4.9.3 New roles and roles debt
In
the longitudinal study, we saw all types of PD. PDs were mainly
identified and discussed through retrospectives in the company and
better understood in the interviews.
Roles
debt: Synchronization and alignment debt were evident early in the
study and were problems that existed over several years. For example, in
Company E, they introduced a role that they called “product owner” and
assigned people to that role without explaining or describing what the
role entailed in detail. It was believed that a short memo was enough.
The product owner’s responsibilities were mainly related to being a team
leader. However, many of the people assigned to that role were confused,
as some were familiar with the product owner role in Scrum. Further, as
there were many POs, they needed to collaborate. But because they had a
different understanding of the role, communication and collaboration
problems emerged and lasted for months. In a retrospective with the
managers and the POs, the role ambiguity was identified, and action
points were specified.
A new description was created explaining that the role had
responsibility for the team, prioritizing the business needs and
coordinating with the stakeholders. However, even though the role was
more precise, the work was difficult to perform because an enormous
amount of coordination and communication was required for the POs.
Consequently, a new role was introduced – a coordinator to coordinate
between the POs and the management. This person was to represent the POs
in management meetings. The effect was supposed to be less work and less
coordination for the POs. However, as the POs they were taken out of
important decision processes, their work became slower as decisions took
a long time and several misunderstandings happened.
Redesigning processes: Again, the process and roles needed to
change. After a few months, the coordinator role was removed. The POs
were again included in the weekly prioritization and sync meetings with
the management, and a new process was designed for this meeting. As the
POs became more and more experienced (after a year), the process was
modified, and the POs were given more and more authority and could make
more decisions without having to ask others.
Still, the process was flawed. The POs needed to coordinate with many
stakeholders. The reason was to make sure all stakeholders were
informed, involved, and committed to the work performed. While the
effect of the process and roles were ok, the work took too much time.
The solution was then to invite all key stakeholders to the coordination
meeting for the program. Instead of POs reaching out and informing
others, the key stakeholders had to come to them, which worked much
better.