Developers on the parks irrigation-scheduling product ask the Product Owner to write every technical task for the Sprint. What should the Product Owner clarify?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
The Product Owner picks which field gets water and why; the crew still decides how to lay the pipe. Writing every technical task turns the PO into a back-seat engineer and steals the Developers’ “how.” Keep order and purpose; leave the Sprint’s craft with the people doing the work.
Full Explanation
Within a Sprint, Developers are accountable for creating a plan and for how the Sprint Goal is achieved. The Product Owner remains accountable for the Product Backlog—what, why, and order—not for tasking irrigation-controller implementation on a parks product. When Developers ask the Product Owner to write every technical task, the Product Owner should clarify that boundary so both accountabilities stay intact and civic delivery remains self-managed.
Claiming the Product Owner must specify every task because Product Backlog accountability includes implementation design expands the role into back-seat engineering and collapses Developer ownership of how. Asking the Scrum Master to write the technical tasks so neither Product Owner nor Developers own how parks craftsmanship orphaned. Letting a municipal architect outside the Scrum Team assign tasks to individuals reinstalls command-and-control over the Sprint.
Exam caveat: PSPO II what/why/order versus how is a core accountability split; task-level PO design is a common anti-pattern.
Operational check: in the next Sprint Planning, provide ordered irrigation outcomes and acceptance clarity, then explicitly leave task breakdown and assignment to Developers.