Removing Barriers between the Team and Product Owners

According to Ken Schwaber and his definition of the ScrumMaster's (SM) responsibilities, the SM is to remove barriers between the team and Product Owner (PO) to effectively enable the PO to drive development and achieve value.

I asked my LinkedIn, Certified ScrumMasters group, the following question.

What are specific ways you remove barriers between the team and Product Owner? What are some specific ways that you, as ScrumMaster, have removed barriers between the development team and the product owner, so that the product owner directly drives development?

I asked this question in an effort understand in a more realistic and "earthy" way, just what it means in practical terms to remove barriers - in this case, between the scrum team and their product owner. In summary, here are some highlights of that conversation that I believe to be significant.

The SM needs to remove barriers by:

• Ensuring that the team is concerned about delivering business value. It's easy for developers to seek excellence for their team and department, which is good; however the team exists to meet the needs of the business. If the team is not truly focused on the needs of the business through delivering value, it is not meeting it's fundamental purpose.
  
  
• Helping the PO trust and learn how to work with the team. Some examples include helping ensure accurate tasking, promoting flexibility in accepting change,and ensuring that everyone is working toward the same goals (sprint goal and an understanding of Agile itself).
  
  
• Ensuring that the team knows how to work with the PO (not take on adhoc work, redirecting the PO to the SM in case of conflict with the plan, etc)
  
  
• Asking tough questions of the team and the PO to ensure that quality is not sacrificed.
  
  
• Learning to address the problem and not the person. Many times there are issues - like a lack of communication, not following the basics of the framework, not adhering to agreed upon engineering standards and others. These issues should be identified and then targeted for removal by the SM, pulling in as many people as needed (with the right authority)to remove the barrier.
  
  
• Educating the PO and team on the process regularly. It seems clear from many comments here and elsewhere, that the SM is the one driving the agile education process - on a day to day level by consistently pushing for agile adherence and continual process improvement; as well as on a more formal basis by identifying training needs and facilitating those needs in formal and informal ways (again, working with those who are in the position of authority to enable that training).
  
  
• Owning the Agile process and facilitating regular communication between the team and PO. There is some discussion between the ideas of ownership vs. enablement. The SM should clearly be doing his best to enable the team toward growth and self direction. Because the Agile team is focused around collaboration, it seems that the the SM is typically the one helping to direct the growth and use of Agile within the organization. There are usually other partners involved as well.
  

A great article on ScrumAlliance mentions some other barriers that the ScrumMaster handles in support of the team:

• Work to remove impediments on a daily basis and communicate resolutions
• Protect the team from disruptive outside influences (support staff, managers, customers, even the PO if that becomes an issue).
• Unnecessary time wasters (inappropriate meetings, tasks that someone else could/should be doing)
  

There are other aspects of removing barriers that were not covered here and are the topic for future conversation. There are barriers:

• Between individual team members
  
• Between individual team member roles
  
• Between the team and the product owner

Of course these barriers address just a portion of the overall business communication context, however, they are the primary areas of interaction for the development teams and the SM. It is hoped that, as more is learned about what kind of barriers generally occur and good solid ways to deal with them are determined, that more targeted efforts can be made by the SM and the organization to avoid them. <><

Welcome to AgileScrumPro!

I hope to use this blog to document my learnings about Agile Scrum as I pursue expertise in that role. I have been involved in project management and coordination for several years before becoming a certified ScrumMaster at BodyBuilding.com. I am a member of our local APLN (Agile Project Leadership Network) local Boise Chapter, a member of several Agile groups in LinkedIn, and seeking to expand networking opportunities for the purpose of promoting the use of Agile in software development and expanding the field, especially as it relates to project management in general.

Please feel free to contact me for questions or networking regarding Agile Scrum, especially in the Boise area. I am also interested in pursuing Agile coaching opportunities as they arise.

More to come...

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