1. The Agile Product Owner
Unifying the Three Sides of the Talent Triangle

2. Dave
Todaro
@dave_todaro
President & COO
Ascendle

3. Business Visionaries 
Strategy 
Building 
Support

4. Connect the business and the development team Product Owner
Act as the product visionary
Drive business goals
Image: danielguenther (Flickr)

5. We’re Losing the Relay Race
Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka
“The New Product Development Game”
Harvard Business Review, January 1986.
“The…’relay race’ approach to product development…may conflict with the goals of maximum speed and flexibility. Instead a holistic or ‘rugby’ approach—where a team tries to go the distance as a unit, passing the ball back and forth—may better serve today’s competitive requirements.”

6. Scrum in 100 Words
Scrum is an agile process that allows us to focus on delivering the highest business value in the shortest time.
It allows us to rapidly and repeatedly inspect actual working software (every two weeks to one month).
The business sets the priorities. Teams self-organize to determine the best way to deliver the highest priority features.
Every two weeks to a month anyone can see real working software and decide to release it as is or continue to enhance it for another sprint.

7. The Process 24 hours Sprint 2-4 weeks Return Sprint goal
Potentially shippable
product increment
Sprint backlog
Cancel
Return
Gift wrap
Coupons
Gift wrap
Cancel
Coupons
Product
backlog

9. Sprints Scrum projects make progress in a series of “sprints”
Typical duration is 2–4 weeks or a calendar month at most
A constant duration leads to a better rhythm
Product is designed, coded, and tested during the sprint

10. No Changes During a Sprint
Plan sprint durations around how long you can commit to keeping change out of the sprint

11. Roles Ceremonies Artifacts Product owner ScrumMaster Team
Sprint planning
Sprint review
Sprint retrospective
Daily scrum meeting
Ceremonies
Product backlog
Sprint backlog
Burndown charts
Artifacts

12. Scrum framework Roles Ceremonies Artifacts Product owner ScrumMaster
Team
Roles
Sprint planning
Sprint review
Sprint retrospective
Daily scrum meeting
Ceremonies
Artifacts
Product backlog
Sprint backlog
Burndown charts

13. The Product Owner Role “Customer Proxy”
Defines the features of the product
Prioritizes features according to business value
Adjusts features and priorities every sprint, as needed 
Accepts or reject work results
Decides when to release and what’s included
Responsible for the profitability of the product (ROI)
“Customer Proxy”

14. The ScrumMaster Provides management of the process
Responsible for enacting Scrum values and practices
Removes impediments
Ensures that the team is fully functional and productive
Enables close cooperation across all roles and functions
Shields the team from external interferences

15. The Team Typically 5-9 people
Cross-functional: Programmers, testers, user experience, designers, etc.
Members should be full-time
May be exceptions (e.g., database administrator)
“External team members”

16. The Team Teams are self-organizing
Ideally no titles, but rarely a possibility
Membership should change only between sprints

17. Scrum framework Roles Ceremonies Artifacts Product owner ScrumMaster
Team
Roles
Sprint planning
Sprint review
Sprint retrospective
Daily scrum meeting
Ceremonies
Product backlog
Sprint backlog
Burndown charts
Artifacts

18. Sprint planning
Team selects items from the product backlog they can commit to completing
Sprint backlog is created
Sub-tasks are identified and each is estimated (1-8 hours)
Collaboratively, not done alone by the ScrumMaster
As a vacation planner, I want to see photos of the hotels
Code the middle tier (8 hours)
Code the user interface (4)
Write test fixtures (4)
Code rendering behavior (6)
Update performance tests (4)

19. The Daily Scrum Parameters Not for problem solving
15 minutes
Stand-up
Not for problem solving
Whole world is invited
Only team members, ScrumMaster, Product Owner, can talk
Helps avoid other unnecessary meetings

20. Everyone answers 3 questions
What did you get done yesterday? 1
What will you get done today? 2
Impediments to getting done? 3
These are not status updates for the ScrumMaster
They are commitments in front of peers

21. The Sprint Review Team presents what it accomplished during the sprint
Typically takes the form of a demo of new features or underlying architecture
Informal
2-hour prep time rule
No slides
Whole team participates
Invite the world

22. Sprint Retrospective
Periodically take a look at what is and is not working
Typically 15–30 minutes
Done after every sprint
Whole team participates
ScrumMaster
Product Owner
Team
(Client and other stakeholders)

23. Start / Stop / Continue Start doing Stop doing Continue doing
Whole team gathers and discusses what they’d like to:
Start doing
Stop doing
This is just one of many ways to do a sprint retrospective.
Continue doing

24. Scrum framework Roles Ceremonies Artifacts Product owner ScrumMaster
Team
Roles
Sprint planning
Sprint review
Sprint retrospective
Daily scrum meeting
Ceremonies
Product backlog
Sprint backlog
Burndown charts
Artifacts

25. Product backlog The requirements
A list of all desired work on the project
Ideally expressed such that each item has value to the users or customers of the product
Prioritized by the product owner
Reprioritized at the start of each sprint
This is the product backlog

26. A sample product backlog
Backlog item
Estimate
As a guest, I want to make a reservation 3
As a guest, I want to cancel a reservation 5
As a guest, I want to change the dates of a reservation
As a hotel employee, I want to run financial reports 8
As a front desk rep, I want to check in a guest
... 20 40

27. Managing the sprint backlog
Individuals sign up for work of their own choosing
Work is never assigned
Estimated work remaining is updated daily

28. Managing the sprint backlog
Any team member can add, delete or change the sprint backlog
Work for the sprint emerges
If work is unclear, define a sprint backlog item with a larger amount of time and break it down later
Update work remaining as more becomes known

29. A Sprint Backlog Tasks Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri 8 16 12 4 12 16 8 10 16 4
Code the user interface 8 16 12 4 12 16 8 10 16 4 11 8
Code the middle tier
Test the middle tier
Write online help

30. Sprint Burndown Chart Task Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri 50 40 30 Hours 20 10
Code the user interface 8 4 12 16 8 10 16 7 11 8
Code the middle tier 16
Test the middle tier 8
Write online help 12
Sprint Burndown Chart 50 40 30
Hours 20 10
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri

31. Technical Lead/Architect
ScrumMaster
UX Architect
Visual Designer
Technical Lead/Architect
Software Engineer
QA Engineer

32. Tracing it All Back

33. Form bridge between the business and the team
Work closely with software architect/technical lead to form the technical vision
Ensure the technical vision supports business goals
Use the product: try out new features every day or two and provide feedback to the team

34. Act as figurehead for the team: “lead singer”
Go-to resource for the team
Vision holder for the product
Test everything to make sure it matches the vision

35. Manage the product backlog Solicit input from stakeholders
Demonstrate the product every sprint – typically every 2 weeks
Status report to stakeholders
Get feedback
Incorporate it into the product backlog
Discuss priorities

36. ScrumMaster
CEO
Tech Lead
VP Sales
Engineer
VP Customer Service
Product Owner
Engineer QA

37. From Our Blog
7 Simple Secrets to Building High Performance Teams With Scrum
6 Secrets for Creating an Agile Development Team in 2 Weeks or Less

38. Mike Cohn Mountain Goat Software, LLC
Portions of this presentation were adapted from a Scrum presentation by Mike Cohn. We’d like to thank him for generously making his content available for re-use through a Creative Commons license.
Mountain Goat Software, LLC

39. THANK YOU! Dave Todaro dave@ascendle.com ascendle.com
ascendle.com/blog