From Missing in Action to Present and Collaborative—The Product Owner Spectrum | Darryl Wright

Summary

Podcast Summary: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast

Episode: From Missing in Action to Present and Collaborative—The Product Owner Spectrum | Darryl Wright
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Darryl Wright
Date: October 31, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode dives deep into the spectrum of Product Owner (PO) engagement, exploring both the most damaging anti-patterns and the transformative potential of a committed PO. Darryl Wright, experienced Agile coach, shares real-world stories highlighting how Product Owners can make or break teams, offering practical advice for Scrum Masters and insights into what distinguishes a truly effective PO.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Worst Product Owner Anti-Pattern: The "Missing-in-Action" PO

[01:38 – 06:26]

• Story Recap: Darryl describes a team suffering under a Product Owner who was "PO in name only"—a senior business figure, too busy to engage, who only showed up at the end-of-sprint showcase.
• Consequences: The team had no feedback during the sprint, saw the PO for the first time during the showcase, and faced public rejection or surprise acceptance of their work in front of stakeholders.
  • “The team would stand up, look to be really proud... and the product owner would say, no, I don’t accept that. And the team were crushed. They were deflated, they were demoralized. They looked like fools in front of some senior stakeholders.”
    — Darryl Wright [02:29]
• Cascade of Issues:
  • No mid-sprint feedback.
  • The team presented work for validation, not collaborative exploration.
  • The PO acted as a judge rather than a coach, eroding empowerment and trust.
• Host’s Analysis:
  • Teams should approach reviews with curiosity, as explorers rather than supplicants.
  • The PO owns the “what,” while the team owns the “how.”
  • “A leader is a coach, not a judge.” — Referencing Deming [05:04]
  • When the PO is absent or acts as judge, the team loses clarity, ownership, and motivation.
• Darryl’s Advice:
  • If the PO is short on time, insist on at least a one-hour check-in before the showcase to prevent surprises.
  • “Even if you can’t spare any other time for the entire sprint, at least, at the very, very least, just one hour... So that they are never put in that situation.”
    — Darryl Wright [03:35]

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2. Positive PO Role Models: The Spectrum's Other End

[06:46 – 11:14]

• Unconventional Success: Darryl shares a story from a major consulting firm where he worked with a "zero-experience” Agile team.
  • A new graduate became Scrum Master due to minimal familiarity with Agile.
  • An executive sponsor with strong business skills was tapped as PO, with no Agile background but a willingness to learn.
• Turnaround Results:
  • The team delivered an 18-month project in just over 7 months.
  • The most lauded project outcome was “how much fun they had”—a remarkable achievement given the project’s initial outlook.
• Characteristics of the Exemplary PO:
  • Presence & Engagement: She sat with the team, was accessible and involved.
  • Decisiveness: Clear and prompt in setting priorities—no confusion in the team.
  • Communication: Articulated the vision and priorities clearly.
  • Stakeholder Management: Excelled due to strong communication skills.
  • Business Acumen: Understood and applied commercial value thinking.
  • Learning Mindset: Despite no PO experience, approached the role with openness and dedication.
  • “She had all of the skills to be a PO, but she had no idea what being a PO meant. But because she approached it with openness and willingness... she was just a fantastic product owner.”
    — Darryl Wright [10:19]
• Takeaway: Skills and mindset are more crucial than formal Agile experience for a PO’s effectiveness and team morale.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the “Judge” Anti-Pattern:
  “A leader is a coach, not a judge.” — Vasco Duarte [05:04]
• On Team Empowerment:
  “The team is supposed to be empowered, and this team was not empowered… it’s complete anti patterns.” — Darryl Wright [06:31]
• On PO Presence:
  “She came and she sat with the team and she worked with them side by side… Even when she was working on something different, she’d be there, she’d be available.” — Darryl Wright [09:06]
• On Openness to New Ways:
  “She approached it with openness and willingness and… jumped right in, boots and all.” — Darryl Wright [10:15]
• Remark on Success:
  “Not only was it amazing in terms of its productivity and success, but… the number one, like, highest feedback item, was how much fun they had.” — Darryl Wright [08:40]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:38 — Darryl introduces the "missing-in-action" Product Owner anti-pattern.
• 03:35 — Practical advice for dealing with absent POs: at least one check-in before the review.
• 04:00 — Vasco analyzes the situation: team subservience, the explorer mindset, judge PO anti-pattern.
• 06:26 — Darryl highlights the foundational need for empowered teams.
• 07:01 — Introduction to the effective PO story from a major consulting firm.
• 08:40 — Metrics of success: tremendous delivery speed and high team morale.
• 09:06 - 10:19 — Detailed breakdown of what made this PO exceptional.
• 11:14 — Closing remarks and where to connect with Darryl Wright.

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Conclusion

This episode underscores the immense impact a Product Owner's engagement and mindset can have on a team’s success and morale. Darryl’s contrasting stories—one of disengagement, one of inspired collaboration—provide clear lessons for Agile practitioners:

• A PO’s presence, decisiveness, and openness to learning trump mere experience.
• Empowered, trusted teams, and collaborative leadership lead to happier, higher-performing outcomes.
• Scrum Masters should actively address PO anti-patterns, advocating for team support and collaborative reviews.

Connect with Darryl Wright:

• LinkedIn: Darryl Wright Agile
• Organa.com

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Useful for anyone looking to understand the pivotal role of Product Owners and practical strategies for fostering better collaboration in Scrum teams.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question.

[B]

What if, for the price of a.

[A]

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[B]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our TGIF and product owner episode this week with Daryl Wright. Hey Daryl, welcome back.

[C]

Hi Vasco.

[B]

So we're going to talk about product owners and we know there are some amazing product owners out there and we will pay homage to them by describing how they work in a minute. But first, share with us the horror story. Potentially the worst product owner anti pattern you've witnessed in your career, Darrel.

[C]

All right, so yes, I will preface this by saying there are some amazing product owners. We're going to talk about them in a moment. But first, so the most destructive anti pattern I've ever seen was a team that had a product owner who was PO in name only. They weren't doing any of the functions that a product owner would do. They were quite a senior business person and they were too busy to spend time with the team. They're what I call an MIA missing in action po. And what that meant was that the team never saw the P.O. until the showcase. And so the team would come along with work that they deemed was finished and, and they would present it in the showcase, you know, looking to get feedback on this work and looking to be proud of this amazing work that they'd done. And the product owner had not seen it before because he wasn't around. And so he would be seeing it for the first time in the showcase and he would then accept or reject the work in the showcase in front of other stakeholders. So the team would stand up, look to be really proud of this piece of work and the product owner would say, no, I don't accept that. And the team were crushed. They were deflated, they were demoralized. They looked like fools in front of some senior stakeholders.

[B]

So basically throwing the team under the bus, as they say.

[C]

Correct. Correct. Yeah. So that's, you know, if. If I'm ever in a situation like that, as a scrum master or a coach, you know, I. I lobby as absolutely strongly I influence as much as I possibly can with that PO to. Even if you can't spare any other time for the entire sprint, at least, at the very, very least, just one hour. Like. Like the night before. Like, if the showcase is on a Friday, like Thursday night, or even just Friday morning, just enough time for the team to be able to say, this is what we want to bring to the showcase. This is where it's at. And the product owner can say, yes, yes, no, no, yes. And then the team can just take those things out so that they are never put in that situation where they're already bringing stuff to the showcase that the PO has seen and they never.

[B]

I can hear a bunch of anti patterns here. So first of all, there's the MIA po. So no feedback during the sprint. There's definitely an anti pattern. The other anti pattern is that the team knowing this, knowing that the PO is mia, because obviously they are still goes into the showcase with the idea of getting validation instead of asking for feedback. So they expressed subservience rather than curiosity, right? Like, they didn't enter the review with the mindset of, we're building this together. They entered the review with, we're so proud of what you did, what we did, please tell us we did it well. And then that's of course not the kind of environment we want for the teams either. The teams should always be in the perspective of the. How do you call it, the explorer. We're exploring what might deliver value to the customer. The stakeholders are a proxy to the customer. They give us feedback. But we are explorers. We are not cake makers. Right? Like, we don't make a cake and expect people to tell us how good the cake is. We go there and we try a route. We see, you know, do we get the gold or the spices we're looking for? We try another route. Do we find the lake or the cottage we were looking for, whatever that is, right? And then the final anti pattern, which I think is perhaps the one that you started with, which is this idea that the stakeholders saw themselves as a separate entity from the team, the stakeholder, in this case, the PO thought of themselves as a judge. And I'm showing a mug to Darrell that has a quote from Deming that says a leader is a coach, not a judge. And when the PO takes the judge anti pattern, and it really is an anti pattern in the role of the po, they kind of extract themselves from the responsibility, put all of the responsibility on the team. And let's be clear, the responsibility for what the team delivers, not the quality, not the speed, but what the team delivers is strictly with the poor, not with the team. The team can give feedback, the team can say, hey, we think this would be a better idea. But the PO owns what is delivered, the team owns how it is delivered. So that's kind of my thinking of the anti patterns. How do you see it, Daryl?

[C]

Yeah, yeah, very similar. You know, the basic building block of any Agile or SCRUM way of working is an empowered team. The team is supposed to be empowered and this team was not empowered and in any of those aspects. So it's complete anti patterns.

[B]

But there aren't only these anti patterns. There are also some amazing product owners out there, Darrell. So let's focus on one of them. Share with us potentially the best product owner you've ever worked with. How did they work?

[C]

So I've got a slightly unusual answer for you for this one, Vasco. I'm sure that you've had many people on your podcast who have had incredible stories about amazing pos. So I wanted to bring you something different today. So in this particular occasion, I was working for a large consulting company, 170,000 staff worldwide, so quite big. And there was a team that was, they were tasked with doing this particular project and it was, it was going to be like a difficult project to do. It was going to be hard work and the team were not at all inspired to do it. And I suggested, why don't we do this project in an agile way, take an agile approach to it. And no one in the team had any experience with Agile at all. The only person in the entire team that had even heard of it was one young guy who was a new graduate that said, oh, I think one of my university subjects, we did something on Agile for a week or something and that was it, right? And I said, congratulations, you know the most about Agile out of the whole team. So you're the SCRUM master, right? And he went, I'm what now? Okay, great, right. And then I said to the executive sponsor, I said, you're the one with all the, you know, the business acumen and the stakeholder management skills, everything like that. You are perfect to be the product owner. And she went, okay. And so we started, we ran this project and it was incredible. Like, not only did the team knock the project absolutely out of the park, they completed an 18 month project in just over seven months. And not only was it amazing in terms of its productivity and success, but when we talked to the team about it, the number one, like, highest feedback item was how much fun they had. And given that this was going to be an awful, tricky, difficult project they didn't want to do, like, that's an amazing result. And I put it down to the mindset of the people in the team. They were open, they were willing, and even though we were asking them to work in a way they'd never done before, they were like, let's give this a go. And the product owner being a. She was a senior leader, she already had so many of the skills that a good product owner needs to have, right? She was collaborative and that meant that she was present, like the opposite of the MIA product owner. She came and she sat with the team and she worked with them side by side. Even when she was working on something different, she'd be there, she'd be available. She was really decisive. Like, she had a real skill at decisiveness. And that meant when there were prioritization calls that need to be made, she would just make them. And everyone was 100% clear. Nobody was ever confused about the priority because she was so clear and decisive about it that it just made it really easy. She had great communication skills, which is vital for a po, you know, so when she was articulating the vision of where we were going to go with this thing, she was really good at doing that. And she had great stakeholder management capabilities as well because of those communication skills. And she had such good business acumen, you know, that commercial sense that when we were having conversations around delivering value and prioritizing based on business value and looking at how much value we could create with our customers in the shortest time, she instantly knew what that meant. So she had all of the skills to be a po, but she had no idea what being a PO meant. But because she approached it with openness and willingness and she just, like jumped right in boots and all. She was just like, I'm going to do this thing, like, whatever you tell me to do, I'm going to do right? And she was like, just a fantastic product owner. So inspiring. So for someone to go from never having even heard of it to being an amazing PO in seven months was like, it was just incredible. And I still, that was years and years and years ago now. And I still think back on that as being, you know, just one of the most successful projects and teams.

[B]

Well, that really sounds like a great story. Thank you for sharing that, Daryl. Unfortunately, we're getting close to the end of the week with you. We do appreciate, appreciate you being here and thank you for all that you've shared. If people want to connect with you and know more about the work that you're doing, where should they go?

[C]

Absolutely. If they're interested, they can look me up on LinkedIn by searching for Darrel Wright Agile. Or they can look up our website, it's Organa.com and they can find out more about me and I'd love to hear from them.

[B]

Absolutely. We'll put the link to those in the show notes, make sure that everybody out there can go and strike up a conversation with Daryl. I'm sure he has so much more to share and would be happy to. So go ahead and start the conversation. We're a community after all. Darrel, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for your generosity with your time and your knowledge.

[C]

Thank you so much for having me on and thanks to everyone out there who's listening to this.

[B]

All right, I hope you liked this.

[A]

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[D]

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