Find out why direct is faster
Usually one of three reasons. The Product Owner is hard to reach, so a Slack message to a Developer gets an answer in minutes instead of days. The Product Owner cannot actually decide, so going to them adds a step without adding an answer. Or the relationship predates Scrum and nobody told the stakeholder anything changed.
Each has a different fix. The first is availability. The second is authority, which is an organisational problem, not a coaching one. The third is a single conversation.
Give the request somewhere obvious to go
A visible intake, whether that is a channel, a form or a fixed weekly slot with the Product Owner, works better than telling people what not to do. Add a rule that the Product Owner responds within a set time, even if the response is 'not this quarter'. Predictable no beats unpredictable silence, and it keeps the request in the system where the team can see it.
- One documented intake path, published where stakeholders already are
- A response commitment from the Product Owner, in days not weeks
- Developers redirect politely rather than absorbing the request quietly
Coach Developers on the redirect
Developers rarely want to say no to a friendly colleague, so give them a sentence that costs nothing socially: 'happy to look at it, send it to the Product Owner so it gets prioritised properly and I do not lose it'. That keeps the relationship intact and puts the request where it belongs.
The failure mode is a Scrum Master who polices this instead of removing the reason it happens. Policing produces compliance in public and bypassing in private.
Make the Product Owner worth going through
Stakeholders route around a Product Owner who only says no. They route towards one who explains trade-offs, shows where a request sits and gives them a realistic timeframe. A short regular forum where priorities are shown and discussed removes most of the incentive to go direct, because the official path now provides information the back channel never did.
Not sure which of these is actually happening in your team?
The team assessment asks everyone the same questions anonymously and shows you where people disagree about how the team really works. It takes about twelve minutes per person.
Run a team assessmentFrequently asked questions
Can stakeholders talk to Developers at all?
Yes, and they should. Scrum does not require the Product Owner to sit between people. What has to go through the Product Owner is prioritisation, because they are accountable for the ordering of the Product Backlog.
What if a manager assigns work directly to a Developer?
The Scrum Guide is explicit that nobody may force the Developers to work on something different. In practice this needs the Scrum Master to address the pattern with the manager, not the Developer to refuse in the moment.
Is the Product Owner supposed to be a gatekeeper?
No. The accountability is value and backlog ordering, not access control. A Product Owner who blocks conversation slows the team down and usually gets bypassed anyway.
How do we know how much work is coming in off the books?
Ask the Developers to log it for a couple of Sprints. Almost every team that measures it is surprised by the total, and the number carries more weight in a conversation with leadership than any complaint.