Scrum Roles

Contents

• 1. Product Owner – Owns the WHAT
  • 1.1 Responsibilities and Characteristics
  • 1.2 Responsibilities outside the Team
  • 1.3 Key Attributes
  • 1.4 Relationship with the …
    • 1.4.1 Scrum Master
    • 1.4.2 Development Team
    • 1.4.3 Organization / Client
• 2. Scrum Master – Owns the PROCESS
  • 2.1 Responsibilities and Characteristics
  • 2.1 Deliverables
  • 2.2 Key Attributes
  • 2.3 Relationship with the …
    • 2.3.1 Product Owner
    • 2.3.2 Dev Team
    • 2.3.3 Organization
• 3. Team – Owns the HOW
  • 3.1 Responsibilities and Characteristics
  • 3.1 Key Attributes
  • 3.1 Key Activities

1. Product Owner – Owns the WHAT

1.1 Responsibilities and Characteristics

• Developing and adapting the product vision
• Writing new user stories/requirements
• Document and manage stories in Jira
  • Each story needs to contain enough information to understand how to move forward. If a team member does not believe a story contains enough information the story should be moved back in To Do
  • Splitting user stories which are too big. Stories are broken down in small and consumable chunks
• Stories include details, full scope of what needs to be completed: definition of done
• Specifying acceptance criteria for each user story/task
• Develop test cases and test data to validate requirements
• Perform application testing before UAT is scheduled
• Work with business stakeholders to complete UAT testing
• Define and prioritize the features of the Product Backlog
  • Stories with highest priorities go to the top of the backlog
• Grooming the product backlog
  • PO goes over the backlog daily to prioritize/reprioritize the backlog, elaborate on requirements
• Decide on release date and content
  • PO creates roadmap and creates stories/tasks to accomplish them
  • PO describes the process moving Pilot or Go Live into production environment
  • Allocates resources and identifies who to reach out to accomplish the story/task
• Responsible for the profitability of the product (ROI)

1.2 Responsibilities outside the Team

• Observing, learning about and analyzing the market
• Observing, learning about, contacting and analyzing customers and end users of the product
• Keeping in touch with every stakeholder of the product regularly
• Report to management and stakeholders
• PO creates appropriate reporting to send out to stakeholders weekly
• Sharing insights throughout the company regarding the product

1.3 Key Attributes

• Decisive
• Available (50% of the time with clients and 50% of the time with the team)
• Knowledgeable
• Empowered
• Accountable

1.4 Relationship with the …

1.4.1 Scrum Master

• Includes the voice of stakeholders in the process of collaborative discovery – learns their real goals and problems
• Organizes workshops to identify and clarify upcoming work for the product

1.4.2 Development Team

• Includes the voice of stakeholders in the process of collaborative discovery – learns their real goals and problems
• Organizes workshops to identify and clarify upcoming work for the product

1.4.3 Organization / Client

• Includes the voice of stakeholders in the process of collaborative discovery – learns their real goals and problems
• Organizes workshops to identify and clarify upcoming work for the product

2. Scrum Master – Owns the PROCESS

2.1 Responsibilities and Characteristics

• Facilitates the Scrum process and Team self-organization
• Removes obstacles
• Shields the team from interference
• Enacting Scrum values
• Coach the team (including the PO) to enhance performance
• Facilitate key ceremonies: Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, and the Retrospective
• Foster the developer team’s self-organization
• Protect the team from interruptions
• Ensure impediments are removed
• Ensure the team is fully functional and productive
• Enables close cooperation across all roles and functions
• Make work visible

2.1 Deliverables

• Team happiness
• Improving velocity
• Coach the team

2.2 Key Attributes

• Facilitator
• Impediment Remover
• Servant Leader
• Coach
• Teacher
• Mentor
• Change Agent
• Manager

2.3 Relationship with the …

2.3.1 Product Owner

• Manage expectations
• Coaches the PO
• Contribute to write or adapt product visions
• Help arrange and optimize product backlog
• Organize scrum events as necessary

2.3.2 Dev Team

• Coaches the team in self-organization and cross-functionality
• Helps the team to create high-value products
• Removes impediments to the team’s progress
• Facilitates Scrum events

2.3.3 Organization

• Leads and coaches the organization in its Scrum adoption
• Causes change that increases the team’s productivity
• Helps employees and stakeholders understand Scrum and empirical product development

3. Team – Owns the HOW

3.1 Responsibilities and Characteristics

• Cross-functional (including testing) – they possess all the skills to do the work
• Self-organizing – they decide how they will work to achieve the goal
• Self-managing – they decide how much work they can do in a Sprint
• Collaborative – they work together to achieve a Sprint Goal
• Typically 3-9 people, but ideal size is 4-6

3.1 Key Attributes

• Be available for ceremonies
• Be willing to share thoughts, ideas and concerns open and freely
• Be able to work collectively with others

3.1 Key Activities

• Collaboration
• Elicitation
• Solutions Analysis
• Estimation
• Planning
• Delivery
• Continuous improvement