Do you agree with this approach?

An experienced CTO suggests that for the 3 products the company is building, they should have 3 Product Owners and rotate them between Products every 4 months. The CTO says he has tried it before in his previous job and reduces the dependency that teams have on a Product Owner. Product Owners can be exchanged between Scrum Teams, without any impact on team or velocity, as the Product Owner does not do any development maximizing general domain knowledge.

Do you agree with this approach?
A . NO
B. YES

View Answer

Answer: A

Explanation:

Changing the members of the Scrum Team is allowed as needed but a short-term reduction in performance or velocity might be considered. Adding or removing members will require coordination, onboarding and therefore, productivity will temporarily drop. The importance of the Product Owner having subject matter expertise, or strong relationships with the stakeholder community cannot be overlooked. In complex value chains it often takes a long time before the Product Owner can become effective. For Product Owners to succeed, the entire organization must respect their decisions. These decisions are visible in the content and ordering of the Product Backlog, and through the inspectable Increment at the Sprint Review. The Product Owner is one person, not a committee. The Product Owner may represent the needs of many stakeholders in the Product Backlog. Those wanting to change the Product Backlog can do so by trying to convince the Product Owner. Changing the Product Owner will cause weak ownership, reduce velocity, context switching, confusion for the Developers and Stakeholders of who to talk to and many other issues.