In Scrum, the Product Owner plays a crucial role in guiding the team toward building the right product. But what happens when the Product Owner is ineffective or, worse, incompetent? It’s a tough situation, but as a Scrum Master, it’s your responsibility to navigate these challenges and ensure the team can still deliver value. In this blog post, we’ll explore the steps Scrum Masters (and teams) can take when faced with an incompetent Product Owner, and how you can support your team to keep moving forward.
🧭 Understanding the Difference: Incompetence vs. Ineffectiveness
First, let’s address the terminology. Describing someone as “incompetent” is a strong statement. However, there are Product Owners who might fit this description or hover in the adjacent category of being ineffective.
🔍 The Reality of an Ineffective Product Owner
Often, Product Owners may appear incompetent, but their inefficacy stems from a lack of empowerment or understanding. Common challenges include:
- Not knowing what they are supposed to do.
- Their organization not allowing them to fully execute their responsibilities.
- Feeling constrained by company politics or unclear role definitions.
The result? An ineffective Product Owner. But the underlying reasons may differ.
🚩 Recognizing Incompetence
True incompetence happens when the Product Owner simply isn’t suited for the role. This can manifest as:
- Lack of decision-making skills.
- Inability to prioritize work effectively.
- Poor communication with the team and stakeholders.
The key takeaway here is that while both situations result in the same outcomes, they require different approaches from the Scrum Master.
🛠️ The Role of the Scrum Master in Addressing Product Owner Issues
So, what can you do as a Scrum Master? It’s easy to feel stuck when the person responsible for guiding the product vision isn’t fulfilling their role. But you have more influence than you might realize.
🤝 Building Relationships and Navigating Organizational Politics
One of the core responsibilities of a Scrum Master is to build relationships—both within the team and across the organization. If you find yourself with an ineffective or incompetent Product Owner, you need to lean on those relationships to drive change.
Here’s how you can do that:
- Engage with the Business: If the Product Owner is struggling, the Scrum Master should work with them and the broader organization to enable better ownership and decision-making.
- Politic, Politic, Politic: Yes, Scrum Masters need to play the political game. Build those “back channels” and start having conversations with key stakeholders, such as leadership, HR, or even people in adjacent teams who can help smooth the way for a better product delivery experience.
- Demonstrate Your Expertise: Prove your knowledge and capability by offering small suggestions and demonstrating value in conversations. Eventually, this could lead to invites to more strategic discussions.
Personal Tip: I’ve seen Scrum Masters succeed by simply inviting the right people for coffee or an informal chat, away from the typical meeting rooms. It’s amazing what can get done over a beer with the right person from leadership. 🍻
💼 What If You Don’t Have a Scrum Master?
If your team doesn’t have a formal Scrum Master, that doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless. Pick someone from the team who is interested in navigating organizational challenges. They don’t need any special certification—just experience within the company and a bit of “battle hardening.” Building relationships and making small strategic moves is something anyone can start with the right mindset.
🧑💼 The Importance of Having the Right Person in the Right Role
Now, let’s talk about a painful reality: sometimes the Product Owner just isn’t the right fit for the role. The Peter Principle often comes into play here. People are promoted until they reach a level of incompetence, and that’s where they remain.
📈 What Happens When the Product Owner Reaches Their Limit?
You might see that the Product Owner was fantastic in a previous role, but they’ve been promoted to a point where they can no longer perform effectively. It’s a common scenario, but a difficult one to address because of the power dynamics and sensitivity involved.
- Should this Product Owner have the opportunity to step back into a role where they excelled? Absolutely. Not every promotion needs to lead to management.
- Could this person be better suited to a non-management track where they still add immense value, such as mentoring or providing technical leadership? Yes.
In organizations like Microsoft, I’ve met engineers who have spent 20 or 30 years in the same technical role. They’ve taken on more responsibility by mentoring others or leading initiatives, but without managing people—because that’s where they excel. The same principle can apply to Product Owners.
🧑⚖️ The Ethics of Addressing an Incompetent Product Owner
When dealing with an incompetent Product Owner, the situation becomes trickier. While ineffective Product Owners can often be coached, those who are truly incompetent might need to be moved out of the role entirely.
🚨 Should You Go Behind the Product Owner’s Back?
This is where the moral and ethical considerations come into play. The natural instinct might be to go around the Product Owner and talk to stakeholders about their performance. However, this approach can be risky and potentially damage trust within the team.
Instead, I recommend:
- Talking directly to the Product Owner first and offering help. They might not even realize how they’re perceived.
- Educating the organization about the roles and responsibilities of a Product Owner, rather than pointing fingers. Let the organization come to its own conclusions.
If the team is building great products but they’re consistently the wrong products, the organization should eventually see where the real issue lies.
🌱 Building Competence: The Team’s Responsibility
At the end of the day, the team can only do so much to compensate for a poor Product Owner. However, there are steps they can take to remain effective and highlight where the true issue lies.
- Deliver working, usable product consistently.
- Focus on competence at your level and ensure the team is performing to its best ability.
- If the Product Owner is not delivering the right product, that’s not the team’s fault—and it will eventually become apparent to the organization.
💬 Final Thoughts: It’s All About Education
As Scrum Masters and teams, our role is not to undermine but to educate. By helping the business understand what a Product Owner’s role should be and how it differs from the team’s responsibilities, we can gradually influence change. Ultimately, through political savvy, relationship-building, and continuous education, you can help the team thrive—even when the Product Owner isn’t pulling their weight.