The 3 Roles of SCRUM
A Scrum Team
Building on the article from the last weeks we would like to dive into the structure of the Scrum Team itself. If we adhere strictly to what is set out under SCRUM, a Scrum team should consist only of the Scrum Master, the Product Owner, and the Development Team. We do not believe in the strictness of terminology and titles for their own sake and believe the people and the roles they fill to be more important. However, as this is an introduction to Scrum we I will continue to use the phraseology.
The Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is the Agile prophet within the team and the wider organisation. Think of a Scrum Master as Moses as he came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. In this case not thou shalt not steal but rather thou shalt not exceed 15mins for your daily Scrum.
Scrum Masters are responsible for ensuring that the rules and guidelines of Scrum are followed and they protect and support the other people within the Scrum team. The Scrum Master is a coach, facilitator and leader. They are always an expert in the Scrum framework and they preach it and make sure others practice it.
The Product Manager
The Product Manager (or Owner) on the other hand is responsible and accountable for the delivery of the product. A lot of people draw similarities to the role of a project manager. Now while we don’t entirely disagree with the reasoning, we also don’t agree. Mostly for the reason that the classical project management role is in Scrum is spread across the whole Scrum Team.
However when it comes to the product they are responsible for it is important that they have decision making authority which is upheld by the management team.
The Product Manager owns the product backlog, a term which will be explained when we consider the different tools or artifacts of Scrum in upcoming articles. They are responsible for the prioritisation of the backlog, and ensuring transparency and clarity of what has and is to be worked on by the Development Team.
The Development Team
The final piece of the Scrum team is the Development Team. It is unfortunately a term that we have seen lead to misunderstandings. Most organisations take this too literally to mean a team of software developers, which in practice is not enough to fulfil expectations and requirements of a Development Team.
Let’s consider some of these requirements. Part of the power of Scrum is the trust and accountability it fosters. As such, people and the team as a whole feel more responsible for the work that they deliver and more motivated to take ownership. The whole team is involved in planning a Sprint. Once a Sprint has been defined and the items from the Product Backlog selected, it is the Development Team (with guidance from the Product Manager if needed) who is responsible for delivering a ‘Done’ increment.
The Development Team needs to encompass all the necessary skills in order to deliver an increment. This is very rarely just a team of developers. It nearly always needs to include people from different business and operational areas in order to be successful.
Team Size
Scrum determines the optimal size of the development team to be between 3 and 9 people. While the numbers are a little arbitrary in our experience the principle is sound. Not enough people and you won’t have the skills and capacity to get the work done. Too many people and the process becomes slow, bureaucratic and too complicated. Finding the right balance has very often proven to be a challenge.
Before rounding up on roles we would like to add one more thing. There is nothing to say that the Scrum Master and Product Manager cannot be part of the Development Team too. Also, you should never have more than one Product Manager (or Owner) for a single Product, while you could in theory have multiple Scrum Masters depending on the size and scope.
Now we hope that this has provided a decent high level introduction to Scrums principles and roles. Next time we will dive deeper into SCRUM Artifacts.
More coming in the next weeks where we inspect the Roles, Artifacts & Events of Scrum. We are a small coaching and consulting company — check out our website.
