Security Team Breakdown—The Devastating Impact of Poor Product Ownership | Deniz Ari

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode Summary: "Security Team Breakdown—The Devastating Impact of Poor Product Ownership | Deniz Ari"

Release Date: May 20, 2025
Host: Vasco Duarte, Certified Scrum Master and Agile Coach
Guest: Denise Ari, Certified Scrum Master and Agile Coach

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1. Introduction to Denise Ari

In this episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte welcomes Denise Ari, an experienced Scrum Master and Agile Coach. The conversation delves into Denise's insights on effective Scrum Mastery, inspired by her professional experiences and the challenges she has faced in the field.

2. Inspiring Literature for Scrum Masters

Denise begins by discussing pivotal literature that has shaped her approach to Scrum Mastery. She highlights several influential books:

• "Succeeding with Agile Software Development using Scrum" by Michael Kohn
• "Agile Software Development with Scrum" by Ken Schwaber
• "Boundaries" by Dr. Henry Cloud

Denise Ari [01:26]: "If you are working in very complex environments with so many people... the book 'Boundaries' helped me a lot about especially saying no being part of it and take care of the people's feelings."

Denise emphasizes the importance of understanding human boundaries, especially in high-pressure, collaborative environments. She underscores that effective Scrum Mastery extends beyond methodologies and frameworks, encompassing vital soft skills that enhance resilience and confidence within teams.

3. The Security Team Breakdown: Challenges of Poor Product Ownership

a. Project Context

Denise recounts her involvement in a high-stakes security project tasked with safeguarding services used by millions. Initially, the project was marked by high motivation and robust architectural solutions.

Denise Ari [05:10]: "Everything starts very keen, very high motivation. But what happened on this project was some negative attitudes, the lack of support."

b. Emergence of Negative Attitudes

As the project progressed, underlying issues surfaced, leading to a decline in team morale. Denise identifies several factors contributing to this downturn:

• Constant Criticism: Persistent negative feedback without constructive reasoning.
• Questioning Skill Sets: Doubting the team's competencies.
• Expressing Pessimism: Creating an environment of anti-morale.

Denise Ari [06:06]: "It's just like a constant criticizing without any reason. To question people's skill sets and it's just like expressing pessimism."

c. Impact of Poor Product Ownership

A critical factor was the behavior of the Product Owner (PO). Denise notes that the PO's inability to manage stakeholder and client pressures effectively translated directly to the team, fostering a toxic work environment.

Denise Ari [08:23]: "It starts with the stakeholders management, the client management. They reflect stress directly to the team without filtering it."

This unfiltered pressure manifested through micromanagement, rude communications, and unrealistic deadlines, severely affecting team dynamics and productivity.

d. Communication and Micromanagement Issues

Despite having a capable team of experienced engineers, the lack of supportive leadership led to communication breakdowns and increased stress levels.

Denise Ari [07:47]: "We lost trust, people were being micromanaged, and there were very problems with communication."

The team's inability to adapt to these negative changes resulted in burnout, increased sick leave, and turnover, undermining the project's success.

4. Reflections and Lessons Learned

a. What Could Be Done Differently

Looking back, Denise reflects on actions she could have taken to mitigate the situation:

• Avoiding Unnecessary Tensions: Proactively managing conflicts and reducing stressors.
• Enhancing Communication: Fostering clearer and more compassionate communication channels.
• Strengthening Boundaries: Setting firm boundaries to protect the team from external pressures.

Denise Ari [10:56]: "Maybe I can be more political, calm, and avoid any tensions between, especially written communication like on emails and messages."

b. Role of Scrum Master in Protecting the Team

Denise underscores the dual responsibility of a Scrum Master: ensuring methodological adherence while safeguarding the team's well-being. She acknowledges the difficulty in balancing these roles, especially when personal traits may inhibit assertive actions.

Denise Ari [10:56]: "As a Scrum Master, if I can't protect the team, take care of the team, what's my purpose?"

5. Key Insights and Conclusions

Denise's experience highlights the profound impact that poor product ownership and ineffective stakeholder management can have on a team. Key takeaways include:

• The Crucial Role of the Product Owner: A PO must act as a buffer between the team and external pressures, maintaining a healthy work environment.
• Importance of Soft Skills: Scrum Masters must possess strong interpersonal skills to navigate and mitigate team tensions.
• Setting Boundaries: Establishing clear boundaries is essential to protect the team's morale and productivity.
• Proactive Conflict Management: Addressing issues early and fostering open communication can prevent the escalation of negative behaviors.

Denise Ari [12:17]: "We need to be in professional environments, but as a Scrum Master, at the same time, if I can't protect the team, take care of the team, what's my purpose?"

Denise's narrative serves as a cautionary tale and a source of learning for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches. It emphasizes the necessity of balancing process adherence with empathetic leadership to ensure team success and well-being.

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Conclusion

This episode provides valuable real-world insights into the challenges of Scrum Mastery, particularly the detrimental effects of poor product ownership. Denise Ari's storytelling underscores the importance of leadership, communication, and boundary-setting in fostering a resilient and motivated Agile team.

For those seeking to enhance their Scrum practices and navigate complex team dynamics, Denise's experiences offer actionable lessons and profound reflections.

Transcript

[Host]

Have you ever wondered what it really takes to make Agile work well? At the Global Agile Summit, we're bringing you real life first person stories of Agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action. Whether you're a leader, a product innovator, a developer, you'll hear practical insights from those who've done it. They'll be telling their own stories from the stage. I'll tell you more about this at the end of this episode. So stay back and listen to the full detailed description of what we have in store for you at the Global Agile Summit. But if you can't wait, you can go right now to globalagilesummit.com and check out our full schedule for now onto the episode. But I'll see you at the end of this episode with more details on the Global Agile Summit. Talk to you soon. Hello everybody.

[Interviewer]

Welcome to our Team Tuesday and this week we have with us Denise Ari.

[Host]

Hey Denise.

[Interviewer]

Welcome back.

[Denise Ari]

Thank you. Hi. Hello.

[Interviewer]

So Team Tuesday of course is where we talk about teams but before we dive into that, Denise share with us Team in your career as a Scrum Master, what was the book that most inspired you?

[Denise Ari]

You know, that I had read. You know I have some reading about, you know the some theoretical books Succeeding with Agile Software Development using Scrum by Michael Kohn and Agile Software Development with Scrum. It's a Ken Schwaber book and. And a couple of change management book. It's it affect too much but what I enjoy and what I suggest it's another book. It's more wider book. It's not just for Scrum Masters, you know the. For everyone literally especially if you, if you are working very complex environments, you know, with so many people and my. I am going to suggest the book is boundaries from Dr. Henry Cloud. It's about the human boundaries. You know there's so many different type of relationship. You know, does your life feel like it's out of control which is this keep happening as a Scrum master to me and perhaps you feel like you have to say yes to everyone request it is another dilemma as a Scrum Master not just to say yes, not just say no but you keep saying yes. You know that you keep saying no and it's very difficult to be honest and maybe you find yourself readily taking responsibilities for others feelings and problems. This is the most challenging part for as a Scrum Master dealing with the people's feelings and problems and they should work. Yeah. It's just. It's constant and perhaps you focus on being Loving, unselfish and you have forgotten your limits and limitations. And this book helped me a lot about especially saying no being part of it and take care of the people's feelings, emotions when you constant. You know, the working with them because they are human being. We are all human. We have all planted selection as a. You know, the emotions, problems, other not work life, you know, the personal commitments and. But at the same time we need to deliver and we are here on the professional environment. This book helped me a lot to remember why why we're struggling to say yes and no, especially no bits as a personal. I did struggle but yeah, I think being Scrum Master is like a one whole package thing. It's not like sticking with the methodologies, frameworks, values. It should be more than that. If we have our soft skills how that strong, you know, that we can be more resilient. Resilient and we can be more confident. Yeah, yeah.

[Interviewer]

I really like how you put it. Being a Scrum Master is like a full package deal.

[Host]

I really like that.

[Interviewer]

It's not just about the process. We are there to enable people to succeed at something that is really difficult. Right. Because it's a lot of people collaborating on a very complex system, whatever that system might be. And we need to take into account the personal side, the people side, which is of course on everybody's people side, but also our own. As humans, we also have our limits, our boundaries. So thank you for that recommendation. The link is in the show notes of course for everybody to go and check it out. And Denise, now we turn our attention to teams and how sometimes they can become their own worst enemies. So tell us the story of a team, give us a little bit of the context, what kind of project, how many people and so on. And then walk us through those steps. That is that behavior or those approaches that people were taking in the teams actually grew and became a problem for the team.

[Denise Ari]

Yes, of course. I was going to talk about one project which is security project. You know it's working. This bunch of engineer needs to work with this couple of services. This services is using by millions people like attacks and they are in live. You know the. And they are valuable security perspective. And these engineers had plenty phases with architect architectures and they had the solutions. Everything starts very keen, very. You know the. It was very high motivation. But what happened on this project we did some negative attitudes, you know, the lack of support.

[Interviewer]

What do you mean by that? Can you give an example?

[Denise Ari]

Yes, of course. It's just like a constant criticizing without any reason. To question people's skill sets and it's just like expressing pessimism. You know the anti morale. This is the thing. You know the. It's not easy to have team morale up and you know the trust these people was not like a new joiners. They were around for a while but when they see this kind of phase of the you know the stakeholders management and the roles conflict between each other and everyone's stepping in their shoes like a scam master P.O. you know the. And the lack of support is a technical wise because it's very easy to. If you're doing something stressful, you know I mean software developer development wise. You know the very tight timeline, a high expectation and unrealistic deadlines. It's very easy. It's very easy to. People can't turn each other. You know it's just literally because we lost to trust people things they being micromanagements. You know the. They were micromanaging and they can easily. And we had very problem with communication and they were like under 10 people. It was not like a big crowd like 8 people, 7 people very capable people. You know the high experience people senior people is. And. But yeah it's. If you're losing, you know if you're bringing negativity to youth and lack of support and you know the constant criticizing and micromanagement. It's very easy.

[Interviewer]

You know this type of behavior like the constant criticizing the micromanagement and kind of this negative attitude. If I hear you right it kind of started coming up in everyone right like it wasn't just that the managers were trying to micromanage but the negativity was also between the people in the team. Is that the correct understanding?

[Denise Ari]

It starts with. No, it start with the P.O. i mean like a on the project person.

[Interviewer]

You know how did the PO start bringing that negativity into the team.

[Denise Ari]

According to the this and we changed 3PO by the way in under the one year for this project. It's nothing just like. And you can imagine how wrong it is because I think what triggered this culture. I don't want to say culture but this is another thing, isn't it? It's happening. It starts with the stakeholders management, the client management. They reflect stress thing to directly to team. And the team is doesn't matter how they senior how they experience. You know the how did they start and offline discussions. You know the asking overtime without my. You know the awareness and the Friday evenings. You know the suddenly people turns online and carry on work for you know the unknown delivery Time, which is everything was no, no and no. And what happens. It's just literally. And the people it was. It's not easy to say. Especially it's depend on the personality. You know, the saying no because these people were so senior and very dedicated. They quite on point focus people and they.

[Host]

So what you're saying is that kind.

[Interviewer]

Of the product owner was potentially feeling the pressure from the client and kind of bringing that pressure to the team directly without filtering it.

[Denise Ari]

Without 100%. Yes. Without filtering at all. Without, you know, the even unnecessary conflict on emails, you know, the rude messages, micromanagement, obviously, you know, the question on questioning and asking justifications about the task. Why is taking too long. You know, the. But the transparency was there. Everything was on the tools, you know, the. Everything was on the solution document. It's nothing. Someone's gonna made up some steps, which is. It can be, isn't it? We keep adapting. If there is a blocker, we keep trying to solve it. But yeah, it was like a very big experience for me. But yeah, it just. It cost a lot.

[Interviewer]

So when you look back at that, that moment, that story, like if you could go back and. And relive that story, what would you do differently these days, Denise?

[Denise Ari]

What would I do? Okay, maybe I can avoid unnecessary, you know, the tensions. Maybe I did some things personal as a Scrum Master because it's very difficult, isn't it? Taking as. Not as a personal, but at the same time. At the same time, you're a gatekeeper. You need to protect the team. Yeah. And that's the challenge for me. And. Because if I see something's wrong, I. Yeah, I. I can't hold myself. Speak up. Maybe I can be more politics. I don't know. But this is my personality. I know it's very difficult. We need to be. We. We are on the professional environments. We need to. But as a Scrum master, at the same time, if I can't protect the team, take care of the team, what's my purpose? You know, the. We keep delivered, you know, and. But we lost so many engineers. They rotate to another area. Burnout, sick leave, they close themselves. You know, the. And yeah, it cost a lot. But what I do differently, maybe I can be tried more politics and I don't know, calm and maybe avoid any tensions between. Especially written communication like on emails and messages. Maybe I can avoid. But yeah, that's it.

[Interviewer]

And sometimes we can't avoid the pressure. Right? Like sometimes the pressure just is there because it is part of that particular environment. But I think you make a very good point, which is that as a Scrum Master, we need to protect the team and we need to try to enable the team to be able to deliver. And that might be difficult in some cases, and we need to figure out what is the acceptable way to push back in specific areas or specific organizations. It's not easy, right? And that's why Scrum Master is such a difficult and important role in software development.

[Host]

This is a great story.

[Interviewer]

Thank you for sharing that, Denise.

[Denise Ari]

No worries. Thank you.

[Host]

Hey friend, thank you for staying here is all you need to know about the Global Agile Summit if you've ever suffered or know people who are suffering from Agile fatigue, this event is for you. Agile fatigue is that feeling that settles in when we can't really see a light at the end of the tunnel. We get discouraged, especially when conversations revolve around the same old frameworks, the same old buzzwords and theories. We don't feel that energy anymore. Well, the Global Agile Summit is a different kind of event. We're bringing you real life first person stories of agile succeeding out there in the real world that will inspire you to take action and transform the way you work. The Global Agile Summit will happen In Tallinn, Estonia, May 18th. That's the workshop day. Then 19th and 20th, the conference day. And Tallinn, Estonia is one of the most innovative tech hubs in Europe. The Global Agile Summit is hosted together with Latitude 59, which is kind of a citywide celebration of software startups and groundbreaking ideas. And we'll have a shared ticket for you to attend those events as well. So who will be speaking? Well, we've got an incredible lineup of thought leaders in software and Agile. For example, Clinton Keith, the person who wrote, literally wrote the book on game development with Scrum and is busy bringing Agile to the world of game development. You must check his session. The very famous and well known Jurgen Apello, author of Management 3.0, will be talking and exploring about AI's impact on leadership. We also have Goiko Adsic, who's taking an unconventional look at product growth with his Lizard Optimization keynote. Other speakers include, for example, Sig Sven Dietz, who's challenging everything we know about software development by ditching, literally ditching contracts and estimates. Can you imagine his teams deliver software before their competitors are even done with the contract negotiation? How agile is that? But there's more. We'll cover engineering practices in our developer track with talks on, for example, AI assisted test driven development, developing products in minutes with a different approach to how we develop, configure, deploy platforms and much more. We also have a product track where we cover cutting edge ideas around product discovery, delighting customers with product delight frameworks. We'll, we'll have a talk about that. And we also have an Agile Business track where we will talk about, for example, Open strategy, a very agile approach to managing organizations and delivering software faster to clients faster than you can even write a contract. Literally. I mean, I already told you about Svendit's story is amazing. It definitely is a must see. I'm sure you'll be inspired and get a lot of ideas for your own software projects and software delivery. Now, whether you're a business leader, a product innovator or a developer, you'll definitely find value in our three focused tracks. That's Agile Business for those working with businesses and organizations, Agile Product for product managers, production product owners and innovators and Agile Developer for the builders making Agile work in practice. The coders, the testers, the designers, the producers, the scrum masters, you name it. If you join, you will meet over 200 agile professionals from all over the world. People who just like you, want to grow, want to share, and want to learn by challenging the ideas that don't work anymore. At the Global Agile Summit, you'll get new connections, fresh ideas and the energy to take your own Agile to the next level. And who knows, maybe even find your next career opportunity. So don't miss out. Check out the full program and grab your ticket [e-mail] I'm really looking forward to seeing you all in Tallinn, Estonia in May.

[Interviewer]

I'll see you there.