Konubinix' opinionated web of thoughts

Can the CTO and/or the CEO Be Stakeholders of Scrum?

Fleeting

can the CTO and/or the CEO be stakeholders of scrum?

In a previous “pseudo-scrum” sprint planning, the product owner had a hard time telling who the stakeholders were and eventually said that the CTO and the CEO asked for the feature, so they were the stakeholders. Therefore, making the feature would bring them some value.

The reasoning looks like

  • they ask X
  • so they want X
  • so X has value for them
  • so we do X

To me, scrum is more about trying to understanding the needs of the stakeholder so as to bring them something that would fit that need. In that scenario, the CEO needs to earn money and then doing X might lead us to sell stuff that will earn money. But with that framework, even my kids become stakeholders, because they need me to earn money so that I can take care of them. Should I bring my kids to the sprint review?

I think reasoning in doing what is asked is a straw man fallacy and claiming using scrum without actually understanding the point.