The Scrum Team & Scrum Team Roles

What is a Scrum team?

 A Scrum team is a group of people who come together to complete a task or set of tasks in an organized manner. The team members have a shared goal and are responsible for delivering a product or service.

The Scrum team members work in short sprints, focused periods typically ranging from one to four weeks in length. During each sprint, the team works in an iterative process to develop the product or service. At the end of each sprint, the team assesses their progress and decides on what needs to be adjusted or changed to continue the development process. 

In this article, we’ll talk about the people who make up a Scrum team and how each role contributes to the team’s success.

Who Is In A Scrum Team In Agile?

Source: Scrum.org

A Scrum team is typically composed of between five and nine members with different skills and backgrounds. The size of a Scrum team makes collaboration optimal. Each member of a Scrum team plays an important role in the success of the project. The team has three roles: the Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Scrum development team.

Scrum Team Roles

Roles in a Scrum team are designed to collaborate to fulfill project objectives. Let's dive into who is on a Scrum team and how they contribute to project success.

Product Owner

The  Product Owner owns the product roadmap and is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Agile Scrum team. They serve as the voice of the client–they ensure that the end product meets the needs of the client and the business. 

There is only one Product Owner on the team. This is important because having more than one Product Owner can present challenges in determining priorities and direction. The Scrum Product Owner role includes these responsibilities:

• Creating, maintaining, and prioritizing the product backlog
• Defining the user stories and epics
• Maintaining the product vision
• Ensuring the team has the necessary focus and direction
• Communicating the product’s progress to the stakeholders
• Ensuring the product meets the needs of the customer and the business

The role of a Product Owner in Scrum includes working collaboratively with the Scrum team, being involved in the sprint planning and backlog grooming meetings, and ensuring that the necessary tasks are completed on time.

Ultimately, the Product Owner must have a deep understanding of the product and its features. This way, she can make decisions quickly to ensure the product meets the customer’s needs.

Scrum Master: What Is The Role Of A Scrum Master

While the Product Owner champions the product, the Scrum Master champions the Scrum process. The Scrum Master is an expert in the Agile Scrum methodology. He helps the team analyze situations and recommends ways to go about them most efficiently and effectively. 

What does an effective Scrum master help the team with? The Agile Scrum Master's role and responsibilities include the following. :

• Managing the team dynamics
• Coaching the team with the Scrum process
• Helping resolve conflicts that arise
• Ensuring that the team communicates and works together effectively
• Scheduling project resources
• Facilitating Scrum meetings
• Protecting the team from impediments to progress

The Scrum Master's role and responsibility include guiding how the team applies the Scrum process in their work and collaboration. Like the Product Owner, it’s optimal to have one Scrum Master in the team, not multiple. 

Scrum Development Team

A Scrum development team is a self-organizing agile team that is responsible for executing the tasks needed to fulfill the user stories and epics set by the Product Owner. Their responsibilities are the following:

• Planning and reviewing sprints
• Fulfilling tasks and sprint goals
• Problem-solving
• Completing project deliverables
• Managing tasks and sprint priorities

What best describes a Scrum team? 

Scrum dev teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. Being self-organizing means that they do not work with a project manager. In the Scrum method, team members work as a self-directed group coached by the Scrum Master. But the Scrum dev team is responsible for tracking their tasks, problem-solving, and planning their sprints and approaches to achieve the sprint goals. To do this, they can use tools like Workamajig –the only marketing project management tool built for creative teams.

Cross-functionality is also an important attribute of Scrum development teams. Although they are small, they are composed of individuals with varied expertise. This allows them to evaluate solutions in a well-rounded manner, and contribute uniquely in collaboration. Each individual must be empowered to effectively be part of a development team in Scrum.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Scrum team structure?

Each has either of the three roles: one product owner, one Scrum master, and a Scrum development team. While each has specific responsibilities, they all work towards fulfilling the project objectives. There is no hierarchy within a Scrum team. Each individual is expected to self-organize and fulfill his role with no supervision of a superior.

What is the recommended size of a Scrum team?
A Scrum team works on a 4 weeks sprint, and the Scrum team size is commonly five to nine people. It’s small enough for easy communication and quick decision-making but is big enough to fulfill the requirements needed in a sprint.

Which role is most likely to communicate an impediment during a daily Scrum?

During the daily Scrum, teams share their progress, what they plan to work on the next day, and impediments encountered during production time. Being responsible for fulfilling the task within a sprint, the development team is the most likely role to communicate impediments within the project. The Scrum Master can help bring this up by asking the right questions, too.

It will then be the Scrum Master’s role to assist in removing such impediments so the Scrum development team can continue making steady progress. 

How should a Scrum team deal with non-functional requirements?

While functional requirements describe what a product should be able to do, nonfunctional requirements are about the way how they should perform. Examples of these are usability, localization, reliability, etc.

A developer identified a major technical issue during a daily Scrum. What should the team do?

If the issue requires further discussion, the development team needs to discuss it outside the daily Scrum. If stakeholders outside the Scrum team are involved, the Scrum Master can help ensure that they are tapped as needed.

Do Scrum teams need names?

Scrum team names are not required, but they can help inject fun into the work and boost team morale and camaraderie. There are no rules on how to pick your Scrum team name. However, it’s recommended that they’re easy to write and pronounce and is meaningful to the entire team. Funny Scrum team names can be used if it aligns with your team culture and if it motivates the Scrum team to do their best work.

Source: AltexSoft

Both functional and non-functional requirements are important to the client and the business. Because of this, they should be treated with equal importance as functional requirements and should be accounted for in the Product Backlog, estimates, schedules, and sprints.

Who owns quality in a Scrum team?

The entire team shares equal accountability for the success of the project. The entire team owns quality in a Scrum team.

What is the role of management in Scrum?

Scrum development teams are self-organizing. They do not require managers to supervise them in Scrum.

Who is accountable for the business value delivered by a Scrum team?

The Product Owner is accountable for the business value delivered by a Scrum team. She collaborates with clients and stakeholders to create user stories that will contribute to the project’s goals. She evaluates deliverables and identifies priorities.

Wrapping Up

The Scrum team is a small but highly functional team designed to produce incremental deliverables to achieve project objectives. No role is at a higher rank than the other. Each member of a Scrum team fulfills a specific responsibility and takes equal accountability for the success of the project.