What is Scrum? What are the roles in Scrum?

Scrum (Agile Process)

Scrum is one of the most popular Agile Project Management Methods. Scrum is an agile process that allows the project to focus on delivering the highest business value in the shortest time. It is designed to work in iterations so that every 30 days (or so) there is a working product created. The business sets the priorities of what is developed in each iteration. The Agile project team is self-organized to determine the best way to deliver the highest priority features. This requires extremely close collaboration amongst an experienced group of professionals.

Learning how to manage a project using an Agile method such as Scrum requires training and additional knowledge. It also requires a change in organizational culture and an acknowledgement by management that to support Agile projects requires a different focus than Predictive projects.

ROLES IN THE SCRUM PROCESS

In Agile, there isn't really a Project Manager that manages the entire process. The Scrum process has primarily 3 roles: The Product Owner, the Scrum Master, and the Team. The role of the Project Manager is spread across each of the three Scrum roles. There are also clients and other Stakeholders that may be engaged in terms of the users of the product being produced or the providers of product features and requirements.

The Product Owner is responsible for:

• Understanding the client's requirements and business needs
• Defining the features of the product
• Prioritizing features according to market value or business need
• Adjusting features and priority every iteration, as needed
• Accepting or rejecting work results

The Product Owner has significant business knowledge, or otherwise, they would be unable to make these types of decisions. They also must have very close relationships with the project clients and other Stakeholders.

The Scrum Master is specially trained and is responsible for:

• The correct and effective use of Scrum practices
• Removing barriers for the team
• Ensuring that the team is fully functional and productive
• Enabling close cooperation across all roles and functions
• Shielding the team from external interferences

You will notice that many of these responsibilities seem similar to the traditional definition of a Project Manager role. However, this role has specialized training to be able to apply the Scrum method to an Agile project.

The Team is typically small - between 5 and 10 people. The team normally has full time dedicated staff with the skills necessary to create the product. The team usually has cross functional skills required to produce a product such as programmers, designers, testers, etc. whatever is required to build a functioning product. The team is highly experienced and mature in their ability to manage their own time, to be innovative and to adjust the work as required to deliver the functions agreed to in the Sprint. They self direct their work based on the features selected for the the Sprint without someone assigning specific tasks to them.