delves into the profound impact a skilled Product Owner can have on a project. 🚀 He emphasises the importance of not just building 'stuff', but building the 'right stuff'. 🎯

Design Thinking helps us to better understand the problem space and in particular to understand the needs of the users. Based on this, our User Stories become significantly better, which is illustrated with an example.

In this video, Martin delves into the often overlooked sin of agile: gluttony 🍽️📈. It's not just about overeating; it's about overloading our backlogs, our Sprints, and our products.

Das Product Backlog ist für Product Owner:innen was das Mehl für Bäcker:innen oder das Reagenzglas für Chemiker:innen ist: es ist das essentielle Instrument ihrer Arbeit! Nach intensivem User Research hat man so viele Daten! Wie bekommt man diese gut strukturiert und effektiv in den Product Backlog?...

What does Scrum say about a Product Owner’s relationship to the product budget? Do they have a part to play? Can they control the budget? If so… should they? In this video, Professional Scrum Trainers Greg Crown and Robb Pieper have a quick discussion that will enhance your understanding of what it ...

How you manage requirements and ‘desirements’ can depend greatly on your team, company, needs, compliance, legal, etc… but what is the best way to write them? In this video Professional Scrum Trainers Greg Crown and Robb Pieper give some recommendations on how you can capture requirements, document...

In this video, Martin 🎥 delves deep into the challenges developers face in accepting product owners as the ultimate decision-makers. He sheds light on the dynamics of team interactions, the influence of stakeholders, and the essence of accountability in the agile environment. 🚀

In this interactive webinar, PST Lavaneesh Gautam covers the Agile practice of splitting Product Backlog items (PBIs).

Why should we break big PBIs into smaller ones?

Estimating Product Backlog Items is not easy. Discover a practice that has helped a lot of the teams I coached.

Do you know the answers to common Product Backlog questions from students in Scrum classes? View the podcast and see if you can go 3 for 3.

Product Walls are great tools that radiate information and support informed decision-making in the empirical world. Equally, it can be pretty tricky to build them. In this series, Ryan Brook and Sander Dur talk you through an example Product Wall and its components.

Product Owners must know their customers to succeed in today’s competitive markets. There is a common agreement among experts involved in product management about it. A lot has been said about this topic. In this blog post, I discuss the different ways to know your customers. To make it more practic...

Product Owners are accountable to provide stakeholders have a clear understanding of the product's direction. In this new episode of the take5IRL podcast, Jeff and Mike explore methods for enhancing transparency. Discover how providing transparency to the Product Backlog can foster a shared vision ...

This blog explores the crucial role of a Product Owner (PO) in managing the Product Backlog. Through facilitation, a PO can enhance team and stakeholder understanding of the Product Backlog, turning it into a narrative that drives everyone towards a shared vision and product goal. We discuss how the...

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community podcast, PSTs Ryan Ripley and Todd Miller join host Dave West to introduce the new Professional Scrum Product Management Skills training course. (34:42 Minutes)

Teams tend to get in the nitty gritty details of expectations. A waste of valuable time. This blog posts provides a simple practice to start dealing with this.

The Daily Scrum can be reduced to a status meeting where likely a Scrum Board or a Burn Down chart is referenced perhaps… but do these tools help with transparency? They certainly can, but how are you using them? If your stakeholders and other product participants could know what the progress is at ...

The Product Backlog is an essential artifact in Scrum, but backlogs could be better for many teams. In this blog, we discuss introducing a new class, Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management - Skills, and how it provides learners with the skills necessary to improve their Product Backlogs.

It's common for Product Owners to be concerned with keeping every idea on their Product Backlog until it's a delivered solution. But what if that idea has been there for 10 years… should it still remain? PST's Jason Malmstadt and Greg Crown give some ideas on how you can handle aging Product Backlog...

What should Scrum Teams do with defects that are discovered? Do they belong in the Product Backlog? Would a separate list of bugs and defects be better? What approach helps with the transparency of the work? Learn how to handle discovered defects effectively.

Learn why ineffective collaboration at the stakeholder level often results in an unsuited reporting system based on misaligned metrics.

In this video, Martin delves deep into the intricacies of consensus in product development, highlighting its importance and the challenges it can present. 🎥🤔

In this video, Martin discusses the tell-tale signs of a Product Owner who might be missing the mark. 🚫🎯 From products of poor quality or low value to inconsistent delivery, these are indicators that shouldn't be ignored. If a product owner is merely jotting down requirements without truly understan...

Product Owners: have you been thrown into the deep end of the product management pool without a clear direction? Are you wondering how you can possibly begin to bring order to the chaos you’ve inherited? In this Scrum Lightning Round, PST's Greg, Jason, and Robb explore some key ideas and techniques...

A lot of Scrum Teams are struggling to get stakeholder engagement in their Sprint Reviews. Without the proper engagement from stakeholders, Product Owners run the risk of not properly adapting the Product Backlog. There are many different ways to spawn better stakeholder engagement. This article is ...

Are you grappling with managing your Scrum Team's work? 🧐 We've got you covered! 💡 Our latest blog dives deep into the heart of Scrum Team operations. We help you demystify 🕵️‍♂️ two key aspects of Scrum: Sprint Work and Refinement. Discover how these tasks, though different, are two sides of the ...

​​​​​​​We often get caught up in the tools we use and feel like we need to get our money’s worth by using every feature. Instead of creating transparency, using every feature of a tool often degrades the transparency of the Product Backlog. Keeping things simple and using a method such as a naming c...

How much detail is enough? How much is too much? When it comes to Product Backlog Items, it can be challenging to find that “Goldilocks Point” of getting it “just right”. In this Lightning Round question, PST's Robert Pieper, Jason Malmstadt, and Gregory Crown tackle this issue with some disagreemen...

Just finishing several Product Backlog Items, without any clear reason why, is not a usable goal. Then what is? Find out in this video!

In this video, Martin delves into the challenging decision-making process of whether to pivot or stay the course in a project. 🔄🛤️ He highlights the importance of balancing persistence with the recognition of when a change in direction might be more beneficial.

If you are a Product Owner (PO), you are essentially the owner of the product and most POs I come across know what that entails. However, I also meet POs who determine during the Sprint which items from the Sprint Backlog the Development Team should work on, or what the solution should be, or even p...

The Scrum Guide is rather vague about how Product Backlog Items should be structured and how to make them transparent. That is by design because Scrum is intentionally incomplete. Understanding what attributes you are dealing with is helpful in creating a well-structured Product Backlog.

🚀 Dive into the world of empiricism in Agile development! 🌍 Discover how inspecting and adapting, deeply rooted in Agile practices like Scrum, ensures organisations stay ahead of the curve. 🔄 Join me on this journey through the Scottish Highlands of Agile development 🏞️, where change is the only con...

The Product Backlog is crucial for Scrum to be effective. But for many teams, Product Backlogs are bloated, confusing, and hard to navigate. This blog discusses the challenges of building a great Product Backlog and what Scrum Teams can do to fight the bloat.

Great product ownership has the potential to transform companies, making them almost invincible, even when economic skies are dark. But how does this happen? And what exactly makes a great Product Owner in these times of adversity? The secret sauce, I propose, boils down to three Vs: Vision, Value, ...

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) What is the role of a Scrum Product Owner? A Scrum Product Owner is responsible for defining and prioritizing the Product Backlog, ensuring the team delivers value to stakeholders, and maintaining alignment with the product vision. How can I improve my backlog pr...

In Scrum, it is the expectation that the Product Owner makes the Product Backlog transparent. Making the Product Backlog transparent doesn’t just mean making it visible; it means making it easy to understand, to convey meaning, and to have it illustrate the ‘why’ behind the Product Owner’s decisions...

Scrum has an accountability called “Product Owner”, but you’ll also come across people with the title of “Product Manager”. Are they the same thing? Related to each other? Is one better than the other? PST'S Gregory Crown, Jason Malmstadt, and Robert Pieper shed some light on this confusing topic in...

The Product Owner is the bridge between corporate strategy and the Scrum Team. The Product Owner must balance the demands of users against the need to ensure that the product remains up to date from a technical perspective. This often means that the Product Owner may need to choose between developin...

🎯📝 Master the delicate balance of crafting a #ProductBacklog! 🚀 Our latest blog post guides you through the path of keeping it lean💡, but not too lean, anticipating the future🔭 without overcrowding. 🔄 Embrace the power of regular reflection meetings to turn surprises into golden insights! 🤔💼 Be the ...

In this article, we will explore some complimentary practices which the Product Owner might use to as an input when deciding how to order the Product Backlog.

By understanding its customers and users, a Scrum Team can identify opportunities, be more innovative and create products that people need and use. Here are different techniques ways to do this.

What are the biggest reasons to use Scrum? What should a team or an organization expect to gain when implementing this framework? Why should anyone care? In this short Q&A session, PST'S Robert Pieper and Jason Malmstadt tackle the value proposition of Scrum, exploring the real, tangible benefits...

Focus groups are a popular tool in market and user research. You can think of a focus group as a large scale interview as they typically consist between 5 and 10 users in a group. When running a focus group, the focus group moderator asks questions of the group and encourages discussion among th...

The Scrum Team should invite customers and users of their product to the Sprint Review. This is a perfect opportunity to engage with them to gather feedback and insight. Rather than using this time to dig into detail, focus on outcomes and gathering feedback and insight. Also, keep in mind that t...

Customer reviews are another way for the Scrum Team to gather feedback on the product. Reviews provide insights into what customers find useful, what they are struggling with, and what they don’t like. Reviews can be found in many places like the company website, social media, and on third-part...

Surveys are one of the most common research methods and another way Scrum Teams can find more about their customers and users. For example, to determine customer satisfaction. Although surveys can be a cost effective way to gather data and insights from a large group of people, if they are not...