The Product Owner is unavailable for questions. What should we establish?
Product decision delayAgree accessible decision windows, clear priorities, and a route for urgent product questions. The team should not invent consequential business choices merely to keep moving.
What to do now
- Identify recurring blocked decisions
- Clarify which choices the team can make
- Agree Product Owner availability
- Escalate structural decision-capacity gaps
When to escalate
Escalate when
An essential product decision remains unavailable and threatens the goal.
Who decides
The relevant Scrum accountability or delivery owner
Example
The Product Owner reserves regular refinement time and a route for urgent acceptance questions.
Mistake to avoid
Treating a proxy's opinion as automatically equivalent authority.
Prevent a repeat
Inspect useful outcomes and feedback; apply Scrum-specific rules only when the team is actually using Scrum.
Suggested ApprovedFlow setup
- Tasks
- Documents
- Resources
Represent agreed work and evidence with enabled task features; do not imply native Scrum automation or certified Scrum compliance. See the platform
Related cases
- We have no clear product goal. What should guide the backlog?Directionless backlog ordering
- Our sprint review is only a slide presentation. What is missing?Weak product inspection
- The sponsor is unavailable when we need approval. What should we establish?Unavailable decision authority
- The vendor says the delay is our fault. How do we establish facts?Disputed delay responsibility