A Scrum Team has been working together for nine Sprints of three weeks. A new Product Owner comes in, unsure about his responsibilities. In your role as Scrum Master you have observed how the functional and business insights of the Development Team have grown over the past Sprints. The Product Owner however is relatively new to the company and to the product. What are two activities you would direct the new Product Owner towards focusing on?
A) You tell the Product Owner to make sure that there are no ambiguities or possible misunderstandings in the items on the Product Backlog when they are handed over to the Development Team. This is best done by capturing the functional requirements during an analysis phase, resulting in documents that are considered as the working product of such analysis Sprints.
B) You advise the Product Owner to rely on the Development Team and the stakeholders to formulate the Product Backlog, as they are the ones that are up to speed. By questioning them and working with them the Product Owner will quickly be most productive.
C) You advise the Product Owner to start building a good relationship with the stakeholders of the product. On-going interaction with them is important to regularly align with changing organizational or market expectations. The Product Owner is also expected to invite the best-placed stakeholders to the Sprint Review meeting.
D) You inform the Product Owner that, in today's highly competitive markets, it is important that the Development Team is updated on changing business priorities on a daily basis. It is why Scrum has this daily meeting. At this Daily Scrum the Development Team can adapt to the changes in scope without delay.
