When Product Owners Eat the Grass for Their Teams | Tom Molenaar

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Episode: When Product Owners Eat the Grass for Their Teams | Tom Molenaar
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Tom Molenaar
Date: October 3, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode explores key patterns and anti-patterns in the Product Owner (PO) role within Agile teams. Tom Molenaar, an experienced Agile coach, discusses how over-involvement from Product Owners can hinder self-organization and provides insights into fostering empowered teams. The episode contrasts anti-patterns with positive examples, sharing actionable advice for Scrum Masters and Agile teams.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Product Owner Anti-pattern: Micromanagement & “Eating the Grass”

[01:53 - 08:25]

• Micromanaging PO:
  Tom shares a scenario where the PO was “a bit too controlling in guiding the team”—hosting daily standups, assigning tasks, and “chasing people within that daily call.”

  • “The PO was… managing the team on a micromanagement level. So this is the anti-pattern that I want to discuss today because, yeah, it blocks the team from self-organizing.” (Tom Molenaar, 01:53)

• Impacts:

  • Blocks team autonomy and responsibility.
  • Stifles opportunities for the team to “stand up” and own their work.

• Dutch Expression:

  • Tom likens the PO’s behavior to “eating the grass for the team,” meaning doing work that the team should own themselves.
    • “The PO was taking all the space and eating the grass for the team, basically.” (Tom Molenaar, 04:52)
  • The host, Fresco, comments:
    • “Eating the grass for the team…that’s a great way to put it.” (Fresco, 04:59)

Motivations Behind Micromanagement

• Root Cause:
  The micromanaging PO acted out of fear from past team underperformance:
  • “He felt like if I’m not holding on to the team, if I’m not guiding them or managing them, they will perform less.” (Tom, 03:33)

2. Intervening and Coaching for Change

[05:21 - 09:05]

• Intervention Approach:

  • Tom speaks directly with the PO, surfacing the behavior and underlying motivations.
  • Re-frames the conversation to:
    • Highlight benefits of a self-organizing team.
    • Stress the time-saving and trust aspects for the PO.
    • Empower the team by clarifying roles and responsibilities.

• Role Clarification:

  • Tommy brings these topics to the team retrospective:
    • Reiterates team’s responsibility for “how to build it.”
    • Affirms PO’s responsibility for "what is being built."
    • Aligns everyone on accountabilities.

• Gradual Change:

  • Emphasizes this is not a switch that flips overnight:
    • “It’s not a one-time conversation… The PO will feel situations where he feels the need to step in, or the team is hesitating to step up because they need to get used to that space.” (Tom, 08:39)

Coaching Both Sides

• Quotes:
  • “We need to coach both sides…not enough to help the PO see the potential future. We also need to help the team walk through the different aspects that they need to take on.” (Fresco, 08:25)
  • “For us as Scrum Masters and coaches, it’s really important to guide the team in that process…” (Tom, 08:39)

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3. Model Product Owners: Positive Patterns

[09:21 - 13:16]

• Vision and Enthusiasm:

  • Tom describes working with a PO who communicated vision and passion, inspiring both the team and external collaborators.
    • “He was able to communicate his vision and enthusiasm about the product so clearly towards the team that I really felt inspired as well.” (Tom, 09:37)

• Engaged Product Discovery:

  • The PO encouraged collaboration in discovery, moving teams from just “delivering features” to being responsible for outcomes.
    • “He was able to introduce techniques to have the team engaged in, for example, product discovery.” (Tom, 10:05)
    • Mentions Marty Cagan’s ideas about “empowered product teams” who collaborate on validating ideas.

• Connecting Stakeholders and Teams:

  • The PO invited customers and stakeholders for face-to-face feedback, reducing gaps and promoting transparency.
    • “He was physically inviting certain stakeholders to really make that relation between the engineers… and the users.” (Tom, 12:30)

• Measuring Outcomes:

  • The PO engaged the team in outcome measurement, connecting their work with real-world impact.
    • “Measuring the outcomes and really engaging the team on… what is the effect of the product that we worked on.” (Tom, 11:30)

• Host’s Summary of PO's Role:

  • “The PO needs to be the catalyst… all of the things that you said, they are so much more powerful when the PO is at the center, is the catalyst of all those things.” (Fresco, 12:59)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Eating the grass for the team. Is that a Dutch expression?” (Fresco, 04:54)
• “If he freed up that time and he could trust his team with building the product during the sprint without his day to day engagement… what it would mean for him if he no longer feels the need to micromanage the team.” (Tom, 05:40)
• “A team that is hopefully speaking up more on team matters that they're self-organizing on.” (Tom, 06:44)
• “We need to coach both sides… help the team walk through the different aspects…” (Fresco, 08:25)
• “He was able to inspire the team, to communicate his vision, to take the team along and really be enthusiastic about the discovery techniques.” (Tom, 11:05)
• “The PO needs to be the catalyst.” (Fresco, 12:59)

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Major Timestamps

• [01:53 - 04:54] — Tom shares the “eating the grass” anti-pattern and its impact
• [05:21 - 09:05] — How Tom intervened: coaching, role clarification, retrospective work
• [09:21 - 13:16] — Tom’s example of a great Product Owner and positive team engagement

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Resources & Follow-Up

• Connect with Tom Molenaar:
  • LinkedIn (to be included in episode notes)
  • Website (currently under construction)

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Tone & Language

• The episode is practical, candid, and supportive.
• Both host and guest maintain a collaborative and positive tone throughout, emphasizing growth, reflection, and practical guidance.

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For Agile coaches, Scrum Masters, and team members, this episode provides a nuanced look at the PO’s dual risks and potentials, illustrating why empowering teams while maintaining vision is the key to high-performance Agile.

Transcript

[Vasco]

Hey there, Agile adventurer, just a quick question.

[Fresco]

What if, for the price of a.

[Vasco]

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[Fresco]

So if you want to know more.

[Vasco]

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.

[Tom Molenar]

Hello everybody.

[Fresco]

Welcome to our Friday and product owner episode this week with Tom Molenar. Hey Tom, welcome back.

[Tom Molenar]

Hey guys. And hi Fresco. Thanks for having me.

[Fresco]

Absolutely. So product owner is what we're going to talk about. It's a key role in the Scrum framework. Some would argue a key role in any software development environment. There are certain things that are similar to product manager, there are certain things that are different and maybe we explore some of those today. But first we want to hear what a potentially worst product owner anti pattern look like in your career.

[Tom Molenar]

Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a good one because indeed, I agree, the product owner is, yeah, it's a really important role for the team to achieve their goals and to guide the team on a product level. And I did have the experience where the PO was a bit too controlling in guiding the team. Basically it was more like managing the team on a micromanagement level. So this is the anti pattern that I want to discuss today because yeah, it blocks the team from self organizing basically. So when I joined the team I saw that the product owner hosting the daily stand up and also assigning tasks or really chasing people within that daily call if it's already done, assigning tasks to individual team members. So yeah, I think we're going to zoom in a bit. Like what is the motivation of this product owner? But in a agile team you want a empowered team which can make those decisions for themselves. And basically the product owner doesn't need to be, be at the, at the daily. It's a meeting for the team to align on if, if, if they are on track and to discuss possible blockers and, and to discuss which tasks needs to go where exactly, et cetera. But this PO was, was holding on too strongly to the team. So yeah, what I, what I did is first speak to my product owner, of course about this, this observation and ask them what is the, like if he was aware that, that he was showing this behavior and what was the reason for this behavior. And that's always funny because you, when you dive in a bit deeper, there's always a motivation for behavior. And in his experience he felt like if I'm not holding on to the team, if I'm not guiding them or managing them, they will perform less. So he was controlling because he was afraid or based on earlier experience that the team wasn't stepping up in their responsibility. But in this situation there's a dynamic where the team didn't have the opportunity anymore just to stand up, literally in a stand up, because the PO was taking all the space and eating the grass for the team. Basically.

[Fresco]

Eating the grass for the team. Is that a Dutch expression?

[Tom Molenar]

I think so, yeah.

[Fresco]

That's beautiful. Eating the grass for the team. I think it's so much more visible than the micromanaging. Right. Like micromanaging is also very visual. But eating the grass for the team, that's. That's a great way to put it when you think about this story, like what did you try to do with the PO after you understood their motivation?

[Tom Molenar]

So after we zoomed in on his reason for this behavior and also zooming in a bit on our current situation and where we want to go, also zooming in on how it would benefit both the team and the PO if he would no longer feel the need to micromanage the team and what it would do with the team if they have that space back where they can self their daily business. So zooming in on the benefits for him, what it would mean for him if he freed up that time and he could trust his team with building the product during the sprint without his day to day engagement. Of course, engagements on a daily level is welcome, but not in a way as I described. So we zoomed in on the benefits, what it would mean for the team, how they could pick it up, how they could grow in their responsibility and how it eventually would lead to better decisions. A team that is hopefully speaking up more on team matters that they're self organizing on. So the next step, after I had this conversation with PO and he was on board, he said, yeah, that's a good idea. It will save me A lot of time I can trust the team in that way. But of course that's not a situation where you move from 0 to 1. So we in the next retro. I spoke about that observation after I spoke with the po, I brought it to the team and we spoke about their experiences. So also give them the space to share how they experience that role accountability. So we did basically a role clarification of the team is responsible for self organizing. The PO is responsible for division and what is going to be built on a product level. But the team is responsible for how to build it and the daily decision making of who is doing what. After we all agreed. Yeah. Then it's up to the team to step up and for us as coaches to help. Yeah, to help coaching them in the new way. Because it's not.

[Fresco]

We need to coach both sides.

[Vasco]

Right.

[Fresco]

Like it's not enough to help the POC the potential future. We also need to help the team walk through the different aspects that they need to take on to get there.

[Tom Molenar]

Yeah, exactly. It's not a one time conversation and okay, it's going well from now on because the PO will feel situations where you feel the need to step in or the team is hesitating to step up because they need to get used to that space of oh, it's up to us. So for us as SPRUM masters and coaches, it's really important to guide the team in that process and eventually that.

[Fresco]

They don't get stuck in the process.

[Tom Molenar]

Exactly.

[Fresco]

So Tom, this is an example of an anti pattern and I think you shared some beautiful ideas on how to overcome that anti pattern. But we also have product owners that are just amazing at the work that.

[Podcast Host]

They do and all of them have.

[Fresco]

Slightly different approaches, things they emphasize differently than the others. So share with us the best product owner you've ever worked with. How did they work?

[Tom Molenar]

Of course next to the anti patterns there are yeah like a ton of examples of, of great pos. When I think about a great PO is in one of the experiences I had was a PO with the ability to communicate his vision and his enthusiasm about the product so clearly towards the team that I really felt inspired as well. I didn't work on the product but I felt really enthusiastic about the purpose of the team, what they were building. And that was because the PO was able to communicate that enthusiasm to the team, but that's more on the vision side of things. He was also able to introduce and introduce techniques to have the team engaged in, for example, product discovery. So what we see is like Teams are moving more and more from only delivering features to more outcome responsibility. And like Marty Kagan, I spoke about it earlier this week, but empowered product teams, they also work on product discovery to quickly validate ideas. And this is in collaboration between the PO and the team because the PO wants insights on what is working on a product level to get to know his customers better by using a lot of testing and validating. And this PO was able to take the team along in introducing those techniques. And we as Scrum masters, we also play a role in guiding that process. So basically he was able to inspire the team to communicate his vision, to take the team along and really enthusiast about the discovery techniques. And on the other hand, also on measuring the outcomes and really engaging the team on basically from sprint to sprint or quarter to quarter. This is what we have done. This is the effect of the product that we worked on. We really engaged team in what the impact is of their work. He was also inviting customers more frequently to the office to have like a customer arena, like an interview next to the more digital testing or getting to know the consumer. He was physically inviting certain stakeholders to really make that relation between the engineers who are at the core of the product and the stakeholders and the users. Yeah, to really make that. Yeah, to make sure that there is no gap or when there's uncertainty, that there's proper communication. And yeah, a PO plays a core role in standing in the middle of it and you was doing a really good job.

[Fresco]

It's a great way to describe it.

[Vasco]

Right.

[Fresco]

Like the PO needs to be the catalyst. Now, they may not be ready for it when we join the team, but we need to help them get there because that's exactly all of the things that you said. They are so much more powerful when the PO is at the center is the catalyst of all of those things.

[Tom Molenar]

Yeah, exactly, Tom. Yeah, there was a really, really good example of someone who's both enthusiastic and in his skill set, really, really strong.

[Fresco]

Yeah, it was a great story, Tom. We're almost at the end though. But before we go, where can people find out more about you and the work that you're doing?

[Tom Molenar]

You can find me on LinkedIn. I do have a LinkedIn page, of course, and I also have my own website which is currently under construction, but that's my first and my last name. Yeah, maybe we can put that in the comments or my link to my LinkedIn profile. Absolutely.

[Fresco]

We'll put both of those links in the show notes so that people can easily find Tom. And why not strike up a conversation, ask ask a few follow up questions. We learn as a community. So go on and start sharing information. Tom, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much for your generosity with your time and your knowledge.

[Tom Molenar]

It's. Yeah, it's been a pleasure for me as well. Thanks Fosco for having me. And it's really nice to think about all the questions and your failures, your learnings. And I'm really curious about other episodes as well, so I'm definitely gonna watch those as well and really like this initiative. Sharing.

[Vasco]

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[Tom Molenar]

Slack.

[Podcast Host]

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