= As a Product Owner, you are accountable for maximizing the value of the product and the work of the Developers. To do this, you need to collaborate with the Developers and the Scrum Master to ensure that the Product Backlog is clear, ordered, and refined, and that the Sprint Goal and the Sprint Backlog are aligned with the product vision and strategy. You also need to provide feedback and guidance to the Developers throughout the Sprint, and to inspect and adapt the product based on the Sprint Review and the stakeholders’ input.
One of the challenges that the Developers may face is to forecast the amount of work that they can complete within a Sprint, and to deliver a potentially releasable Increment that meets the Definition of Done. This requires the Developers to have the skills and the tools to estimate the complexity and the effort of the Product Backlog items, to plan and manage their work effectively, and to adhere to the quality standards and the technical practices that enable them to build a valuable and usable product increment.
To help the Developers improve their ability to deliver a done Increment, the Product Owner can take the following steps:
Ask the Scrum Master to help the Developers learn techniques for improving their ability to forecast work. The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing an environment where the Developers can work effectively, and for coaching the Developers on self-organizing and cross-functionality. The Scrum Master can also help the Developers to apply empirical process control, to use various estimation methods, to monitor and visualize theirprogress, and to inspect and adapt their plan based on the Sprint Backlog and the Sprint Burndown Chart.
The Product Owner can spend more time with the Developers. The Product Owner can support the Developers by clarifying the Product Backlog items, providing the acceptance criteria, explaining the customer needs and the business value, and answering any questions that the Developers may have. The Product Owner can also participate in the Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, and the Sprint Retrospective, to share their insights, expectations, and feedback, and to collaborate with the Developers on creating and refining the Sprint Goal and the Sprint Backlog.
The other options are not the best steps to take, because they either do not address the root cause of the problem, or they may have negative consequences. Ensuring that all Developers are top performers may not be realistic or feasible, and it may also create a culture of blame or competition, rather than collaboration and learning. Adding more people to the team may not necessarily increase the productivity or the quality of the work, and it may also introduce communication and coordination challenges, as well as additional costs and risks. References := Scrum Guide, Understanding and Applying the Scrum Framework, Managing Products with Agility
