They do not go and get clarity on software requirements from clients, developers have to go on calls for that. They do not understand technical topics in the age of AI and all types of knowledge at the tip of their fingers. I heard in many other companies that they are doing actual coding using AI, but when does this becomes a requirement here?
13 replies (most recent on top)
@fa
Where is this? The practice sounds familiar to certain groups where roles are created to keep existing teams in place with existing hierarchies in order to keep status quo.
PO analyst? Like a BA?
Long tenured means something. LDs are not POs.
The whole group needs to be split apart.
There are growing concerns about how Product Owner (PO) roles and newly created PO Analyst positions are being handled within DDAT.
Two long tenured employees have reportedly assumed PO responsibilities despite questions about whether they possess the necessary qualifications, technical understanding, and leadership capabilities to perform the full scope of the DDAT Product Owner role. Rather than demonstrating the ability to manage these responsibilities themselves, they appear to have worked with long-standing colleagues to establish PO Analyst positions and assign those roles to selected team members.
A meeting was subsequently organized by the Division LD, during which the selected employees were informed that they would become PO Analysts and report to Product Owners. Under this arrangement, the POs reportedly delegate significant portions of their responsibilities to the PO Analysts while retaining supervisory authority over them.
This raises several important questions. Why were these positions created? What objective criteria were used to select the PO Analysts? Were the organizational changes reviewed and approved through the appropriate governance process? Most importantly, if the PO Analysts are performing the core responsibilities of the Product Owners, what value are the designated POs actually contributing??????
The LD's role in approving and implementing this arrangement also deserves scrutiny. Leadership should ensure that organizational structures are established to meet legitimate business needs, not to accommodate personal relationships or create unnecessary layers of management.
There are also questions circulating about the LD's career progression, including reports that the individual became a LD after approximately three years working as a Software Developer. DDAT should find out who the LD bends over to get that position. While tenure alone does not determine leadership ability, the appointment process and the individual's demonstrated management competencies are fair subjects for discussion when concerns arise about organizational decisions.
DDAT leadership should conduct an impartial review of the PO appointments, the creation and assignment of PO Analyst positions, the delegation of responsibilities, and the decision-making process behind these changes. If the review identifies incompetence, favoritism, or violations of established company policies, appropriate corrective or disciplinary action should follow, up to and including termination where justified.
Organizations function best when positions are awarded on merit, responsibilities are clearly defined, and leaders are held accountable for their decisions. DDAT deserves a structure that supports effective delivery and professional accountability not one that raises questions about whether titles and reporting lines are being used to serve purposes other than the business's best interests.
The reeeeeeeaaaaal product owner. You mean the LD or ED.? Just say what you mean.
The reeeeeeeeal Product Owner is the one who has vision and can execute, not the "leader" forcing people to ki-l themselves for 2.5% with a side of verbal abuse.
Bunch of people using words without knowing yet acting like they do.
Hold on. I have an excel macro that requires showing off to someone....brb
First of all… if you think cvs has ever or will ever follow the “textbook” agile method … I can’t help ya any further. Dont know of any large org where that happens anywhere.
@de
You all can banter semantics all you want.
There are guidelines for how agile teams function
Go read some.
What CVS does is confuse roles and responsibilities,.
And this is coming from someone who did all three and never got paid for it.
@dc a product doesn’t always have active project work or dev work going on. The business doesn’t always prioritize or allocate IT capital to enhancing or addressing backlogged items for any particular product… however the product still exists and there is a business product owner of it that is responsible for it and getting the value from it. This can mean working directly with end users and improving their execution. Cranking out reports and alignment and training to max the value with zero “agile team” doing any work on it. If you are mentioning VPs changing what MVP is … then it’s clear you don’t know who the REAL product owner is that is going to those VPs to align you that the MVP needs to be changed.
Lol, there are no "scrum master" anymore! Haven't seen one in any of our teams!
@d5
Right.
Someone in business can be a product owner if they function agile, then they have a team develop a product.
Do they?
10 people to a team max including PO, scrummaster, and devs.
If the business is telling people what to do, they are a stakeholder, not a PO. See VPs who change MVPs mid development for reference.
@cz what makes you think that someone within the business cannot be on an agile team?
The PO is the business requirements giver. This is the issue… there are multiple people claiming to be an owner of a product. Or people claiming to own a product that isn’t a product.
@at
No. A PO is part of an agile team. They represent the development team.
A PO is responsible to the organization meaning business. They have to talk to them.
The scrum master is responsible to the dev team and the PO.
The dev team works with the scrum master and PO to make sure sprint goals align with the Road map.
Sometimes a BA will be involved in translating business requirements to user stories, but they are part of the dev team when that role exists.
A true product owner shouldn’t be “talking to the business”.. they should be on the business side.
The should be the owner of prioritizing backlog, defining requirements and deciding what delivers value. A true PO isn’t a requirements taker from the business. They are the ones with the decision making power. Dev team owns the how.
For some reason here there’s been an attempt of labeling product owners in all sorts of different functions… and just creates more confusion of who actually has ownership. Health 100 isn’t going to make this any easier
PO is the title they give people who used to be BAs in old days who thought they were PMs. Most of those chick's could tell an area code from an error code.
They've just been with the company so long they moved them into that role
What group? That's lazy af. A PO should be talking to business. A PO should own the roadmap and the backlog to the product. A PO should have some technical aptitude, maybe not code, but at least be able to know enough to account for whether or not a feature or user story is possible during a sprint or PI