When it's worth it and when it's not seems to be more of a business question for the product owner. It's all opinion.
I've been on a where I had 2 weeks left and they didn't want me working on anything high priority during that time so it wouldn't be half finished when I left. I had a couple small stories I was assigned. Then I decide to cherrypick the backlog to see how much tech debt I could close for the team before I left. I cleared something like 11 stories out of 100. I was then chewed out by the product owner because she "would have assigned [me] other higher priority stories". But the whole point was that I wasn't suppose dto be on high priority tasks because I'm leaving...
The product owner often isn’t technical enough, or into the technical weeds enough, to be able to asses how long it might take. You need the technical experience to have a feeling of the effort/risk/benefit profile. You also may have to start going down the hole to assess the situation in the first place.
The product owner can decide how much time would be worth it given a probable timeline, risks and benefits, but the experienced developer is needed to provide that input information. The developer has to present the case to the product owner, who can then make the decision about if, when, and how to proceed. Or, if the developer has sufficient slack and leeway, they can make the decision themselves within the latitude they’ve been given.
Yeah. The team agreed I should just do the two stories, which was what was committed to in that sprint. I got that done and then ripped through those other 11 stories in the slack time before I left the team. My TL supported that I didn't do anything wrong in picking up the stories. The PO still didn't like it.
In a non-technical company with IT being a cost center, it seems that the product owner gets the final say. My TL supported me, but the PO was still upset.
I've been on a where I had 2 weeks left and they didn't want me working on anything high priority during that time so it wouldn't be half finished when I left. I had a couple small stories I was assigned. Then I decide to cherrypick the backlog to see how much tech debt I could close for the team before I left. I cleared something like 11 stories out of 100. I was then chewed out by the product owner because she "would have assigned [me] other higher priority stories". But the whole point was that I wasn't suppose dto be on high priority tasks because I'm leaving...