The Too-Technical PO and the One Who Was Willing to Experiment | Alf Dobbert-Baums

Alf Dobbert-Baums: The Too-Technical PO and the One Who Was Willing to Experiment

In this episode, we refer to Shift: From Product to People and the value of keeping the PO–developer conversation at the goal level.

The Great Product Owner: The PO Who Was Willing to Drop the Spec and Trust the Developers

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes .

 

"Let's ditch the technical part, and let's see what happens." - Alf Dobbert-Baums

 

The Great PO, in Alf's experience, is willing to experiment with letting go. She stopped writing detailed technical specifications and started writing plain user stories. Then — and this is the harder move — she stopped throwing them over the fence and walked into the developers' space to have the conversation. Alf had coached her toward it, and he watched the trust compound. Because she trusted the developers on the how , she had less work to do (the developers were closer to the system anyway) and the developers had room to make real decisions. The conversation stayed where it belonged: on the goal. Alf names the pattern this great PO embodied — open to experiments, willing to say "let's see what happens," and quietly resisting the seductive pull of getting technical because it feels safer. The Scrum Master's job is partly to make that letting-go feel safe enough to try.

 

Self-reflection Question: Where is your PO still writing the "how" — and what would it take fo