Team 1 Team 2 Results

Both teams have vague or missing product owners, but in Team 2's case, there are real people and groups which will have real hard stops if things aren't done on time. Team 1, although charged with an extremely important mission, doesn't have the do-or-die sword hanging over it's head like Team 2 does.

Team 2 needs to work on its robot, specifically tightening the feedback loop, communicating trade-offs instead of just votes, making sure the product release plan is visible to all stakeholders. If I were on Team 2, I would be looking for active complaining from my various customers. Remember, the nature of their work is that everybody cannot be happy at the same time. By going to a voting system and looser feedback, everybody can get the impression things are going well without the pain that has to come with program management.

We see robotic product owners in startup and established companies all the time. Many times you just can't talk to all the users to see what they want. So you come up with some kind of system But all Product Owner robots are flawed. If you have to create one, work double hard at identifying and fixing all the risks that come with them.