What is a Scrum Team? Structure, Roles and Responsibilities

Scrum is a widely used project management framework in the rapidly changing field of Agile development. The Scrum Team, a self-organizing, cross-functional team in charge of producing high-quality products, is the core of the Scrum methodology.

What is a Scrum Team: Structure, Roles and Responsibilities

What is a Scrum Team?

A Scrum Team is like a special group that works on projects using a method called Scrum. In this group, different people can do various jobs, and they work together to create a part of a product. They aim to finish and deliver something valuable in a short period, which they call a “Sprint.”

What makes this team cool is that they decide how to do their work all by themselves. They’re like a team that can organize and plan things without someone telling them exactly what to do.

Scrum Team is a group of people working together to create something awesome, and they have the freedom to decide the best way to do it.

Scrum Team

Structure of Scrum Team:

• Team Size: Scrum teams are small, usually between five to nine members, aiming for a size you can feed with two pizzas. It’s better to have multiple small teams working on a feature rather than larger teams. No sub-teams or hierarchies exist in Agile.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Scrum teams are built around delivering complete features. Specialists are welcome, but everyone is encouraged to broaden their skills. Cross-functional teams support each other’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Self-Organization: Teams are self-organizing, purposefully structured and nurtured for autonomy. Self-organization doesn’t mean everyone is equal; differences are needed for effective collaboration.
• Dedication and Longevity: Ideally, team members are dedicated to one team, maximizing effective collaboration. Long-lived teams are encouraged for better teamwork and learning. Minimize multitasking to less than 20% for optimal results.
• Communication Paths: Minimize communication paths between teams. Long chains of coordination hinder productivity. Effective team design encourages communication within and among teams, especially when teams or individuals are remote.
• Input into Team Design: Ideally, team members have input into the design of their teams. During the transition to Scrum, this may not be immediate. Experience in delivering products by the end of each sprint is essential for effective input.

Scrum Team Roles & Responsibilities:

The structure of a scrum team suggests working together, open communication, and adaptability. Usually, it includes the following essential components:

Product Owner:

The team member who understands the needs of the customer and their relative business value is known as the product owner. After that, he or she can relay the customer’s desires and ideals back to the Scrum team. The product owner needs to understand the product’s business case as well as the features that customers desire. To ensure that the team is correctly carrying out the product vision, he must be accessible for consultation. The Product Owner is in charge of overseeing the Product Backlog, which comprises the following items, and most crucially, he must have the power to make any decisions required to finish the project:

• Clearly expressing items from the product backlog.
• Arranging the items in the product backlog in order of greatest achievement of objectives and missions.
• Maximizing the worth of the work that the team completes.
• Ensuring that everyone can see, understand, and access the product backlog, which outlines the tasks the team will continue to work on.
• Ensuring that the team has the necessary understanding of the items in the product backlog.

Product Owner

Scrum Master:

The scrum master assists in removing any obstacles that might be affecting the team’s productivity and in holding members of the team accountable for their commitments to the company. They reviewed work and deliverables with the team regularly, usually once a week. A scrum master’s job is to coach and inspire team members, not impose rules on them.

A scrum master’s responsibilities include:

• Make sure everything goes as planned.
• Remove any barriers that affect output
• Plan the important meetings and events.

Scrum Master

Development Team:

The organization provides structure and authority to Development Teams so they can plan and oversee their own work. The Development Team’s overall effectiveness and efficiency are maximized by the resulting synergy. The following traits are present in development teams:

• They arrange themselves. The Development Team is not given instructions on how to convert the Product Backlog into potentially releaseable functionality increments, not even by the Scrum Master;
• Cross-functional development teams possess all the teamwork abilities required to produce a product increment;
• No matter what kind of work a member of the Development Team does, Scrum does not recognize titles;
• Regardless of the domains that need to be addressed, such as testing, architecture, operations, or business analysis, Scrum does not recognize sub-teams within the Development Team;
• Although each member of the Development Team may have specific expertise and areas of interest, the Development Team as a whole is ultimately accountable.

Development Team

What Is the Ideal Size of a Scrum Team?

Scrum teams are typically composed of five to nine members, although seven is the optimum number. The development team consists of five to seven people, plus one scrum master and a product owner. Sub-teams do not exist. The scrum team members ought to be full-time employees, preferably based in the same office. If the work needs to be done in multiple locations, a scrum team should be assigned to each location.

How do Scrum teams work?

The Scrum Guide states that a Scrum team should consist of ten or fewer members. The size of the team is primarily determined by the project being worked on. By adhering to a framework for rapid delivery and iterative planning, the Scrum framework seeks to provide value to the end user.

Team members must work together, be held accountable, and communicate well for Scrum to be effective. These are some additional crucial traits of effective Scrum teams.

• Transparency: When describing the product backlog items and customer/stakeholder priorities, product owners in particular must be precise and unambiguous. In order to swiftly address obstacles and roadblocks, the development team should also be open and honest about them.
• Accountability: The completion of the final sprint goal and self-accountability are the two main goals of the Scrum team.
• Self-organization: Each team member needs to be aware of their own duties and responsibilities and take the initiative to solve problems.

Scrum events and meetings:

Members of the Scrum team should be aware of their responsibilities and how each Scrum event advances the team’s progress toward both the sprint and project goals.

The events and meetings Scrum teams attend are:

• Sprint Planning: Through sprint planning meetings, scrum teams organize their work. Scrum teams convene for sprint planning sessions to strategize how they will carry out the tasks required to develop a product or finish a project. Agile sprints are brief work schedules that span two to four weeks. Every team member receives a set of tasks to complete during those agile sprints that they will be accountable for.
• Daily Scrum Meetings: The scrum team can communicate with each other during daily scrum meetings. Every day, scrum team members meet to discuss how their tasks are going and to report to the group as a whole whether they are on track or have run into problems that are impeding their work.
• Sprint Review: Scrum teams present their work to project clients and stakeholders during sprint reviews, and they solicit feedback from them. This information is then utilized to plan future sprints and make necessary adjustments to the project or product.
• Scrum Retrospective: Scrum teams use scrum retrospectives to assess their own performance. In order to make the next sprint planning section more successful, the scrum team members gather for sprint reviews, where they discuss what went well and what didn’t during the previous sprint.

Why Is Scrum a Success? 

The Scrum methodology’s ability to enable the quick release of products with increased value is one of its main advantages. Within a Scrum Team, tasks are completed concurrently rather than consecutively. As a result, the team is better equipped to make adjustments throughout the project rather than just at the conclusion.

The Development Team works with a motto – “All for one and one for all.” Since it’s group work, you can guarantee a quicker turnaround time and higher-quality output. All of these elements combined result in increased customer satisfaction.

Benefits of a scrum team:

Work happens simultaneously

Rather than working on various project components one after the other, Scrum teams work on them simultaneously. This helps partners save time by enabling them to make ongoing, crucial changes as the project progresses rather than at the very end. Furthermore, collaborating as a team while working concurrently encourages teams to incorporate different viewpoints into their work. The final products’ quality will only increase as a result. Because of this, scrum teams not only generate work of a higher caliber, but they also frequently do it in less time than is typically required.

Workflow processes are made clear

Within the scrum framework, there are particular workflow benchmarks that assist teams in staying focused and on task. Project planning, release planning, sprint planning, sprints, daily scrum, sprint review, and retrospective are all phases that scrum teams go through. Different collaborative processes are needed for each of these phases. For example, sprints are brief development cycles that last anywhere from one day to four weeks, during which the team concentrates on producing products that can be shipped. The workflow is more apparent for everyone since each team member is expected to participate in these phases, which have clear expectations.

Return on Investment (ROI) increases and risk decreases

Organizations that use scrum teams typically see an increase in return on investment (ROI), which indicates that the benefits of the investment outweigh the expenses. Teams using Scrum work faster and more effectively than teams using other frameworks. This implies that over time, they may even need less labor since they make fewer expensive errors. A company’s return on investment is frequently higher when it invests less in the completion of a high-value project. Furthermore, if an organization consistently collaborates with a scrum team that boosts ROI, it might encounter less investment risk in project management.

Team Morale Improves

Both the Scrum framework and the guiding Agile principles are fundamentally human-centered, focusing on the capabilities and workflows of the employees. Scrum teams place a high importance on in-person communication, self-organizing coalitions, feedback channels, and development sustainability. The Scrum framework also mandates a reflective process where teams evaluate what is and is not working for their project or product in order to modify workflow.

Challenges and Solutions of a Scrum Team:

Lack of Collaboration

Encourage open communication and foster a collaborative culture. Emphasize the importance of cross-functional collaboration to achieve Sprint goals.

Incomplete Understanding of Roles

Provide training and workshops to ensure that team members fully understand their roles and responsibilities. This clarity enhances accountability and performance.

Resistance to Change

Cultivate a mindset of adaptability. Clearly communicate the benefits of Agile and Scrum, and involve the team in decision-making processes to build ownership.

Poorly Defined Product Backlog

Collaborate closely with the Product Owner to ensure a well-defined and prioritized product backlog. Regularly review and refine backlog items to reflect changing requirements.

Ineffective Scrum Master

Provide continuous training and support for Scrum Masters. Foster a culture of mentorship and knowledge sharing to enhance the effectiveness of this crucial role.

Conclusion:

A Scrum Team is a small, self-organizing group of cross-functional individuals working together to deliver product increments. They focus on end-to-end delivery, minimize multitasking, and encourage long-term collaboration. Effective communication is key, and input from team members into team design is ideal. A Scrum Team is like a small family of experts working together to make cool things. They’re not too big, and everyone has their own special skills. The team decides how to do their work and takes care of everything from start to finish. They stick together for a long time to get really good at working together. It’s important that they talk to each other a lot but not too much, and everyone gets a say in how things are done. The main goal is to create awesome stuff and make sure everyone is doing what they’re best at.

FAQs on Scrum Team:

1. Should Scrum roles be merged?

Scrum roles should never be mixed together. For instance, a Product Owner and Scrum Master working together might spend more time glowing the product than clearing obstacles or facilitating team meetings.

2. Is a Scrum Master a project manager?‎

Although the roles are different, both project managers and Scrum Masters are capable of acting as Scrum Masters. Project managers manage multiple projects, but Scrum Masters are only concerned with Scrum teams.

3. Who needs a Scrum Master?‎

To make sure that Scrum is applied in accordance with the Scrum Guide’s recommendations, a Scrum Master is required. The Scrum Master’s job may become even more important if no team member has ever used Scrum.

4. What is the impact of multitasking on Scrum Teams?

Multitasking is discouraged, and a well-conceived Scrum team structure aims to minimize it to less than 20% to maintain optimal focus and productivity.

5. Can team members provide input into the design of the team?

Ideally, team members should have input into the design of their teams. During the early stages of a transition to Scrum, this may not always be immediately feasible.