Team Member in Scrum

Before starting our description of the Scrum team member roles it will be useful to understand what exactly a Scrum team is. Generally a Scrum team can be defined as a group of software developers that operates in a Scrum project management style. Each team member in Scrum performs his own role. The most general division of the Scrum team member roles includes only three positions: the ScrumMaster, the Product Owner, and the Scrum team.

Let’s look at the simplest definition of these roles.

ScrumMaster is a person, who coordinates the work of the Scrum team. He is responsible for effective performance of the project.

Product Owner is the customer, or his representative in the team whose main role is to control the quality of the final product.

Scrum team includes all the specialists who work on a certain project (usually about 7 persons). It is independent in its actions and all its members are interchangeable.

These simple definitions of the Scrum team member roles do not reflect their variety. Hence, it is necessary to take a look at them in greater detail. If we do not define all the Scrum team as one role, and instead of that view the roles of all its members, we will see that a Scrum team has eight roles.

Let’s take a look at them and describe their main responsibilities.

Product Owner (or Product Manager)

Usually this is a person who represents the customer’s interests in the team. He is responsible for all marketing and business issues connected to the project. He also must have a long term vision of the project to know exactly what the customer needs to get. Usually the main task of the Product Manager as a member of the Scrum team is to write user stories and criteria for their acceptance.

Program Manager

This person can combine the roles of the Program Manager and the Project Manager. In many Scrum teams a Program Manager is also a ScrumMaster. However, the team may have two different persons appointed to perform these roles. The main responsibility of the Program Manager is to manage the program schedule and the overall planning process.

Architect

This is a person who manages the technical direction of the Scrum team’s work. The Architect is responsible for communication and cross functional system design. The testable and executable designs are also his responsibilities.

Engineering Manager

This person must fully understand the process of product development. He is responsible for the lead time and production rate. Negotiating the technical approaches with the team’s architect is also a part of his responsibilities.

Product Developer

This is one of the main roles in the team, because this person is the one who is responsible for the creation of product. Constant work with the items of the backlog is one of his main responsibilities.

QA

This is the person whose main task is to prevent the system defects before the final stages of work will start.

UED

The main responsibility of this team member is to turn the human knowledge and skills into features of the final product.

Operations

This team member is the one who creates the required hardware for the project.