Pure SCRUM makes “reportability upwards” much more difficult. What we see today in many successful companies is that a healthy mix and, above all, knowing respect of the two systems has developed. E.g., the Product Owner role in SCRUM is given much more responsibilities and authority to act as an interface to existing project management and company management methodologies.
This role of PO or PO+ should not be underestimated in any form, as this is really the true interface into the company. This means that Developers, Data Scientists and Scrum Masters may well follow standardized roles, but the Product Owner should have individualized company and industry knowledge. Let’s see what this might mean for an outsourcing project:
Let’s assume they want to hire an A.I. outsourcing company. Many AI outsourcing companies use pure SCRUM. This means that the roles of Data Scientists and Scrum Master are not critical roles for integrability into their company. What is important with the Scrum Master is that he masters his job and that the Data Scientists, for example, master their subject. But the Product Owner role is critical and they should spend a lot of time here analyzing the Product Owner there like in a job interview. Does he try to recognize or get to know your company structure? Does he have the technical and professional experience to quickly understand the needs of your industry (e.g. reporting needs, legal regulations) or company. Imagine your whole company is working strictly according to PRINCE2 and the outsourced Product Owner does not know PRINCE2 at all. Don’t you think that this will lead to problems? Don’t you think that the interface within the company will have to be continuously readjusted? Don’t you think that you will suddenly have to add another resource to this product owner, which in turn will increase your costs again and which is not always crowned with success, even in complex projects? One can write a lot more about this topic, which would go far beyond the scope of a LinkedIn bon mots. What I would like to share with you here in brief is that it is very important that you look at the frameworks in which your outsourcing partners do their regular work. Basically, it doesn’t matter what the rhythm is, it just has to fit harmoniously with your rhythm.
In the next section we will finally turn to process management.