How to Coach POs Who Treat Developers Like Mindless Robots | Alex Sloley

Summary

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Episode Overview

Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Alex Sloley, Agile Coach
Date: October 24, 2025
Episode Theme:
This episode explores how Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches can coach Product Owners (POs) who inadvertently fall into the anti-pattern of treating developers like mindless robots. Through horror stories and success cases, Alex Sloley draws out how trust, communication, and the core values of Scrum can repair and elevate the PO-team relationship.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Product Owner Anti-Pattern: The Command-and-Control PO

[01:50 - 05:22]

• Alex’s Horror Story:
  Alex describes observing a PO who dominated the Sprint Planning, assigning specific tasks to each developer and dictating how the work should be completed, including technical details:

  • "The developers on the team might as well have been like mindless robots because they were being assigned all the work, told how much work they could do in a sprint, what the work was, and they were helpless, unable to resist."
    (Alex, 02:40)

• The Scrum Master in this setup was passive, making the situation worse.

• Potential causes:

  • Ex-project manager mindset
  • Previous broken trust
  • Emotional baggage or organizational trauma

• Alex’s Approach:

  1. Build trust with the PO: Took the PO out for coffee and informal chats.

  2. Frame the problem as the PO’s challenge, not the team’s:

     • "Maybe this impediment is the impediment for the product owner, not the team."
       (Alex, 03:33)

  3. Invite the PO to trust the team:

     • "Why do you have to do all this stuff? Can't you trust the team to help you out with this?"
       (Alex, 04:13)

  4. Encourage relaxation and delegation:

     • "Maybe if you let the team do some of this for you...you would have time to like, relax and chill and like, maybe have some downtime and you don't have to do everything."
       (Alex, 04:20)

2. Resolution: Shifting Trust and Responsibility

[05:22 - 07:22]

• The PO was open to the suggestion and tried stepping back, trusting the team to self-organize.

• The developers rose to the occasion, accomplishing the work effectively.

• "It was never really about a trust issue in the first place...They thought they needed to do all that stuff, but when they sat back and let the team do it, the team was pretty good at it."
  (Alex, 05:55)

• The change happened simply by reframing the roles and responsibilities, and by supporting both the PO and the team through the transition.

• Key Takeaway:
  Focus first on building trust with the PO, then extend that trust to the team, which can dramatically shift team dynamics for the better.

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3. Exemplary Product Owner Case Study

[07:22 - 12:54]

• Alex’s Best PO:
  Story from 2011, in a client-services environment.

  • The client’s representative became PO with no prior Agile experience.
  • Alex, as Scrum Master, gently coached her through the Scrum process.

• Lightbulb Moment:
  At the first Sprint Review, the PO saw tangible product increments and realized quick, valuable delivery was possible.

  • "She could touch it and she could see it and she could get feedback on it, and her head exploded. She was like, oh, my gosh, I've never seen this before."
    (Alex, 08:30)

• Transformational Engagement:
  The PO became a passionate proponent of Agile, actively participating and championing the process in her organization.

• Embodiment of Scrum Values:
  The story is framed around the five Scrum values:

  1. Focus – letting the team plan and commit to Sprint work.
  2. Commitment – attending all events and engaging with developers.
  3. Openness – embracing new working methods.
  4. Respect – making space for the team to succeed.
  5. Courage – trying out a completely new way of working.

• "She evolved into a hardcore champion and demonstrated how a great product owner and a team could work together."
  (Alex, 11:23)

• Coaching Tip:
  "What tools or techniques or practices or processes can you help your product owner with that emphasizes these five values?"
  (Alex, 12:18)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• POs Are Not Villains:
  "The product owner is not the problem here...maybe this impediment is the impediment for the product owner, not the team."
  (Alex, 03:33)

• Transformative Power of Trust:
  "All I did was shift the framing for, like, how can I help the product owner and give them value and then ask them to trust?"
  (Alex, 06:41)

• On Values-Led Coaching:
  "Work the other way around. Think about the practices, the techniques and the processes that will naturally and automatically build those five values in your product owner."
  (Alex, 12:22)

• Action over Analysis:
  "We can't think our way into a new way of acting, but we can act our way into a new way of thinking."
  (Vasco, 12:54; attributing the idea to David Marquet)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:50] PO anti-pattern: Command-and-control horror story
• [03:33] Reframing the issue as a PO impediment
• [05:22] PO’s reaction and the process of building trust
• [07:22] Best PO story: New to Agile, values-based transformation
• [11:23] PO becomes an Agile champion in the organization
• [12:18] Advice for Scrum Masters: Coach POs through values-driven tools and practices
• [12:54] Reflections on changing behavior through practice

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Actionable Takeaways

• For Scrum Masters/Agile Coaches:

  • Build trust first with POs; frame challenges as collaborative.
  • Encourage POs to delegate and empower teams, relieving themselves of needless burden and enabling better team performance.
  • Anchor coaching practices in the five Scrum values: commitment, focus, openness, respect, courage.

• For Product Owners:

  • Trust your teams; step back to let them self-organize and demonstrate their capability.
  • Engage actively with Scrum events and give yourself permission to learn and adapt.
  • Use early tangible outcomes (like Sprint Reviews) to anchor belief in the process.

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Additional Resources Mentioned

• David Marquet’s book, "Turn the Ship Around" and his podcast episodes on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast:

  • "If you want to read another book, Marquet's book is in my top five for sure." (Alex, 13:25)

• Alex Sloley’s channels:

  • LinkedIn
  • Website
  • Book available on Amazon

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Summary:
This episode is a practical guide for Scrum Masters looking to improve team dynamics through the lens of Product Owner behavior. By focusing on trust, reframing impediments, and anchoring coaching in core Scrum values, even entrenched anti-patterns can be resolved, leading to more productive and inspired teams.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there, Agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if, for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership. And it's your unfair advantage in the Agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership. That's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast.

[B]

Hello everybody.

[A]

Welcome to our Friday TGIF and product owner episode. This week with Alex Slowly.

[B]

Hey, Alex, welcome back.

[A]

Hey.

[B]

Hey, Vasco. Good to be here.

[A]

So we're going to talk about one of those critical roles that I was going to say nobody talks about, but it's the opposite everybody talks about, which is a product owner role. We'll talk about great product owners in a minute. But to get us started, Alex, because today's Friday, let's take it easy and dive into one of those horror stories. Yeah. To make it an easier slide into Friday. So share with us. Potentially the worst product owner anti pattern you've witnessed in your career.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So I think we all have those PO horror stories and we probably all like to make fun of POS to a certain extent, but let me tell you, it's a hard job. So a shout out to all the product owners out there for doing great work. But in my particular instance, I'll tell you a story. In 2018, I was working with a group of POS. So it's a group of about five product owners working on some interrelated products. And so what I was doing was I was going around all these different teams that each product owner had and I was checking out their Scrum events and feeling the vibe of their team and the smell of their team. And in one particular Sprint planning session, I observed a product owner who like totally controlled everything the team did. So what I saw and what I heard was the product owner who was like, okay, team, this is the work you're going to take for this Sprint. And John, you're going to do this. Rahul, you're going to do that. Vijay, you're going to do that. Sally, you're going to do that. So they're like assigning all the work to the people. Then the product owner proceeded to tell them how they were going to do all the work. It was really technical stuff, like, oh, well, you're going to use this function and you're going to use this API and you're going to do it exactly the way I say. And they basically just owned the team. Like, the team. The developers on the team might as well have been like mindless robots because they were being assigned all the work, told how much work they could do in a sprint, what the work was, and they were helpless, unable to resist. And the Scrum master sat in the corner, meek and powerless as the product owner dominated the team. And I was like, whoa, what has caused such a thing? Like, what, what made this happen and made it come to be? Was it because this product owner was a psychopath? Or like, were they an ex project manager? Or maybe the team had broken the product manager's trust in the past and who knows what, like, emotional baggage or trauma had occurred that was causing this situation. So really I just had to go figure out what was going on. So the first thing I did is I just built up a little trust with that product owner, took them out for a few coffees, we had a few after work adult beverages. And the way I approached it was like, the product owner is not the problem here. Right? The way I approached it was like, maybe this impediment is the impediment for the product owner, not the team. How can I approach it such that I'm solving a product owner problem? So that's what I did. Eventually I got together with the product owner. I'm like, wow, why do you have to do all this stuff? Can't you trust the team to help you out with this? Maybe if you let the team do some of this for you, if you trusted in them enough to do that, you would have time to like, relax and chill and like, maybe have some downtime and you don't have to do everything. So that's what I asked them to do.

[A]

How did the PO react to that? That sounds like a very reasonable and even productive conversation at the start. But what happened next?

[B]

Yeah, they were totally willing to do it. So basically all I was doing is I asked them to trust me first and then after I asked them to trust me, I said, can you trust the team? I asked Them specifically, can you trust the team? And then I went back to the team and I said, hey, the product owner wants to chill out for a little bit. Can you do all this stuff that the product owner would normally do? And it was as simple as that. Amazingly, the product owner sat back and was willing to trust the team. So it was never really about a trust issue in the first place, is what I discovered. It was just that they thought they needed to do all that stuff, but when they sat back and let the team do it, the team was pretty good at it. And the product owner discovered, hey, wow, this is actually pretty cool. Like the team will actually do all this stuff and I don't have to. And that's actually a better way of working. So the trust wasn't the problem. It wasn't really like a team level problem. It was just the product owner dynamic.

[A]

That developed without the people even being aware of it.

[B]

They were totally unaware. And all I did was shift the framing for like, how can I help the product owner and give them value and then ask them to trust? And that was it. It was simple as that.

[A]

But you know, that's a great point, right? Like thinking about, okay, who do I need to build trust with first? And then who, who else do I need to build trust for us to be able to take the next step?

[B]

Yeah, and it started with the product owner and then my trust was built with the team because I basically went to bat for them and asked them to, I asked the product owner to trust the team and yeah, they actually developed a much healthier relationship after that point.

[A]

That's a great turnaround story. All right, but there aren't only anti patterns, there's also some amazing product owners out there, as you said at the start of the episode. So let's talk about one of those, potentially the best product owner you've ever worked with. Alex, how did they work?

[B]

No, yeah, I mean this, this was, this is an easy question for me because I always remember this product owner with like, with respect. And it was just a fantastic story. So it was 2011 and I was working at an organization that did client work. So they created software for like other companies and we were working with a client that never had done Agile before, never done Agile, didn't know how it worked. But internally in our teams at this organization, we created teams that did client work. They knew how to run Agile and I was a scrum master for that team. So we engaged the client and we started to do work for them and we had to make a decision about who should be the product owner on the team. And what we decided was that a representative from that client should be the product owner on the team. And I was responsible as a Scrum Master for kind of like coaching that product owner and bringing them along on the journey because they'd never done Scrum before. She was a little skeptical coming in because she never witnessed this, never heard of it, never done it. And then I'm gently guiding her through the process and she's pretty open and respectful and seeing how things work. And she's kind of putting her trust into the team, which is really cool. You know, I'm asking her to trust. And we get into the Sprint review and that's when things got crazy. So in that Sprint review, she saw for the first time working product delivered in two weeks. And she could touch it and she could see it and she could get feedback on it, and her head exploded. She was like, oh, my gosh, I've never seen this before. I didn't think it was possible. I just saw you deliver stuff in two weeks that I can actually use. It doesn't have everything I want or need and it's not perfect, but hey, it's pretty darn good. Everything we asked for, you were able to deliver in the two weeks. And she like, it was like flipping a light switch. She, like got fully engaged and she became a maniac and a maniac in the best way because every single Sprint, she would like run to the Sprint review and be so eager and engaged because she would actually see and get stuff and switch flip moment. She instantly became a champion for the entire company to see. Hey, this Agile thing works. She's working directly with an Agile team. We're getting actually stuff on it delivered. That was the flip moment of one of the best PM transitions I've ever seen. So when I reflect back on it now, what she saw was she saw the potential of a bright new future. And in terms of like, the Scrum values, I would say she showed focus because she trusted the team to decide how much work they could do, how much work they could get done in the Sprint. She was committed because she attended all the Scrum events and engage directly with the developers. I mean, she loved Sprint reviews. I mean, you couldn't drag her out of the Sprint review because she loved it so much in terms of, like, openness. She was open to this new way of working and gave it a chance. I asked her for trust and I asked her to be patient, to give it some time to work and she was open to that. And then she was respectful to the entire team by letting us, giving us space to succeed and demonstrate how this could work. And then she had courage because for her, this was a brand new process. Her org had no experience in it. And she evolved into a hardcore champion and demonstrated how a great product owner and a team could work together, even though she was from a client. So we could have used any number of product owner tools or techniques or practices. But what really helped her succeed was that she embraced all those values, those five values that the Scrum Guide talks about that people forget about. So if you're an sm, if you're a Scrum master trying to coach your product owner, reflect on this stuff. I'm about to say, what tools or techniques or practices or processes can you help your product owner with that emphasizes these five values? In other words, work the other way around. Think about the practices, the techniques and the processes that will naturally and automatically build those five values in your product owner, which are commitment, focus, openness, respect, and courage. And work the other way around.

[A]

Yeah, we can't think our way into a new way of acting, but we can act our way into a new way of thinking. I love that phrase from. I think I heard it from David Marquet here on the podcast. And I think it's such an important reflection, what you call us to reflect on that the tools and practices that we use can either reinforce or go against the values that we hope to see and that we know we see in wildly successful teams. Alex, it's been a pleasure. Yeah, go ahead.

[B]

Thank you. Oh, well, I was going to say, if you want to read another book, Marque's book is in my top five for sure.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll put the podcast also in the show notes for people to go and listen to that. Two podcasts we have with him that I think are seminal in understanding how to get great organizations even out of the jaws of despair and failure, like in the first book, Turn the Ship around, which is amazing. Alex, thank you very much for sharing all of that knowledge and experience with us. If people want to connect with you, where can they go?

[B]

Definitely you can find me on LinkedIn, but you can also find me on my own website, alexslowly.com and you can find my book for sale in Amazon if you want to learn more about the agile community.

[A]

Absolutely. And we'll put the link to all of those in the show notes. So, yeah, let's get in touch. Let's connect and be a community, because we are all in this together. Literally. Alex, been a pleasure. Thank you very much for your generosity with your time and your knowledge.

[B]

It was fun. Vasco. You know, next time I see you in person, we should go out to the pub and have a beer.

[A]

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