{"id":3662,"date":"2018-03-03T02:16:43","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T10:16:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lookforwardconsulting.com\/?p=3662"},"modified":"2025-12-29T09:38:20","modified_gmt":"2025-12-29T09:38:20","slug":"a-developer-cant-be-the-product-owner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thescrumacademy.com\/es\/2018\/03\/03\/a-developer-cant-be-the-product-owner\/","title":{"rendered":"A Developer Can’t Be the Product Owner"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Product Owner on my team is also a developer on the team. Do you have any advice on using Scrum in such a scenario?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

SHORT ANSWER: <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>Yeah – stop doing it!<\/div>\n

LONG ANSWER: \u00a0<\/em><\/em><\/strong>In a healthy Scrum Team, each person fills only one Scrum role<\/a>\u00a0at a time.\u00a0 Having someone be both a Product Owner and a member of the Team, i.e. a developer, is not allowed because combing two roles into one person violates commitment, a core Scrum value, as well as reduces the Scrum principles of focus and accountability.The Product Owner has a crucial responsibility to understand the needs and priorities of the product from the Stakeholders and communicate this information to the team.\u00a0 The Product Owner spends the majority of their time working to understand \u201cthe what\u201d – what sort of outcomes are desirable to the Stakeholders, what are the priorities, what are the various trade-offs that need to be made for the product to be an economic success.\u00a0 In my experience, defining \u201cthe what\u201d is more than a full-time job\u00a0for most Product Owners.<\/p>\n

Team members, on the other hand, have the responsibility to decide how these outcomes will be implemented in the product.\u00a0 All the various outputs associated with software development – designs, requirements, features, tests, estimates, acceptance criteria, etc. – fall within the control of the self-organizing Team and define \u201cthe how\u201d.\u00a0 Again, in my experience, mastering the details of\u00a0 \u201cthe how\u201d is a full-time job.<\/p>\n

When the Product Owner is a developer on the Team, they are not fully committed to being the Product Owner or being a Team member.\u00a0 As a result, neither role is fully inhabited.\u00a0 This usually results in crappy products, dissatisfied Stakeholders<\/a>\u00a0and unhappy Team members.\u00a0 Because this person exist in two worlds, the focus of the developer acting as Product Owner is divided between setting business direction and making technical decisions.\u00a0 This violates my general guideline (based on the Planning Game<\/a>) that on software teams, business people make business decisions while technical people make technical decisions.<\/p>\n

Additionally, accountability in this scenario becomes extremely murky.\u00a0 When the Product Owner is also a developer, are they making business decisions that are best for the organization or just best for the technology?\u00a0 Or are they making technical decisions that limits the Team\u2019s self-organization and commitment to the best technical solution?\u00a0 I am not looking to find the single-wringable neck<\/a>\u00a0(Agile Bob) <\/a>is right – this is another concept that needs to die), but we need to ensure that role owners are staying within the boundaries of what is described in Scrum.\u00a0 When the developer and PO roles are blended, it is really hard to tell if that is happening so it is best not even to go down this path.<\/p>\n

In the end, this scenario boils down to a lack of prioritization and courage within the organization.\u00a0 If the organization is committed to doing Scrum well, they need to prioritize the importance of finding the right person to fill this role\u00a0 If not, someone needs to have the courage to say, \u201cBeing the Product Owner is a crucial role for our success with Scrum.\u00a0 It is not side job for our developers and we are not going to use Scrum until the business provides us the right person to do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Product Owner on my team is also a developer on the team. Do you have any advice on using Scrum in such a scenario? 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