Two Agile retrospective formats for two different times in the lifecycle of a team | Lorna Mason & Jon Lawrence

The Great Product Owner: The team player PO

Great Product Owners engage with the team, and take part in helping form the team. They take responsibility over helping teams succeed. They share their Vision with the team, and welcome feedback and questions. They are prepared for meetings and both respect and are respected by the team. 

When the team feels cut-off from the Product Owner decisions, and work, they can either help or understand the PO’s decisions. If on top of this the PO skips ceremonies, we have the conditions for a conflict, and lack of collaboration. In this segment, we also talk about the type of company culture that drives Product Owners to disregard the team collaboration aspects of their work.

Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We’ve put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO’s collaborate.

About Lorna Mason & Jon Lawrence

Lorna Mason and Jon Lawrence are both agilists working in an insurance scale-up based in Brighton. Their journey to agile has walked a less 'traditional' path of Change Management and Continuous Improvement, to Scrum Master, Delivery Manager and Agile Coach; (proving not EVERY Scrum Master needs to code!). They hold the firm belief that you can be a successful Scrum Master as long as you genuinely care about people and value first; and hold a profound desire to always make things better!

You can link with Lorna Mason on LinkedIn. 

You can link with Jon Lawrence on LinkedIn.