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 A product increment is the CUMULATIVE sum of all the PBIS completed during the SPRINT and the value of the INCREMENTS of all PREVIOUS sprints.

A GOOD product owner is SOMEONE who should be 

1. Available and ENGAGED with the team.
2. Have good knowledge or product and domain.
3. Good at communication.
4. Empowered to TAKE decisions related to the product.

PRODUCT owner. Defining sprint GOAL or objective is ONE of the most IMPORTANT goal of product owner.

In practise, distributed agile projects , ESPECIALLY those working on on-shore/off-shore model has a PROXY PRODUCT owner. Proxy product owner ACTS as local product owner to answer to development team questions. They do not own the product backlog but helps the product owner in MANAGING and maintaining it.

Yes. While DEVELOPMENT team is ONE who measures sprint performance, it’s the PRODUCT OWNER, who measures PROJECT performance.

It is very important for Product Owner to look and understand the reason for development team failing the sprint commitment. There MIGHT be multiple reason for that. It might be because of incorrect estimation or over commitment. It might be because of LACK of trust and collaboration in the team. It might be because of not understanding the user story and not SLICING it  correctly. A PO NEEDS to identify it and based on it, needs to work with the development team and Scrum master to FIND the solution. 

There is nothing wrong in a PRODUCT Owner COMING from a technical background, but a PO should never be part of the DEVELOPMENT team. Also, a PO coming from technical background should practise restrain and should not act as a technical SME during story splitting ETC.

Sprint backlog item which COULD not be completed during the sprint as per DoD, will not be demonstrated during sprint REVIEW. EXTENDING it to next sprint might not be good idea. Rather than extending it to next sprint, the right APPROACH is to move it to PRODUCT backlog and then re-evaluate, if it should be picked for next sprint.

In case the sprint is cancelled, any ‘Done’ product BACKLOG ITEM should be REVIEWED. If they are POTENTIALLY releasable, product OWNER will accept it.

YES. It’s only the product owner who has the authority to cancel the sprint. However, this should be in CONSULTATION with BUSINESS stake holders and development team.

Burn-down chart is a graphical REPRESENTATION of work left to do VERSUS time. The outstanding work (or BACKLOG) is OFTEN on the vertical axis, with time along the HORIZONTAL. That is, it is a run chart of outstanding work. It is useful for predicting when all of the work will be completed

No. A TEAM should not have more than one PO or a committee of product owner ACTING as a PO. PO is someone who STEERS the SCRUM team towards the product vision and GOAL. Having more than one PO will create confusion and issues of alignment of development team with the product.

As long as it’s the same product on which different teams are WORKING and the product owner can give sufficient time to each of the TEAM, is it ACCEPTABLE.

No. 

Definition of Done (DoD) is a simple LIST of activities such as writing CODE, coding comments, unit testing, integration testing, release NOTES, design documents, etc.

Definition of Ready (DoR) is a sort of CRITERIA or at times checklist that determine whether a story is “Ready” to be picked it for next sprint.

Acceptance Criteria is a set of accepted conditions or BUSINESS rules which the user story or feature should satisfy and meet, to be accepted by the Product OWNER. They are a set of statements, each with a clear pass/fail result, that specify both functional and non-functional requirements applicable at the current STAGE of project integration.

The Product owner SETS the acceptance criteria.

DEFINITION of Done (DoD) is the SHARED understanding of what “Done” means for a user story. It is a simple list of activities such as writing code, CODING comments, unit testing, integration testing, RELEASE notes, DESIGN documents, etc.

 The Development team creates DoD

As a Product owner, I will see if there is any CHALLENGE understanding the large user story given by me or in understanding the business requirement. I will discuss and with them and will ANSWER those QUERIES. However, if the issue is because of incorrect splitting technique, I will inform Scrum Master to further facilitate it and plan for any GROOMING or training session.

 A GOOD USER story should be INDEPENDENT (I), Negotiable (N), Valuable (V), Estimable (E), SMALL (S), TESTABLE (T).  In short – INVEST.

No. A PRODUCT OWNER gives a big USER story to the DEVELOPMENT team. It is the team that DISCUSSES it further and splits it.

Product backlog refinement MEETING is for upcoming SPRINT. The Items in the CURRENT Sprint are no LONGER on the Product Backlog. They are in the Sprint Backlog.

<P> A good product backlog ITEM should be DEEP – D (Detailed APPROPRIATELY), E (Estimated), E (Emergent), P (PRIORITIZED).

Typical ANSWER will be MoSCoW – Mo (Must be), S(Should be), Co(COULD be), W(Won’t be). But a good and EXPERIENCED PO will also talk about other techniques such as WSJF.

No. Product Owner and SCRUM MASTER are two separate roles and mixing them can have a very negative effect on the DEVELOPMENT process. Both role REQUIRES 100% involvement. One person will not be able to fulfil all his responsibilities in 100 %. Scrum Master sometimes needs to act as a mediator between the development team and PO when their goals START to diverge. In such case, if the same person is acting as both, there will be a conflict of interest.

Yes. PO helps the team in understanding the user story which will HELP them in RIGHT user story SPLITTING and correct estimation. While PO will act as an SME for User story point of view, he will help team to understand it BETTER, he will NOT give or suggest story points in User story estimation.

This would be one of the initial questions, which will help interviewee to OPEN up and also will give interviewer the opportunity to understand the exposure of the candidate.

The answer will vary a bit from candidate to candidate, but will typically will be:  Sprint Planning, Sprint REVIEW, Sprint RETROSPECTIVE, Grooming. If the PO says Daily Scrum (Daily Standup), ask what he does there. It is ok for PO to ATTEND daily scrum, but he just NEED to be observer there and should not speak.