Scrum is an agile framework that manages your project and delivers value iteratively at short intervals. It is an agile process that teams use around the world to build things that work. Scrum is intentionally lightweight and simple, but it is difficult to master. It is intended to provide a framework for cross-functional teams to solve complex problems. The responsibilities in scrum have been structured into three scrum roles which are the development team, the scrum master and the scrum product owner. We will be discussing these roles in this article:
The Scrum Product Owner
Agile teams are, by design, flexible and responsive, and it is the responsibility of the product owner to ensure that they are delivering the most value. The business is represented by the product owner who tells the development what is important to deliver. Trust between these two roles is crucial.
The product owner should not only understand the customer, but also have a vision for the value the scrum team is delivering to the customer. The product owner also balances the needs of other stakeholders in the organization.
So the product owner must take all these inputs and prioritize the work. This is probably their most important responsibility because conflicting priorities and unclear directions will not only reduce the effectiveness of the team, but also could break the important trust relationship that the business has with the development team.
TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION | SCRUM PRODUCT OWNER CERTIFICATION
Agile teams are designed to inspect and adapt, that means a change in priority may lead to a massive change to the team structure, work products, as well as the end result. It is therefore crucial, for scrum teams to be successful, that only one person sets priority. That person is the product owner.
The Scrum master
The scrum master is the role responsible for gluing everything together and ensuring that scrum is being done well. In practical terms, that means they help the product owner define value, the development team deliver the value, and the scrum team to get to get better. The scrum master is a servant leader which not only describes a supportive style of leadership but describes what they do on a day-to-day basis.
TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION | SCRUM MASTER CERTIFICATION
They serve the product owner by helping them better understand and communicate value, to manage the backlog, help them plan the work with the team and break down that work to deliver the most effective learning. Serving the development team, the scrum master helps them self-organize, focus on outcomes, get to a “done increment,” and manage blockers. The scrum master also serves the organization at large, helping them understand what scrum is and create an environment that supports scrum.
Scrum Development Team
The development team are the people that do the work. At first glance, you may think the “development team” means engineers. But that’s not always the case. According to the Scrum Guide, the development team can be comprised of all kinds of people including designers, writers, programmers, etc.
TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION | SCRUM TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION
You can think of it in the same way as when you have a house project and you hire a developer. They develop the project and do the work. Yes, this might mean they lay bricks, do plumbing, even dig holes, but the person is known as a developer. So, that means the ‘developer’ role in Scrum means a team member who has the right skills, as part of the team to do the work.
The development team should be able to self-organize so they can make decisions to get work done. Think of a development team as similar to a production support team that is called in during the night because something has gone wrong. The development team, like the production support team, can make decisions and deliver the fix/value for the problem at hand. Self-organization isn’t about disrespecting the organization, but rather about empowering the people closest to the work to do what’s needed to solve the problem.
