2026-03-16
The Critical First Move: Scrum Master and Product Owner Alignment
The non-negociable step when joining a new team as a Scrum Master : Connect and team up with your Product Owner. 🤝
All the rest won’t matter if you can’t be aligned with the PO about where and how to drive the team. It doesn’t mean you need to fully agree with everything. But considering the PO as any other team member is naive. An unaligned PO / SM duo will create:
→ Confusion in the team (contradictions in the guidance)
→ Weakened leadership (credibility of both PO and SM will suffer from it)
→ Wasted time and effort due to the 2 first points
That should be the main goal for a Scrum Master joining a new team : Connect and team up with the PO 🤝
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Thanks. And that's (what you correctly advise not to do) why many SMs fail and the whole profession is getting rejected.
Asking to start from roles and responsibilities and then almost demanding that all team members are happy to go outside of the job description is incongruent, at the very least.
Francesco
This one is so good! From my own experience I can confirm that having a good relationship and shared goals is key. When that alignment is missing, you can do your best, but you’ll never achieve as much as when you’re a “besties” with your PO 😁
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Bernadeta