Today i am going to start understanding the basic terms used in scrum. I will cover more detailed concepts in upcoming posts, but want to start with introducing terms used in scrum.
Product owner–
1) Key stack holder – Product owner is key stack holder of project. It could be business analyst (working closely with business and users of product) or anyone someone from Marketing or anyone with solid understanding of users and marketplace, the competition and future trends for domain. Product owner should have a clear vision on what he/she wishes to build and convey that vision very clearly to the scrum team. Product owner is key to successfully starting any agile software development project. Product owner maintains the product backlog.
2) Does not Dictate estimates – The product owner prioritizes he product backlog during sprint planning meeting, but it is development team that selects the amount of work they believe they can do in given sprint and how many sprint will be required. Product owner never tells development team how much work they should do in given sprint or how many sprints are required. The estimation comes from development team only.
3) Changing requirements – Requirement can change within sprint, and product owner has every right to do so, but it will never impact current sprint. The change will be taken as new task in the next sprint planning meeting and will be prioritized.
4) Required Skill set and network – Product owner should have certain skills like business or domain knowledge, good communications and connection with the team. The product owner role requires working closely with the users, stockholders across organization and the development team; hence the communication is one of the most important skillset desired in product owner.
Scrum master –
1) No authority over team, but authority over process – Scrum master do not have authority over team, but has authority over process. Scrum master can tell you at end of sprint that what went right and what needs to be improved, but he/she can never dictate “how to do it”. It is all up to the team on how to do it, Scrum master will help them coming up with proper process. Moreover the team can give some more authority to scrum master, if they feel so.
2) Works as guide or trainer - Scrum master is to help team understand the process and practices of scrum. Like any exercise trainer, who will help you understand the workout, but will not do workout for you. Also, trainer will make sure you don’t skip any hard workouts and all necessary tools are with you to achieve your goals. Similarly Scrum master will help you like trainer, will help you understand process, help you remove any impediments and help you establishing a proper process around to get quality product in timely manner.
3) Do not manage people – Scrum master does not work like project manager, hence do not have direct control over people. Project manager can dictate clearly what needs to be done, but a scrum master will never give you detail on how to complete a task.
Scrum Team –
1) No roles – The scrum team does not have any roles like programmer, designer, tester etc. Everyone in the team works to complete a set of task within sprint.
2) Team size – in general scrum team is of size 5-9 people. Smaller team helps having scrum meeting shorter and discussions to be quick. We can have scrum of scrum meeting for larger team where 1 person from individual team can represent their work and coordinate with multiple other scrum teams.
Product owner–
1) Key stack holder – Product owner is key stack holder of project. It could be business analyst (working closely with business and users of product) or anyone someone from Marketing or anyone with solid understanding of users and marketplace, the competition and future trends for domain. Product owner should have a clear vision on what he/she wishes to build and convey that vision very clearly to the scrum team. Product owner is key to successfully starting any agile software development project. Product owner maintains the product backlog.
2) Does not Dictate estimates – The product owner prioritizes he product backlog during sprint planning meeting, but it is development team that selects the amount of work they believe they can do in given sprint and how many sprint will be required. Product owner never tells development team how much work they should do in given sprint or how many sprints are required. The estimation comes from development team only.
3) Changing requirements – Requirement can change within sprint, and product owner has every right to do so, but it will never impact current sprint. The change will be taken as new task in the next sprint planning meeting and will be prioritized.
4) Required Skill set and network – Product owner should have certain skills like business or domain knowledge, good communications and connection with the team. The product owner role requires working closely with the users, stockholders across organization and the development team; hence the communication is one of the most important skillset desired in product owner.
Scrum master –
1) No authority over team, but authority over process – Scrum master do not have authority over team, but has authority over process. Scrum master can tell you at end of sprint that what went right and what needs to be improved, but he/she can never dictate “how to do it”. It is all up to the team on how to do it, Scrum master will help them coming up with proper process. Moreover the team can give some more authority to scrum master, if they feel so.
2) Works as guide or trainer - Scrum master is to help team understand the process and practices of scrum. Like any exercise trainer, who will help you understand the workout, but will not do workout for you. Also, trainer will make sure you don’t skip any hard workouts and all necessary tools are with you to achieve your goals. Similarly Scrum master will help you like trainer, will help you understand process, help you remove any impediments and help you establishing a proper process around to get quality product in timely manner.
3) Do not manage people – Scrum master does not work like project manager, hence do not have direct control over people. Project manager can dictate clearly what needs to be done, but a scrum master will never give you detail on how to complete a task.
Scrum Team –
1) No roles – The scrum team does not have any roles like programmer, designer, tester etc. Everyone in the team works to complete a set of task within sprint.
2) Team size – in general scrum team is of size 5-9 people. Smaller team helps having scrum meeting shorter and discussions to be quick. We can have scrum of scrum meeting for larger team where 1 person from individual team can represent their work and coordinate with multiple other scrum teams.
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