In 3 seconds, the mood turns….

On how I stand between the Product Owner and the team unsolicited

This assignment is right up my alley; creative industry, marketing department. The issue: ‘The marketing department is struggling with a lot of ad hoc work, fire-fighting and stress from deadlines. Can you do something about that with Agile?’ Sure, is my answer to the client in the person of the Creative Director. He has approached me personally and expects Agile thinking and Scrum as a framework to help the team tackle the roadblocks. Challenge tasks.

No harm done

Familiar territory. Together with all members of the marketing team, we are doing a two-day Kickstart for teams. The Creative Director will act as Product Owner. So together, we all spend two days diving into the specific case questions, exploring Agile and Scrum, and establishing a Product Vision and a backlog. Finally, we make concrete agreements on how and when we will work together in the coming weeks and at what times we will schedule which events. Energy is high. Lots of laughter, constructive work and a successful kick start. Everyone eager to move on. Until…

The great absentee

Time for the first events after that successful Kickstart, the review and retro. Me, check. Team members, check. Product Owner. Product Owner? Hummm, nowhere to be seen. I am negatively surprised. The team members aren’t. They are used to appointments being sacred to everyone except the great absentee. The latter is always too busy. So I seek out the Product Owner and ask him about his absence. The response? “Agh, this Agile working method is mainly for the team, I’ve been there for two days anyway. Surely they can work on their own now? I have better things to do.” Oefff, that’s going to be a big sour apple.

The bomb bursts

I decide to schedule a team session. But the session has not yet coldly started or the Product Owner completely freaks out. “What are you guys thinking? That I twiddle my thumbs all day? That marketing is the only thing on my plate? By the way, you’re the Agile Coach around here, right? If any feedback or input is needed from me, you guys come and ask for it!” The atmosphere in the room is frosty cold. Team members are glued to the floor. No one dares to say anything, and I sense their fear. That does something to me. Acting out of authority is one thing. Acting authoritarian is definitely not one of them. End of session.

Don’t waste effort

The Product Owner leaves the room and I am left with the team. That mainly just wants to get back to business as usual. As if nothing has happened. That’s going too far for me. We need to discuss this first: What happened? How does it feel? Do we think this is normal? Long story short: “Gert-Jan, this is how things have been going here for years. Nothing will change anyway if he doesn’t want to change. So don’t waste any effort. It was a nice idea that Agile, but it’s not going to work with us. Unfortunately.” This also does something to me. I am good at moving with change, but I am also a bad loser. This battle is certainly not yet over for me. But how do I deal with this Product Owner who is diametrically opposed to my personal values?

At an impasse

I seek out the Product Owner and have a conversation with him. I certainly don’t confront him (a la non violent communication), but I ask him about his goals with the team. Looking for common ground to start from. We find it. But he also believes that everyone should conform to him at all times of the day. Agile working or not. And that doesn’t work for an Agile team. I look for space in which he feels comfortable moving along. But even the smallest step is too big for him. Knock out in the ropes?

Agile problem solving Agile

After a night’s sleep, I scramble to my feet and change tack. I realize that the Product Owner is not going to move with me. In addition, I don’t solve the hierarchy and authoritarian leadership that the team experiences either. I present my new solution to the team: the marketing team member who deals best with the Creative Director becomes Product Owner and from now on is responsible for stakeholder management, among other things. With mandate. The team goes along with this and the Creative Director is also willing to give this the benefit of the doubt. Here too, there will be chafing in the mandates in the coming period, but that can be managed. We are firmly back on our feet again and will take on the struggle with ad hoc work, fire-fighting and the stress of deadlines. These will be successfully tackled in the periods that follow.

This is worth gold

After this, many other Agile Transformations with specific challenges presented themselves. What lessons did I take away from this example in those?

During the Kickstart , I pay more attention to the dynamics of the Product Owner, especially when there is a hierarchical layer. In this case, the Creative Director is much more concerned with actually creating a product than with what he sees as “peripheral issues. If someone is not 100% committed to it, it is better to have another Product Owner.
In addition, I again ask much more explicitly how we interact as coach and coachee. What are the learning questions? And in what way does someone want to receive feedback. In short: what space do I get and take as a coach.
Trusting my feelings. It sounds strange when I write that I feel the atmosphere change, that I see expressions on faces change, feel the temperature drop and experience icy air. But I really do. Those antennae are golden. And I can rely on them much more than I ever do rationally.