Growth Facilitation

In OpenAgile, "Growth Facilitation" is a path of service for Team Members.

People who are serving teams in this capacity can record their insights in the Reflection Repository under the section Reflections from people engaged in Growth Facilitation. When you have learned something, record it in Learning about Growth Facilitation in the Learning Repository so that it can help others.

Reading List

 * Something on financial modelling
 * Good to Great by Jim Collins
 * Something on product management

Training Slides

 * OpenAgile Prezis

Endorsement Requirements

 * Endorsement from two team members and one external stakeholder.

Product Owner Role in Scrum
OpenAgile isn't necessarily for product development so there isn't a direct equivalent to the Product Owner. That said, the people on the team who are serving to facilitate growth are in part responsible for helping the team understand what represents value.

We refer to this as Growth Facilitation. Here are some differences between this "path of service" and the role of the Product Owner:

Growth Facilitation vs. The Product Owner (PO)

 * Path of Service vs.  defined role
 * manages Value Drivers vs.  creates and prioritizes the Product Backlog Items (PBIs)
 * contributes to team accountability for delivering value vs.  responsible for financial Return on Investment (ROI)
 * anyone on the team can serve in this capacity vs.  must be given special authority
 * not necessarily a single person vs.  one PO per team
 * helps the team grow capacities to deliver value (e.g. skills) vs.  not responsible for team development
 * cannot fire the team vs.  can fire the team
 * may be part-time vs.  full-time
 * cannot impose priorities on team vs.  final say on priorities for team
 * full team member vs.  not member of development team

Similarities:

 * both are responsible for having a list of work items ready for the start of an increment of work
 * both tend to have primary contact with extra-team stakeholders
 * both should deeply understand the overall goal of the team

Many of the reasons for these differences are rooted in experiences based in attempts to practice scrum and xp-like methods in non-software environments:
 * charitable organizations where ROI is not measured with dollars
 * ongoing operations environments where projects and products are not part of the work of a team
 * very small teams
 * teams with extremely short cycles or extremely long cycles (e.g. 2 hours or 6 months)