PMP lesson · Delivery Approach · Agile foundations · lesson 2 of 4 · about 7 minutes
Agile roles: product owner, scrum master and the team
Agile and hybridFree preview
Goal: After this lesson you can describe the three agile roles, decide whose call a situation is, and handle an absent product owner or overlapping PM/scrum master roles.
1The situation
Nobody to ask
The MES team's product owner is a senior business manager who has attended one of the last four sprint plannings. The team guesses priorities from old documents, and at the last review two finished features turned out to be of little value.
At the same time, the PM and a new scrum master both run the daily meetings and sometimes give opposite guidance. The team asks: “Who is really in charge?”
Agile works only when roles are clear and filled.
2Three roles
Scrum and most agile frameworks use three roles:
Product owner
What & why
Maximises value; owns and orders the backlog; accepts work.
Scrum master
Process
Coaches the team, facilitates events, removes impediments.
Developers
How
Build the increment; self-organise; own quality.
A product owner must be available and empowered. If not, make the impact visible and work with the PO (and sponsor) to secure availability or an empowered proxy. The PM does not take over the PO role.
3The three roles
Product owner
Owns value: vision, product backlog, priorities, acceptance of increments. One person, available and empowered.
Scrum master / agile coach
Servant leader for the process: coaches, facilitates, removes impediments, protects the team.
Developers (the team)
Do the work; cross-functional; decide how and how much per sprint; own quality (definition of done).
Value · process · delivery.
4How it looks on the exam
Exam-style question 1. The product owner has attended only one of the last four sprint plannings. The team has been guessing priorities, and recent features were of little value. What should the project manager do?
A. Take over the product owner role temporarily
B. Raise the issue with the product owner, show the impact on value, and work with the PO (and sponsor if needed) to secure availability or an empowered proxy
C. Ask the team to keep guessing and document assumptions
D. Suspend sprints
Show the answer and the decode
Answer: B.
In simple English
The value-owner role is effectively empty.
What is the question really asking?
The right action.
Key words / trigger
“attended only one of the last four”
PMP logic
Value depends on an available, empowered PO; make the impact visible and fix availability.
Why the wrong answer looks attractive
Taking over seems helpful, but the PM doesn't own business priorities.