When Velocity Replaces Outcomes—The Product Owner Trap | Cristina Cranga

Summary

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When Velocity Replaces Outcomes—The Product Owner Trap

Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Cristina Cranga
Date: January 23, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Vasco Duarte welcomes Cristina Cranga to discuss an all-too-common Product Owner anti-pattern: focusing on output (velocity, features shipped) over outcomes (value and meaningful change). Together, they unpack how this obsession undermines team effectiveness, how great Product Owners go beyond this trap, and why deep conversation and partnership—between the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and team—are critical for real agility.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Output Obsession Anti-pattern

• Cristina identifies "output obsession" as the worst Product Owner anti-pattern:

  • Product Owners (POs) and teams focus on how much is delivered, not on whether meaningful change occurs.
  • Success gets measured by "velocity replaces outcomes." ([01:51])
  • Teams get faster, but not smarter or more effective.

  "Success is measured by how much is delivered, not what changes, what really changes... Velocity replaces outcomes. Teams get faster, but not smarter. Faster is not equal to smarter."
  — Cristina Cranga ([01:51])

How It Shows Up Practically

• Teams strive for higher velocity, believing it's synonymous with success.
• Alignment and real impact are lost.
• Decisions become unclear ("decision hallucination"), uncertainty is avoided rather than embraced.

2. The Role of the Product Owner: From Output to Leadership

• Cristina emphasizes that strong Product Owners:

  • Own their decisions, making them explicit for the team.
  • Foster faster alignment and avoid ambiguous decision-making.
  • Treat uncertainty as an inherent part of the job, not an obstacle.
  • Build engaged teams more willing to experiment and learn.
  • Connect the work to actual value rather than just features shipped.

  "They connect work to value in a nutshell. And that's what brings, in my opinion, success. It makes a great PO—a PO is an important role because between PO and Scrum Master, it's a special bond."
  — Cristina Cranga ([02:29])

• She underscores the importance of leadership and partnership between PO and Scrum Master, likening it to a "Batman and Robin" duo (Vasco’s analogy; [05:05]), where mutual support is not optional but essential.

3. What Makes a Great Product Owner?

• Cristina’s best PO example:

  • A people person and a leader above all else.
  • Engaged deeply in human skills: facilitating conversation, presence with stakeholders and team.
  • Approaches work by clarifying the problem before jumping to solutions.
  • Comfortable saying "I don't know" and genuinely seeking team input.
  • Encourages a bi-directional, trust-based exchange with the team.

  "He started with clarifying the problem first and then decide, which I appreciated very much... He actually separated request from decision and made at the time the trade-offs explicit... Comfortable by saying, ‘I don't know yet what we should do. What do you think?’"
  — Cristina Cranga ([06:17])

4. The Power of Conversation in Agile Teams

• Cristina and Vasco discuss "conversation" as more than just communication:

  • It’s about asking more, saying less—gathering perspectives, listening deeply, enabling better decisions.
  • Decision-making becomes a co-created process involving the entire team.

  "Ask more, say less. When you ask questions, you collect information that will help you to have a decision-making process closer to a validated solution. You are listening, you are engaging, and you are producing a decision, a result, a feedback based on data collected from people around you."
  — Cristina Cranga ([08:44])

• Organizational and strategic conversations:
  Vasco references philosopher Esko Kilpi, highlighting that "conversation" happens at multiple levels and in many directions across an organization. Product Owners synthesize these "fuzzy, unclear, multidirectional... conversations" ([10:15]) to guide product direction.

• Cristina agrees:
  PO’s work is to facilitate shared decision-making and value creation, not just to dictate solutions.

  "It's a shared responsibility. It's not just on PO shoulders to have the right solution at the right time for the right target. It's a co-creation decision."
  — Cristina Cranga ([11:43])

5. Nonviolent Communication for Product Owners

• Cristina recommends Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg as a framework for improving conversation and decision-making.

  • The four components: Observation, Feelings, Needs, Request.

  • Helps Product Owners and teams connect at a human level, facilitating more effective and empathetic dialogue.

    "The conversational process has four components...observation, feelings, needs, and request. And it makes you think—communication is all of them, all four components."
    — Cristina Cranga ([13:19])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Cristina on output obsession:
  "Velocity replaces outcomes. Teams get faster, but not smarter." ([01:51])
• On decision-making:
  "They make decision explicit and the results are coming. You have a faster alignment, no decision hallucination..." ([02:29])
• On partnership:
  "Between PO and Scrum Master, it's a special bond. It's like a strong leadership and it's a strong partnership." ([02:29])
• On team engagement:
  "The best PO was a people person and a leader... He was comfortable by saying, 'I don't know yet what we should do. What do you think?'" ([06:17])
• On conversations:
  "Ask more, say less. When you ask questions, you collect information..." ([08:44])
• On teamwork and co-creation:
  "It’s a shared responsibility... It's a co-creation decision." ([11:43])
• On Nonviolent Communication:
  "The conversational process has four components... observation, feelings, needs, and request." ([13:19])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – 01:11: [Intro, ad – skipped]
• 01:11 – 02:25: Cristina introduces output obsession as the biggest PO anti-pattern.
• 02:25 – 05:05: Discussion on how output obsession manifests, the importance of decision clarity, and the PO/Scrum Master partnership.
• 05:05 – 06:17: The importance of partnership ("Batman and Robin" analogy) between PO and Scrum Master.
• 06:17 – 08:20: Cristina describes the best Product Owner she has worked with: human focus, problem-first, bi-directional conversations.
• 08:20 – 09:36: Cristina defines "conversation" and its role in agile teamwork.
• 09:36 – 11:43: Vasco and Cristina discuss conversation at organizational and strategic levels; the PO's role in synthesizing these conversations.
• 11:43 – 13:19: The importance of co-creation in solutions and shared responsibility with the team.
• 13:19 – 14:21: Cristina recommends Nonviolent Communication and outlines its core components.
• 14:21 – end: Wrap-up, contact info, gratitude (Cristina suggests reaching out on LinkedIn).

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Further Reading & Resources

• Book Recommendation:
  Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

• Relevant Philosopher Mentioned:
  Esko Kilpi – Known for work on the role of "conversation" in organizations.

• Cristina's Contact:
  Connect with Cristina Cranga on LinkedIn.

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Summary

This episode challenges Product Owners and Scrum Masters to focus less on "how much" and more on "what difference"—to shift from output obsession to delivering real outcomes. Cristina Cranga makes a compelling case for leadership through empathy, meaningful conversation, and facilitating co-creation. By prioritizing partnership, decision clarity, and deep listening, Product Owners can help teams create lasting value, not just higher velocity.

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Transcript

[A]

Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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

[C]

Hello. Thank you for having me.

[B]

Absolutely. It's a pleasure to have you here and to talk about product owner. It's I think one of the most exciting episodes of the week because of course, the product owner role is so critical for the success of our teams. So we'll talk about great product owners in a second. But before we go there, share with us what was perhaps the worst product owner anti pattern you witnessed in your career.

[C]

The worst, I think, is the output obsession. Success is measured by how much is delivered, not what changes, what really changes. And I think this, in my opinion is one of the most common anti pattern. And yeah, it's what I've noticed lately, this output obsession.

[B]

How does it show up like in practical terms in your experience?

[C]

What I noticed, what happens, velocity replaces outcomes. Teams get faster, but not smarter. Faster is not equal to smarter. And yeah, the challenge, as you mentioned as practitioners is how do we shift that? How do we shift that? The strongest PO role I think is when you do different choices. Like you start, you know, with owning, you start owning your decisions. A team level for starting. You know, there's one great signal that you can send out to the team, to the whole team. They make decision explicit and the results are coming. You have a faster alignment, no decision hallucination, to mention the term again in our conversation. They treat uncertainty, you know, as part of their job. It's not a drag, it's just, it's just there. It's part of the job. And our more engaged teams are willing to experiment more, you know, and yeah, they connect to work, to value in a nutshell. And that's what it brings, in my opinion, success. And it makes a great po. A po. And PO is actually an important role because between PO and Scrum Master, it's a special bond. It's like a strong leadership and it's a strong partnership. And teams they have as a reference these two functional roles. It's important to give them a good example of what is actually the agile and the leadership itself.

[B]

I really like that partnership aspect that you mentioned. I used to call this the PO being the Batman to our Robin. It's Batman and Robin and they need to work together otherwise they're, they end up making both themselves worse off than if they partnered. And I think that's also one of the things that we as Scrum Masters need to keep in mind is the question, how do I build a better relationship with my po?

[C]

Absolutely, yeah. Actually with all team members, but po. Yeah, it's, I think it's not an optional, it's an optional choice, it's a mandatory. Yeah, we have to build up solution. You have to be there for them.

[B]

But not all POs are difficult to work with or unsuccessful. Some are amazing and we want to focus on one example. So share with us, Cristina, the best product owner you've ever worked with. How did they work?

[C]

Yeah, well, my case, my case, he, because we speak about, he, he was a people person and a leader and I think these are the most, you know, qualifying attributes for the role. The human skills, not necessarily, you know, the hard skills as they used to call them, but the human skills, you know, but yeah, what I've liked very much, what I appreciate it is the level of conversation with the team, being engaged of the team, the presencing with different stakeholders and the fact that the approach, the fact that he started with clarifying the problem first and then decide, which I appreciated very much. He actually, by doing that, he actually separated request from decision and made at the time the trade offs explicit. It was, as I mentioned, very comfortable by saying, I don't know, I don't know yet what we should do. What do you think? You know, it was a conversation, it was, you know, a bi directional conversation, not just one way conversation. And I think that's, that's something that makes, you know, a great po. A great po.

[B]

Absolutely. You mentioned conversation several times this week. Yes, I want to dive into that a little bit because I think, I think it's worth opening up what that term and that process means for you. Share with us. When you talk about conversation, you talked about it in different contexts on the Monday episode, for example. What do you mean in practice?

[C]

Well, in practice I'm going to use this line, ask more, say less. When you ask questions, you collect information that will help you to have a decision making process more, you know, more, closer to a validated solution. You are listening, you are engaging and you are producing a decision, a result, a feedback based on data collecting from, you know, from, from, from people around you. It might be at work or it might be at home. Why not? It's not just communicating, it's more than that. It's a conversation.

[B]

Yeah, and I hear in what you're saying that when you say it's not just about communicating, I hear that you're also putting an emphasis on this listening aspect, which you also mentioning. Yeah. And what I was wondering is. So I've read a lot of Eskokilpi's work. Eskokilpi is a business philosopher, may he rest in peace. He died a few years ago. He's from here, from Finland. And he used the term conversation a lot, but he never used it in the context of just two people.

[C]

Right.

[B]

Like he talked about organizational conversations, he talked about strategic conversations. And not the strategy of the conversation, but rather the strategy of the company, which is being defined in many multiple and simultaneous conversations happening without knowledge of each other. Right. So when I hear you talk about this emphasis on the listening, it triggers in me this thought of a conversation as an organic process that is happening between multiple people. Not just between us and another, or us and a group, but it's happening between multiple people at the same time. It's happening through corridor conversations, coffee discussions, meetings, formal conversations, and so on and so forth. And that aspect that you bring up on the listening side, and now going back to the product owner, I also have this insight and I would like to hear your thoughts, that a lot of the product owner's work is to be listening to these conversations, even when they are fuzzy, unclear, multidirectional, perhaps even contradictory, to try to make sense, to synthesize what is the actual core of where the organization wants to go with the product. Right. What do you think about that?

[C]

Well, yeah, by role he has the ownership of the delivery and value creation, as we mentioned in the previous conversation that I had. But. In the process, I think it's important to involve the team members. And I have this example in mind when I'm saying that developers, for Example, they can co create solution actually. So it's a shared responsibility. It's not just on po shoulders to have the right solution at the right time for the right target. It's a co creation decision.

[B]

Yeah. And that's exactly the word that Esco kills to create. Oh, sorry, used to use, which was this shared organic value, co creation through conversations. And you brought those topics up several times during this week and it kind of triggered that thought in me that we aren't talking a lot about the role of conversation in how we make decisions, in how we organize, in how we prioritize and of course how we relate to each other.

[C]

Yeah. There is another book that I can recommend. It's called Nonviolent Communication. It's written by a famous psychologist, American psychologist. Marshall Rosenberg. Is beautiful because actually the conversational process, the communication process has four components in his his opinion in his study. And one is the observation. The first one is observation, the second feelings, third needs and the last request. And it makes you think Pasco. So the communication is all of them, all four components. It start with observation, feelings, needs and close the loop with requests. I really recommend that for reading. It's a good reading.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And we have quite a few episodes on nvc so if you want go and read the book. It's a life changing book, at least for me it was. But if you're not yet at the point where you want to read the book, go and check out some of those episodes. Listen to those. The link is in the show notes. Cristina, we're about to end, but before we go, if people want to get in touch to know more about you and the work that you're doing, where could they go?

[C]

Well, yeah, I'm not a very active user of social media, but still I'm on LinkedIn so I suggest LinkedIn as the touch point or having a conversation with the listener if they want to connect with me.

[B]

Absolutely. So I'll put the link to that in the show notes as well. And why not reach out to Cristina, share your story, hear what she's learned because we learn as a community. Cristina, thank you very much for being here and being so generous with your time and your knowledge.

[C]

Very much appreciated, Vasco. And good luck to you all. I really appreciate your show. It's very important and it's helpful for the agile practitioner, but not only it's important talk. So keep going. Thank you very much. Take care.

[A]

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[C]

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[B]

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