When Velocity Replaces Outcomes—The Product Owner Trap | Cristina Cranga
Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile storytelling from the trenches
Signals of Strong Product Owners
Cristina lists strong PO behaviours: owning decisions, making trade-offs explicit, and treating uncertainty as normal.
Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.
In this episode, we refer to the work of Esko Kilpi on conversations and episodes on Nonviolent Communication (NVC) on the podcast.
The Great Product Owner: A People Person Who Clarifies Before Deciding
"He was comfortable saying 'I don't know yet. What do you think?' It was a bi-directional conversation, not just one-way." - Cristina Cranga
The best Product Owner Cristina worked with was fundamentally a people person and a leader—human skills, not just hard skills. What made him exceptional was his approach to conversation: he started by clarifying the problem first, then decided. By doing this, he separated requests from decisions and made trade-offs explicit.
He was comfortable admitting uncertainty, asking "What do you think?" and engaging the team in co-creation rather than issuing directives. Cristina emphasizes that between the PO and Scrum Master, there's a special bond—a strong leadership partnership that teams look to as a reference. She highlights the concept of "ask more, say less": when you ask questions, you collect information that leads to better, more validated decisions.
The communication process, as outlined in Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, has four components: observation, feelings, needs, and requests. Great POs embody this by treating uncertainty as part of their job, engaging teams more deeply, and connecting work to value rather than just output.
Self-reflection Question: How often does your Product Owner ask "What do you think?" and what would change if they separated requests from decisions more explicitly?
The Bad Product Owner: Output Obsession and the Velocity Trap"Success is measured by how much is delivered, not what changes. Teams get faster, but not smarter." - Cristina Cranga
The worst Product Owner anti-pattern Cristina has witnessed is output obsession—measuring success by how much is delivered rather than what actually changes for users or the business. When velocity replaces outcomes as the primary metric, teams get faster but not smarter. Faster doesn't equal smarter. This anti-pattern is particularly dangerous in an AI-accelerated environment where delivery speed is no longer a constraint. The challenge for practitioners is shifting this mindset. The strongest POs make different choices: they own their decisions at the team level, make decisions explicit, treat uncertainty as part of the job, and connect work to value. When POs break free from output obsession, the results are powerful: faster alignment, no decision hallucinations, more engaged teams willing to experiment, and genuine connection between work and value.
In this segment, we refer to Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg.
Self-reflection Question: If you removed velocity from your team's dashboard tomorrow, what conversations would emerge about actual value delivered?
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About Cristina Cranga
Human, Innovation enthusiast with a curious mind always learning new things. Sometimes a dreamer and a restless soul. Her mission in life is helping People thrive. She has a background in psychology and an experience in supporting the implementation of multiple IT software projects in complex digital eco-systems with different technologies at international level. How these two worlds can shape a professional? Let's discover it ...
You can link with Cristina Cranga on LinkedIn.
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