Backlog Refinement With Stakeholders at Odds

-

Ideally, backlog refinement should be handled primarily by the product owner with input from the tech lead. The product owner is taking direction from the business on prioritization, and the scrum master simply makes sure refinement takes place. What do you do though when stakeholders aren't in alignment on on the priorities? Here are a few steps I take when this comes up.

First, I ensure there's clarity in the backlog items. We need to have well-defined user stories complete with scope and definition of ready clearly outlined. Business value, effort, and dependencies should be plainly stated. 

Second, I facilitate a stakeholder discussion based on these backlog items, focusing on organizational goals and not personal preference. This means I need to frame it in terms of return on investment (ROI), risk, and dependencies. Once this is understood by all, we can move on to actual prioritization. 

Third, I use a prioritization framework to draw out the relative importance of the items under discussion. My personal preference is for MoSCoW (Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Won’t Have), although you might go with WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First), or use a scoring matrix. I make certain as well to highlight downstream dependencies that could lead to us blocking other teams if certain work isn't done on time. 

When all else fails, as a last resort I would escalate the issue to leadership. Fortunately this is not something I have ever had to do as a project manager, but it's a necessary step if the team can't find consensus after carefully reviewing priorities and dependencies. I would prepare a clear summary of options, opportunities, and impact. In this I would be careful to remove my preferences or those of any other from the equation, and focus with leadership on the evidence at hand. 

In a perfect world we could find consensus easily, but people bring their biases, legitimate concerns, and simply their personalities to the table. It's unavoidable. If we respond with careful analysis and a transparent process of evaluation, sincere professionals can certainly find alignment. 

Popular posts from this blog

The Dual Faces of Technology: Enhancing and Replacing Jobs

-
Image
Automation has been on my mind a lot lately, more immediately due to a book I read , but also because of the looming reality of artificial intelligence. To understand what's involved, making the distinction between replacing technologies and enabling technologies is crucial. As we traverse the timeline of the 20th century, we observe how each type of technology has distinctly influenced employment. Automated technologies have transformed industries by replacing manual labor with machines. Consider the automated switchboards introduced in the early 20th century. Previously, telephone operators manually connected calls using physical connectors on a switchboard. With the advent of automated switchboards in the 1920s and 1930s, many of these jobs were eliminated as calls were routed through electromechanical systems. Similarly, in agriculture, the introduction of mechanical harvesters like the combine harvester in the 1930s drastically reduced the need for manual labor. These machine...
Read more

The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor and Power in the Age of Automation (Book Review)

-
Image
In his compelling book, " The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation ," Carl Benedikt Frey offers a sweeping examination of the historical and ongoing impact of mechanization and automation on society. Starting with the onset of the first Industrial Revolution, Frey deftly navigates through the evolution of technology up to the modern age of artificial intelligence, presenting a nuanced view of how technological innovations have reshaped labor markets and power dynamics. Frey categorizes technological innovations into two types: enabling technologies, like the typewriter, which enhance worker productivity without displacing the labor force, and replacing technologies, such as robotic machinery in factories, which eliminate certain job roles altogether. This distinction forms the backbone of Frey’s analysis, as he explores the varying implications of each type of technology on different segments of the workforce. The book traces a historical patter...
Read more

Deputy Product Owners

-
Image
"The Product Owner is one person, not a committee. The Product Owner may represent the desires of a committee in the Product Backlog, but those wanting to change a Product Backlog item’s priority must address the Product Owner." - The Scrum Guide There are a lot of ways in which my approach to Scrum differs from what's in the official guide, and since that document refers to Scrum as 'immutable,' let's just call what I do 'Notscrum™.' In Scrum, there is only one product owner per team. That person is the sole person responsible for the product backlog, and the person who advocates for the work to be done. In Notscrum there is one product owner, but there can be multiple deputy product owners. Here's how it works. When my program at Viacom was first forming I met with the then-director of the Library & Archive group and learned that while he set the priorities on work done, the archivists were organized in three distinct areas with a team lead ...
Read more