The Ghost Product Owner vs. The Storytelling Master | Stuart Tipples

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches Episode: The Ghost Product Owner vs. The Storytelling Master | Stuart Tipples
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Stuart Tipples
Release Date: June 13, 2025

---

Introduction

In this compelling episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in an insightful conversation with seasoned Agile Coach and Scrum Master, Stuart Tipples. The discussion delves deep into the dynamics of Product Ownership within Scrum teams, contrasting the detrimental impact of absentee product owners with the transformative power of storytelling-driven leadership.

The Ghost Product Owner: An Anti-Pattern in Agile Teams

Stuart begins by identifying one of the most challenging anti-patterns he has encountered in his career: the “Ghost Product Owner”. This term describes Product Owners (POs) who are consistently absent, making them nearly unreachable and unreliable for crucial Agile ceremonies.

Stuart Tipples [01:43]:
"I kind of gave it a name for when I'm describing it as an anti-pattern, but it's one I call the Ghost with the most... The big challenge was... the product owner was just never there."

Key Characteristics of the Ghost Product Owner:

• Inconsistent Attendance: POs sporadically attend Sprint Planning and then disappear.
• Delayed Backlog Refinement: Backlog sessions are postponed repeatedly, leading to a disorganized and unprioritized backlog.
• Lack of Engagement: Minimal input during critical phases hampers the team’s ability to deliver effectively.

Impact on the Team:

• Frustration and Burnout: Team members, often including overburdened business analysts, struggle to fill the leadership void, leading to increased stress and potential burnout.
• Compromised Delivery: The absence of decisive PO involvement jeopardizes the product's quality and timely delivery.

Stuart Tipples [03:00]:
"It's frustrating not being able to reach someone's input when you need it, particularly the role like the product owner... You risk burnout. It has a very real impact and it's not great at all."

Tackling the Ghost Product Owner

Addressing this anti-pattern is no easy feat. Stuart emphasizes the necessity of direct, open, and honest communication to remedy the situation.

Stuart Tipples [04:39]:
"It requires a very direct, open and honest discussion... I laid out how this was affecting the team... and asked them, 'What's driving this? Is there something I can help with?'"

Steps Stuart Took:

1. Confrontation with Evidence: Presented factual and anecdotal evidence of the PO’s absenteeism and its negative effects.
2. Understanding Root Causes: Inquired about underlying issues, such as personal challenges or misalignment with the role.
3. Collaborative Solutions: Worked with the PO to adjust schedules and set up regular one-on-one meetings to address dissatisfaction and improve engagement.

Outcome:
The PO revealed personal challenges, including childcare issues and dissatisfaction with the role. Together, they restructured responsibilities and communication channels, leading to improved participation and job satisfaction.

Stuart Tipples [07:58]:
"You just talk to me about it and tell me what's making you unhappy. Do something about it."

The Storytelling Master: A Model Product Owner

Transitioning from challenges, Stuart shares a positive exemplar of a Product Owner, whom he affectionately refers to as “Mark”.

Stuart Tipples [08:48]:
"What made him great was he was always available... He told stories, he didn't bring requirements. Storytelling... is huge."

Key Traits of the Storytelling Master:

• Availability and Accessibility: Maintained clear office hours accommodating different time zones, ensuring consistent support for the team.
• Engaging Communication: Utilized storytelling instead of mere requirement listings to provide context, engage stakeholders, and clarify objectives.
• Active Participation: Attended all Agile events diligently, fostering a culture of participation and openness.

Impact on the Team:

• Enhanced Engagement: Storytelling made even the driest API development projects interesting and relatable.
• Empowered Teams: By providing narratives rather than detailed instructions, the PO encouraged the team to take ownership of the technical implementations.
• Contagious Positivity: The team's adoption of storytelling during demos transformed presentations from mundane to captivating, fostering a competitive and motivating environment.

Stuart Tipples [11:14]:
"Storytelling... is how you get people interested... people want to see how it ends."

The Power of Storytelling in Agile

The episode underscores storytelling as a pivotal tool in Agile methodologies. Effective storytelling:

• Clarifies Vision: Provides a clear and compelling narrative that aligns the team’s efforts with the product vision.
• Engages Stakeholders: Makes presentations and demos more relatable and interesting, ensuring better buy-in and understanding.
• Fosters Collaboration: Encourages team members to contribute creatively to project implementations based on the shared story.

Stuart Tipples [12:47]:
"That behavior then sort of became contagious... It was a great example of that positive behavior being contagious."

Conclusion and Takeaways

Stuart’s insights highlight the profound impact that both poor and exemplary Product Owners can have on Agile teams. Addressing negative behaviors through open dialogue and fostering positive practices like storytelling can significantly enhance team dynamics and product outcomes.

Key Takeaways:

• Identify and Address Anti-Patterns: Recognize detrimental behaviors early and engage in constructive conversations to mitigate their impact.
• Leverage Storytelling: Utilize storytelling to create engaging, clear, and motivating narratives that drive team and stakeholder alignment.
• Cultivate Positive Leadership: Exemplary POs set standards that naturally inspire and elevate the entire team’s performance.

Connect with Stuart Tipples

Listeners eager to delve deeper into Agile practices and connect with Stuart can explore his work through his blog at newrebel.scrum.com, connect on LinkedIn, or follow him on Instagram and Twitter. Stuart encourages active participation and discussions to foster a collaborative Agile community.

---

Stay Connected:
For more actionable insights, tips, and inspiring conversations with Agile practitioners worldwide, subscribe to the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast and join the thriving Scrum Master Toolbox membership community.

Transcript

[Vasko]

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.

[Host]

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

[Stuart Tipples]

Hey Vasco, thanks. Good to be back.

[Host]

Absolutely great to have you back because we're going to jump into the product owner pool. We'll talk about great product owners in a minute because it's important that we highlight some of the great product owner examples out there. But first share with us what might have been potentially the worst product owner anti pattern you've witnessed in your career.

[Stuart Tipples]

So I don't think this is going to be particularly original. I think this is a challenge that the many Scrum Masters and many Scrum teams will encounter to the point that I've seen it so many times. Again, I kind of given it a name for when I'm describing it as an anti pattern, but it's one I call the Ghost with the most. This particular example that I'm thinking of comes back to a customer portal team that we talked about earlier. So lots of Edge cases, so legacy systems, numerous sort of integrations, APIs. It's like a Marvel crossover event, right? Like anybody who could be involved is there and they're involved. The big challenge was if we're looking at sort of product owner anti pattern behavior, they were just never there. Not only were they never there, but you couldn't get time in them when you wanted to sort of follow up and they'd been allowed to sort of continue that behavior and it wasn't addressed. So Sprint planning would happen and then they disappear. That's if they showed up to Sprint planning. There were quite often instances where A Sprint backlog was presented, a half assed sprint goal was sort of coined and that was it. Like it was just shared. Can't make it crack on. The biggest, I think sort of impact of that sort of behavior and what it does to the team. First of all, it's frustrating not being able to sort of reach out and get someone's input when you need it, particularly the role like the product owner. But what you see and what I saw in that instance is you'll get members of the team step up and try and fill that product on a role. Quite often if you have a business analyst in your team, depending on the type of work, it's generally that person because they have the most sort of crossover in skill set, but they've got their own job to do as well, right. So they tend to overload and it becomes very stressful for them. You risk and burnout. It has very real impact and it's not great at all. So as I say, Sprint planning, if they were there, great, but they would disappear. Sometimes they wouldn't be there. The amount of times this particular PO would delay backlog refinement sessions to the point of they would never happen. So the backlog was just a mess of. It was little more than a to do list, right. It had very little sort of understanding.

[Host]

So how did you tackle this? Because this isn't an easy situation for a Scrum Master.

[Stuart Tipples]

It's not and it does. I think in my experience it requires a very direct, open and honest discussion how I sort of responded to it. I sort of got to a point where I let it slip and slide to a point of thought, right? I really have to do something about this now because if I don't, it's going to get to a point where we can't recover from this. It's a very direct, open, honest one to one. And I lay cards out on the table and sort of outlined how this was affecting the team. I showed very real instances where people were having to sort of pick up their workload and I really didn't think that was fair. And more to the point, it's going to impact delivery of the product and the build of the product itself because they're spending that time and I just asked them, I'd sort of, after outlining all that, before letting them respond, my response was then to sort of say to them, look, what's driving this? Like, is there something I can help with? Is there something I as a Scrum Master can do for you? I'm not going to do your job for you. But is there something I can help with? Is there something broader that I can lighten the load on? Are the timings of the events wrong? Like am I putting. Have I scheduled sprint planning on a day that you have childcare issues? Is there something going on?

[Host]

So how did they respond?

[Stuart Tipples]

At first it was very closed tight and defensive, which again, it's human nature. Right. It's not unexpected. But again, this is one of those instances where as a scrum master, you kind of have to learn to be comfortable, to sort of sit in that uncomfortable space, keep your emotion out of it. You're dealing. In this instance I'm dealing with. I've got data to support, I've got sort of factual evidence, anecdotal evidence. There's a strong case here of how this behavior and these anti patterns are really impacting the team by being willing to sit in that uncomfortable situation and sort of not succumb to filling the silence either, which is difficult for me because I'll tend to talk a lot. But allowing for that silence and allowing for them to be the one to break that silence. It transpired that yes, they had issues with. In this instance it was childcare issues. They also opened up to me. They weren't happy in the role, they weren't happy doing what they were doing and they were sort of looking for opportunities externally and I'd sort of resolved it and we came to an agreement where it's like, well, tell me the clashes. We'll go to the team and we will re agree the schedule, we'll make it work. You are part of this team so it has to be a time and a slot that works for the team. And in terms of not being happier, it's like again, just let's you and I set up regular one to ones that aren't necessarily about the work stuff and if you're unhappy with the role.

[Host]

Then just move on.

[Stuart Tipples]

Just talk to me about it and tell me what's making you unhappy. You're absolutely right. Do something about it.

[Vasko]

Right, yeah.

[Host]

I mean sometimes there's no solution. Right. People just need to move on and that's fine too.

[Stuart Tipples]

Well, I will say in that instance they didn't. They actually, they actually kind of turned it around and did that bit of work and went on to a new bit of work that I think got their juices flowing a little bit more.

[Host]

So that's good to hear. That's good to hear.

[Stuart Tipples]

I think again, the key lesson I picked up at that time and one I sort of always say to sort of Scrum masters that might be a little sort of earlier in their career is get comfortable with that silence and get comfortable with discomfort because we have many of those discussions over time. Absolutely.

[Host]

Now there aren't only bad pos, there are also some amazing pos out there. So Stuart, share with us the best PO you've ever worked with. How did they work?

[Stuart Tipples]

You know, I've been fortunate. I have worked with some fantastic pos over the time, particularly in my time in bt. Some really, really, really great, great pos I've worked with. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna name them. We'll call them Mark. Should we say for this of this discussion, it was a team that were building APIs for a new customer hub for wholesale customers. Sounds super dry, right? In terms of work for the team. And truthfully it was. It wasn't the sort of sexiest product you could be working on a building. But what made him great was he was always available, like almost detrimentally to himself. He was always available, didn't micromanage, he had very clear office hours that sort of. That he would be available to the team. He was mindful of sort of. Our team wasn't co located and geographically time zones were different. So he built his office hours to be available to everyone. So it wasn't the most convenient time for him, but he made sure he was available. Most importantly, I would say he showed up. He was at every Agile event and some of the non agile he showed up and they showed up ears open and ego part from what made him excel as a product owner, I would say something that can be lacking. But he told stories, he didn't bring requirements. Storytelling, I think in this particular sort of way of working as agilists is huge. Right. We all need to be better at it. Our team needs to be better in it. We need to tell a story to engage our stakeholders and to create clarity as well. Yeah, absolutely. And it's how you get people interested as well. Right. That's the other thing. Like if you tell a good story, people want to see how it ends. So that was something they were very good at that it was stories, not just requirements, which just supplied all the context that sort of the devs needed to go away and make the best decisions.

[Host]

And storytelling also allows the team to come up with the actual technical implementation details instead of the product owner kind of taking that responsibility and figuring out the details and then never telling the why. Right. Like never telling the story 100%.

[Stuart Tipples]

But again, it was one of those instances as well where we talked about it earlier, where that sort of behavior then sort of became a bit contagious. So we're progressing a little here, but during reviews, because the work that the product they were building and the API work they were doing, it's very dry, it's very boring. It's very difficult to make that engaging during a demo or a review. But the team started to bring in storytelling to those demos and reviews, and it just made my heart sing because I can't tell you how many. Dry, boring. I'm not. By no means am I a technologist. I'm not, you know, a technical Scrum master, as it were. I've been on. I've been on demo reviews where it's just live code being sort of discussed. And it's just like, if this doesn't work for me, then I know it's not working for like 80% of this audience. You've lost us. But, yeah, that's a great example of sort of that sort of behavior, that positive behavior being contagious and sort of taken elsewhere.

[Host]

Yeah, that's a great lesson to take from this. Right? Like that behavior that has positive impact becomes contagious, and that creates a positive spiral of good behavior that kind of spreads throughout the team and the organization.

[Stuart Tipples]

It spreads. And before you know it, because you know as well as I know, demos get a little competitive between teams at sort of scale. So then all of a sudden, other teams start picking it up. It's great. It's great.

[Host]

Especially if you have multiple teams doing the demo at the same time with the same audience. You're going to create that kind of.

[Stuart Tipples]

You want that one up.

[Host]

Motivation. Motivation, right. And then people really want to do a good job. And if you already have the basis, like storytelling and being able to present the why and the impact and so on, then. Then it gets really good, really fast.

[Stuart Tipples]

Yeah, 100%.

[Host]

Stuart, it's been a pleasure. I mean, it's been an amazing week of insights and stories. I invite everybody to go and listen to all of the episodes. There's plenty of great stories in this week's episodes, but we're getting close to the end. Before we go, where can people find out more about you and the work that you're doing?

[Stuart Tipples]

So the best place to sort of see what I'm doing is through my blog, new rebel. Scrum.com do go find me on LinkedIn. Please reach out and connect. Most importantly for LinkedIn, my ask is get involved. I do not want to just be that guy who's just posting stuff, reaching out. I want discussions, thrive on discussions. I want to, I want to interact with.

[Host]

All right, I definitely have to get you to our Slack because yeah, there's, there's a lot of cool discussions that are happening and would love to get your take on them.

[Stuart Tipples]

I, I am, I am 100 in I am game. So yeah, that's, that's probably the best places I'm on all the usual sort of socials. I think you can find me on Instagram, you can find me on Twitter as well where I just. It's all sharing content from the blog though, so. Yeah, but it's a great place to reach out and talk and discuss and, and call me out if you think what I'm saying is absolute.

[Host]

Productive conflict. That's what I would say. Stuart, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for your generosity with your time and your knowledge.

[Stuart Tipples]

Pasco, it's been awesome. Thank you very much for asking me. It's been a thrill and thanks for again.

[Vasko]

All right, I hope you liked this episode, but before you hit next episode, here's the deal. This podcast is powered by people like you. The members who wanted more than just inspiration. They wanted real tools and real connection to people who are practicing Agile. Every day we're talking access to over 700 hours of agile gold, CTO level strategy talks, summit keynotes, live workshops, E courses, Deep dive interviews, books, and if you're into no estimates, we got the pioneers of no estimates in those Deep Dive interviews as well. Agile Business Intelligence, creating product visions, coaching your product owner courses, you name it. You'll get invites to monthly live Q&As with agile pioneers and practitioners. Plus a private Slack community which is free of all of that AI slop you see everywhere. And of course, without the flame wars. It's a community of practitioners that want to learn and thrive together. It's the best place to connect with community and learn together. So if this podcast has helped you before, imagine what you will get from this podcast membership. So head on over to to scrummastertoolbox.org membership and join the community that's shaping the future of Agile. We have so much for you. So check out all the [e-mail] membership because listening is great. It's important. But doing it together, that's next level. I'll see you in the community. Slack.

[Host]

We really hope you liked our show. And if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes. Share this podcast and let other Scrum Masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that sharing is caring.