Scrum Team
About
It is the fundamental unit of Scrum.
Usually scrum teams are about 10 people. The roles are not full-time, so team members can have multiple roles.
If a scrum team gets too large, it can be fragmented:
But each team focused on the same product, so they would share the same product goal, product backlog and product owner.
A Scrum Team is self-managed and cross-functional:
Self-Managed:
It has the autonomy to define who does what, when and how.
Cross-Functional:
It is cross-functional as a whole, not the individuals inside the team.
That has all the skills needed to accomplish the work without depending on others not part of the Scrum Team.
Product Owner (PO) ⭐
This role must be played by ONE person only.
Is the business person, and takes care of the product backlog. He is accountable to maximizing the value of the product resulting from the scrum team.
Must have business knowledge AND authority, AND must be available.
And he does this by managing the product backlog.
In general the PO's job is to analyse the ideas from the Business Stakeholders, and transform them into requests for the developers.
In practice he leads collaborative sessions with the stakeholders, to discuss the product vision and at the end have a motivating short vision. (Be able to explain to explain it in less than 2 min) But they should not act as a filter to accept or deny requests from the stakeholders. The PO should just make sure these request are ORDERED correctly, having the most important ones come first.
Also the PO is NOT the main person responsible to engage with the stakeholder anymore. Now the whole SCRUM TEAM is.
This list of requests is the Product Backlog. The challenge is that the ideias come up way faster that their development.
The PO is NOT a bridge between the Stakeholders and developers. Theses CAN talk to each other if needed, but the Stakeholders CAN'T interfere or command the developers.
Applicable characteristics:
Product Marketplace Expert.
Product value Maximizer.
Product Visionary.
Lear Facilitator of Key Stakeholder Involvement.
Scrum Master ⭐
His role is to make Scrum run smoothly. The scrum master wears two hats, serving the organization and scrum teams.
He helps those outside the scrum team to interact positively with the team.
Accountable for the scrum team's effectiveness and server it to improve its practices within the scrum framework.
For example:
He assists the PO on how to manage the product backlog to maximize value.
Further, he also coaches the scrum team on how to self-manage and deliver Done and valuable Increments.
Also accountable for establishing scrum, as defined in the scrum guide, by helping everyone understand scrum theory, practices, rules and values.
He also causes the removal of impediments. He does not go looking for impediments to be resolved, he helps resolving them when asked for help.
Impediment
Anything that might hinder the team's productivity.
Is any kind of problem the developer might have and then they rise these problem to the Scrum Master, usually on the daily scrum.
Developers ⭐
Are responsible for transforming the ideas reflected in the product backlog into Increments.
Are responsible for tracking the total work remaining in the Sprint Backlog to project the likelihood of achieving the Sprint Goal.
The developers are cross-functional. In other words, the sum of the skills of all the Developers, must be enough to deliver all the aspects of a usable product.
Individuals might have a specialized area of focus, however there are no sub-teams or hierarchies, and they all share the accountability for planning their work and delivering high quality outcomes.
In Scrum if you create any aspect of an Increment, you are a Developer.
Additionally the developers as the entire scrum team, self-manage. They collaborate to solve team problems focusing on team goals and they define who does that, when and how. No one tells them how to do their work.
The developers also must have autonomy on what to work on. For this purpose, during the Spring Planning, or through discussions with the product owner, the Developers select the product backlog items for the sprint.
Only the Developers should decide on removing other developers.
The product owner does not tell the developers what to do.
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