Hello everyone. My name is Vibhu Srinivasan! Welcome to today’s question. So today’s parking lot question is one that comes up a lot during workshops and when I work with agile teams, and that is Can the Product Owner and Scrum Master be the same person in a Scrum Team? Let’s look at that question today.
In a Scrum Team there are 3 types of people –
Product Owner
The Product Owner is responsible for prioritizing what needs to get done by the team. Their job is to maximize value delivered to the business through a focus on customer needs.
Scrum Master/Agile Coach
A Scrum Master is an agile coach and facilitator, who guides how to do Agile and Scrum in a team. They’re there to make sure that teams have everything they need for success.
Agile Team Member
An Agile Team Member does work as part of a cross-functional self-managed team. They are passionate about their craft and take pride in delivering high-quality products without micromanagement from above.
Is your product owner scrum master?
A common mistake many companies make is that they have the same person playing both the product owner and scrum master roles.
Research shows it’s not a great idea for one person to play both the product owner and scrum master roles. But why?
Product owners know what features they want from their product, but they lack the knowledge of how to produce quality work with their team. Scrum masters, on the other hand, are experts in agile practices but are not as skilled in driving high-level feature decisions. Therefore there is a natural tension between Product owners and Scrum masters.
The solution? separate Product Owner and Scrum Master to handle your projects from scratch. If you can’t find dedicated scrum master, find someone from within your team to play that role.