The Firewall Product Owner, Turning PO Anti-Patterns Into Opportunities for Growth | Iryna Stelmakh

Iryna Stelmakh: The Firewall Product Owner, Turning PO Anti-Patterns Into Opportunities for Growth

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.

The Great Product Owner: Market-Oriented and Vision-Driven

"Great product owners don't just manage backlog items — they own the product vision and make sure the team understands how their work creates real value." — Iryna Stelmakh

Iryna describes the best product owners she's worked with through three qualities. First, they understand the market and the users deeply. Second, they can explain the business logic behind decisions — not just what to build, but why it matters. Third, they work closely with the team and treat them as partners in solving problems, not executors of tasks. The best PO Iryna worked with was responsible for sharing the business mindset, giving the team perspective and the possibility to contribute beyond the technical work. Everything was organized around a shared goal, and the team understood how their work created real value. As Vasco observes, when a PO just drops tasks without explaining why they matter, the team becomes "just a pair of hands." Great product owners create allegiance through understanding.

Self-reflection Question: Does your product owner share enough business context that your team could independently suggest features or improvements — or are they only able to execute what they're told?

The Bad Product Owner: The Firewall Who Blocks All Business Context

"We were working without the product mindset, without the product vision." — Iryna Stelmakh

Iryna shares the story of what she calls the Firewall Product Owner — a PO who constantly said "I need to go ask someone" for every decision, but never brought back answers. The result: backlog items lacked clarity, priorities changed frequently, and the team couldn't understand the real product direction. They were working without a product mindset or vision. As Vasco frames it, this PO wasn't just a proxy — they were a firewall, blocking the team from accessing any business context or market knowledge. The team couldn't reach the market representatives because they didn't even know who was on the other side.

Iryna's approach to this kind of situation: escalate with suggestions, not just complaints. Turn problems into opportunities and extensions — propose bringing in a business analyst to support the PO, or suggest restructuring the communication between the business and technical sides. In her case, the client eventually recognized the problem and replaced the PO with someone who could actually bridge the gap. The new PO changed everything.

In this episode, we also refer to the concept of turning problems into opportunities.

Self-reflection Question: When your product owner is unable to provide timely answers, do you escalate with specific suggestions for improvement — or do you simply wait and hope things get better?

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About Iryna Stelmakh

Iryna Stelmakh is a Project & Delivery Leader and Agile Coach who helps leaders turn complexity into clarity. With 10+ years across US, Nordic, and Eastern European environments, she works at the intersection of business transformation and human systems, building resilient organizations and high-performing teams in complex contexts.

You can link with Iryna Stelmakh on LinkedIn.