Who has the final say to put a PBI DONE ?
Hello,
Recently, I had a thought-provoking conversation as a Scrum Master with the Product Owner PO regarding the DoD and its impact on the Jira workflow. The discussion revolves around whether the PO should have the final say on whether a PBI is done or not.
1. PO Opinion:
He argues that every PBI should undergo final validation by him to ensure it meets the acceptance criteria and provides value to the product.
2. My opinion as a Scrum Master:
My concern is that making the PO the final arbiter could potentially create bottlenecks in the workflow. The DoD, in my opinion, is a commitment by the Developers for the Increment, much like the Sprint Goal is the commitment by the Developers for the Sprint Backlog and the Product Goal is the commitment by the Product Owner for the Product Backlog.
What do you think ?
I would be curious why the Product Owner wants to do a "final validation" of every Product Backlog Item. To me, this would likely indicate that the Product Owner doesn't have confidence in the team to build what is desired and needed, and I'd want to dig into that, especially with respect to refinement, Sprint Planning, and the interactions between the Developers and the Product Owner during the Sprint.
If the Product Owner understands the implications of becoming a bottleneck in the workflow, then they should also realize that this would negatively impact the team's ability to quickly deliver value to stakeholders. The Product Owner has accountability to maximize the value delivered by the team, and this doesn't seem to accomplish that.
The discussion revolves around whether the PO should have the final say on whether a PBI is done or not.
The Scrum Guide makes it clear that the Developers are always accountable for instilling quality by adhering to a Definition of Done.
Have you discussed whether the PO trusts the Developers with this accountability, and if not, why not?
In this conversation, are Acceptance Criteria and DoD being confused? If the PO is wanting to see the results of the acceptance criteria for a PBI wouldn't that be something that the PO and Developers are already reviewing together and aligning that the work meets the AC?
This type of questions I always look at the perspective from a scalability point of view.
If a team feels an additional pair of eyes is needed to get to Done for whatever reason, why not. It might be because of a skill the Developers are currently still missing.
If the PO has to be that pair of eyes, what happens if this PO has 1 team...? What happens if this PO has 10 teams...? What happens if this PO has 50 teams...?
Needing an additional validation from outside the Developers shows a missing skill. As long as the Developers do not have this skill, ask for this validation to have confidence in the quality. Meanwhile the team should work to grow this skill.
If the PO has to do this work, then it is not scalable. Maybe this level of scalability is not needed. Maybe the Developers will grow the skill fast enough so by the moment the scalability issue pops-up the Developers cover the needed skills.