Core Team Roles | Roles Outside Core Team | Other Roles
Products Owner | Scrum Master | Team Member(Dev / Test) | Integration Team | Solution/System Architect | Architect Enterprise |Chief Product Owner/ Product Manager | Agile Release Manager / Chief Scrum Master) | Agile Coach | Senior Management | Program Managers / Project Management Office |Project Manager (Role in Exception) |
Agile core team is self-organizing, cross-functional, multi-skilled team working together to support each other throughout the project. They are not all expert in every area; however, between them they have wide range of expertise. The core Agile project members must possess key personality traits and behavior that foster self-directed, self-managed and highly collaborative dynamics to be highly successful.
In addition to the core team, the extended team members & enterprise collaboration groups support the core team by:
• respecting the rules and principle of Agile.
• working to remove impediments that the Team and Product Owner identify.
• offering their expertise and experience as needed by Core Team.
*Agile Core Team Scrum are 100 % dedicated which may not be the case in Kanban. In Kanban, teams can have specialized team members and must have a business representative to explain, prioritize work /product backlog items. Kanban does not prescribe roles and so Kanban teams may use the existing roles as appropriate example any authorized business representative can take calls on prioritizing work and product backlog items/’To Do’ list of work items; Project manager or equivalent role (If any)Or any team member from the team itself can coordinate for any ceremonies/cadences (planning, stand-ups, continuous improvement, release cadences etc.) and be responsible for documentation, approvals, metrics and protecting team from outside distractions.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES – CORE TEAM
Role – Product Owner^
Accountability: Product backlog and prioritization of work items in it
Responsibilities:
• Provide and approve product/project Vision
• Order items in the Product Backlog to best achieve goals and missions
• Maintain the prioritized product backlog with help of team
• Prioritized features based on business value
• Understand and consider technical risks and dependencies
• Obtain business senior management agreement on scope, cost and date
• Ensures that the Development Team understands items in the Product Backlog
^sometimes delegated to Business Analysts who are either empowered to take decision or through an arrangement sync up with Product owner for decisioning over user stories and work prioritization or sometimes demos. This may occur due to limited time availability of Product owners/ Business representatives owning the product.
Role – Scrum Master
Accountability: Track and Manage Metrics (Burn-down, Burn-up charts, Velocity) Team Capacity, Reports, Meetings/coordination, Scrum Artifacts
Responsibilities:
• Facilitate Scrum process
• Removes impediments to flow
• Guides the Team and provides situational leadership
• Protect team from external forces & pressure impeding smooth functioning of Scrum Team
• Agile Metrics
Role – Team Member
Accountability: Progress User stories, tasks, attending cadences, board update, demo minimum viable product, shipable product.
Responsibilities:
• Steady delivery of quality work (features and stories)
• Own work and self-manage
• Coordinate/work with Architect(s) to refine architecture and design details and determine Disaster Recovery needs
• Works to identify system control needs (regulatory, compliance need)
• Testers works with the configuration team to secure test environment/data
Team member could be a tester with following role expectations though developers are also expected to have this skill (as part of scrum team which is cross functional team) or as part of specialized skill being part of Kanban (continuous flow development) team.
• Has knowledge of best practices related to testing and use of test tools.
• Identify and document test cases / scenarios / scripts for all testing to support User Stories.
• Test bed setup, test data definition, creation and management.
• Conduct in-sprint testing for Time-Boxed Iteration development or functional testing of work item as part of Kanban- continuous flow development.
• Performing defect identification and management.
ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITES – OUTSIDE CORE TEAM
Chief Product Owner Or Product Manager
This role can be used to organize the business and delivery of work when there are multiple teams that deliver work in the same product, or when the person in a leadership role within that product cannot be dedicated to the role of the Product Owner. You could also call this role the Product Manager. They typically provide the following:
• Budget parameters
• Vision and strategic themes
• Roadmap with portfolio level epics
The Chief Product Owner is not just another stakeholder. They usually coordinate number of Product Owners to deliver a common vision. They:
• can be sponsor of the product.
• maintain Strategy and vision of the complex product
• communicate voice of customer
• are decision maker on final product
This is a scaled role of a Product Owner.
Agile Release Manager (aka Chief Scrum Master)
Role is needed where there is complex product or solution requiring multiple agile teams (Scrum or Kanban) work in tandem and deliver the value to customer. With multiple teams working on different parts of product it becomes necessary to bring synchronization and alignment so integrated solutions can be delivered.
The primary responsibility of this role is continuous delivery of value through features and functionality to end user or customers. For that they collaborate and coordinate across various agile teams and ensure smooth delivery of value in line with product vision and roadmap.
This, a scaled role of Scrum Master, Agile Release Manager creates an environment that supports and empowers agile teams, and helps scrum master remove the impediments that get in their team’s way. Agile Release Manager:
• Collaborate and coordinate across various agile teams
• Ensure inter dependencies among various agile teams are sorted out
• Collaborate with product owners and scrum masters to ensure smooth delivery of integrated workable solutions in-line with product vision and road-map.
• Run and chair Scaled stand-ups
• Participate in Meta-Scrum type meetings/workshops
• Helps remove impediment in delivery of integrated solutions
They focus on the organizational environment’s ability to deliver value more than they worry about individual team’s measurements. These Agile Leaders coach, inspire, and lead teams. Agile Release Manager can look at your enterprise approved tools like JIRA, AgileCraft, Rally, etc. on User Story/Sprint status, Risks, Budget and release (deployments) tracking and feeding the regular product health and delivery metrics to senior management and business stakeholders.
Integration Team
Group of individuals whose role and responsibility is to standardize, synchronize, and incorporate the efforts of participating subject matter experts (SMEs). For less complex systems, product or solutions this could be group of selected individuals from different agile teams who get together at regular intervals to integrate the possible workable product or solution of their teams to create an integrated single, workable and possibly shipable product/solution or system, that is usable for customer or end user, to production. For complex solutions or systems this could be a dedicated team working with different core teams to integrate the outputs of various agile teams.
The integration team’s efforts are also to allow the SMEs to achieve consensus, efficiency, and standard of quality in product and process.
Solution /System Architect
Work with core team to define the high-level architecture. Document Solution context, logical computing model, Infrastructure need/ diagram, Disaster recovery, Interface description/diagram, Security and performance compliance/deviations/risks and solution road-map.
System Architect operate at Team level while solution architects Operate at program Level. There can be multiple system architect based on the complexity of the program. Solution Architect ensures that the proposed architecture is the most appropriate approach to provide the required functionality
System and Solution architects closely collaborate with various teams like Database, Security, Development. Regularly review the evolving architecture document with subject matter experts. Engage with Enterprise Architect / Architecture approval board for review and approval of Architecture during time box, continuous development / before deploying solution to production.
Architect Enterprise
Participate in portfolio planning activities. Review the Architecture and verify adherence to enterprise architecture standards. Ensure correct technology solution that supports the business objectives. Required system controls and monitors are in place. Agrees that the proposed architecture is acceptable including any deviations from the Enterprise Strategic Architecture and that any areas not aligned with the strategic direction do not pose a significant risk. Agrees that any new capital required for the proposed solution is in alignment with the planned capital expenditures for the project and that licensing requirements are understood. Approval of Architecture document.
OTHER ROLES
Agile Coach
• Educate and support Agile project teams (Agile Overview and hands on training)
• Support area Agile representatives
• Provide direction and guidance to promote changes in project management behavior
• Review and Observe scrum
• Support Agile teams through the initial phases of the Agile process
Senior Management
• Accountable for Portfolio / Product Strategy
• Budget and Cost approvals
• Approval on Deliverables
• Approval on Vendor contracts
• Support and Encourage Agile Teams.
Program Managers / Project Management Office
• Manage portfolio at organization level, coordinate, track multiple projects/teams
• Closely works with business to align and prioritize requests
• Team assignment budget inputs
• Support and encourage agile teams
• Manage external stakeholders, vendors and contracts
• People management and resource management support
• First point of contact for escalations on risks and issues
Project Manager (Exception)
Most agile processes, and in particular Scrum, do not include a project manager role. The responsibilities of the traditional project manager are shared among the three Scrum roles. But, larger organizations often still need project managers during their transformation to help manage the administration of communication and other reporting paperwork, or to coordinate multiple teams working on the same product
• Project financials and financial/portfolio reporting
• Scope, schedule and Resources
• Project governance and Status reporting
• Project Planning
• Business /Stakeholder communication and approvals
• Issue/Risk communication, resolution, and escalation
• Accountable for project success/failure
