What is PO Sync and Why is it Needed

PO Sync is a time-limited (usually 30-60 minutes) weekly or more frequent meeting whose goal is to synchronize the Product Owners of individual teams in achieving common objectives.

In “The Scrum Guide,” this meeting is not mentioned and, accordingly, is not one of the Scrum ceremonies. Nevertheless, in some organizations working with Scrum, this ceremony is conducted.

PO Sync is used in scalable Agile frameworks, such as SAFe or Scrum at Scale.

PO Sync is somewhat similar to Scrum of Scrums (SoS), but the participants are Product Owners and Product Managers.

In SAFe, the organizer of this meeting can be the Release Train Engineer (RTE) or the Product Manager.

Among the discussed topics:

• Functionality, performance, and compatibility
• Work volume and schedule adjustments
• Task prioritization
• Checking task prioritization in team backlogs
• Coordination and identification of interdependencies between teams
• Team progress in task implementation
• Task decomposition to align with the release
• Definition of MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
• Plan for subsequent actions

In SAFe, this meeting is mandatory. Sometimes PO Sync and SoS are combined, and such a meeting is called ART Sync.

Is it worth conducting PO Sync in organizations using Scrum or, for example, Kanban?

It all depends on the goals and tasks set by the Agile Office/PMO. If the purpose of these meetings is clear, participants and the agenda are defined, then why not. Otherwise, it will complicate processes and be a waste of time for all participants.

Let’s not forget about one of the values of Agile:

Individuals and interactions are more important than processes and tools.