> One gripe I have about scrum, is there is nobody representing engineering, as the product owner represents the business.
That is definitively not be the feeling you should have. In "proper" scrum the Team is supposed to represent engineering. If you, for some reason, don't feel like you can represent these concerns then that is a huge issue. The PO shouldn't be your boss either. At least it isn't so in the company I work for. It sounds like the PO is the boss of that team, if he "keeps you busy". I am super grateful that our Scrum Master knew what he was doing and suggested creating a separate line on the Org chart for the POs so that they are explicitly not in charge of development. The team is in charge and POs are more advisory.
Sounds to me like there are some deeper problems in the company then just the scrum. There are so many red flags in your comment. I don't know if those books are going to help you "play" scrum better, because what you guys are doing does not sound like scrum at all.
Kanbans probably also not a solution. I really like Kanban, but it isn't going to remove the bad elements that seem to control that company.
Yeah, that's an odd complaint. You are engineering, are you not? The meeting is already about engineering. If you have more engineering as an outside stakeholder that the PO isn't able to represent, by all means bring someone in to represent them.
In scrum the dev teams maintains a technical backlog and fills the sprintbacklog as THEY see fit- from the product backlog AND the technical backlog.
the PO has no say in this! he can complain that he thinks not enough features from his product backlog are planned, but should trust that the team knows what they are doing.
That is definitively not be the feeling you should have. In "proper" scrum the Team is supposed to represent engineering. If you, for some reason, don't feel like you can represent these concerns then that is a huge issue. The PO shouldn't be your boss either. At least it isn't so in the company I work for. It sounds like the PO is the boss of that team, if he "keeps you busy". I am super grateful that our Scrum Master knew what he was doing and suggested creating a separate line on the Org chart for the POs so that they are explicitly not in charge of development. The team is in charge and POs are more advisory.
Sounds to me like there are some deeper problems in the company then just the scrum. There are so many red flags in your comment. I don't know if those books are going to help you "play" scrum better, because what you guys are doing does not sound like scrum at all.
Kanbans probably also not a solution. I really like Kanban, but it isn't going to remove the bad elements that seem to control that company.