What is a Developer in Scrum?
Scrum only has three accountabilities. Product Owner, Scrum Master & Developer. The purpose of this short article is to share examples of how traditional waterfall roles may fit within a Scrum Team.
The common challenge organisations face when introducing Scrum, is that they desire to ship code faster. Whereas Scrum is about the purposeful delivery of value in a sustainable way.
Developers in Scrum = Anyone that is important to create increments of value for a Product. Coder, Tester, UX, BA, Operations, Marketing, Sales Expert, Juggler — If you need those skills to create value? Get them in the team.
The Scrum Team is responsible for all product-related activities from stakeholder collaboration, verification, maintenance, operation, experimentation, research and development, and anything else that might be required. — 2020 Scrum Guide
This team has everything needed to take a Product Backlog Item to Done. With ‘Done’ meaning:
Done: Adj. Having been carried out or accomplished, finished.
The Definition of Done in Scrum is a Commitment to product quality.
The Definition of Done is a formal description of the state of the Increment when it meets the quality measures required for the product. — 2020 Scrum Guide
The Developers, Product Owner and the Scrum Master form the Scrum Team. The Scrum team together, as equals, are accountable for the product.
Here are some examples, how the ‘traditional’ roles fit within a Scrum team as Developers.
Coder “Technical”
Front End, Back end, DBA, anything else — anyone required to create an increment of value, is a Developer in Scrum. This is the one area of a development team that is quite clear. It is common to mistake that the Scrum team ends with Development, or Development and testing.
All work completed within the Scrum Team is by Developers. Writing code is only a part of development.
Tester
Someone who tests product functionality is a Developer as part of a Scrum team. Developers work together to deliver an increment of value, within a Sprint. Testing to the domains standard will be an important part of the Scrum Teams Definition of Done.
Coding and Testing go together. As opposed to a more traditional Waterfall testing role, a testing first mindset is key. This is where techniques such as TDD & BDD can be powerful.
UX Designer
A UX designer helps bring to life the technical parts of the product into something the customer can use. They are experts in usability and gathering customer feedback.
A UX designer is a Developer focused on UX. Within the Scrum Team, Developers collaborate to wireframe and proto-type the increment. They are essential in the Sprint Review, capturing stakeholder & customer feedback.
Business Analyst
Business Analysts have an essential skill set. They know the business inside and out. They know the good, the bad and the ugly.
Different from some of the other skills, there could be an argument that a BA could be used inside the team or outside the Scrum Team as key stakeholders.
Scrum Teams are cross-functional, meaning the members have all the skills necessary to create value each Sprint. They are also self-managing, meaning they internally decide who does what, when, and how. — 2020 Scrum Guide
In a self-managing Scrum Team, the best use of a BA in a Scrum team is as a developer from within it. The Scrum Team works together to understand the business problem they are there to solve. A BA as a developer helps guide the rest of the team to achieve the Sprint Goal and more specifically, the potential business value the goal would unlock. To continue to ensure that the increment meets the Definition of Done.
A Business Analyst may also be one of the developers who overlap with the Product Owner the most. In some instances, they could even be the best person to be a Product Owner. This could be helping the Product Owner create personas, user stories and impact maps, etc.
Architecture
In complex environments, what will happen is unknown. Only what has already happened may be used for forward-looking decision making. — Scrum Guide 2020.
Software development is complex. In the complex domain, architecture is emergent and comes from the Scrum Team itself. So, where does an architecture role sit? It could be outside the team, guiding the team to ensure their Increments remain scalable.
A better option would be within the team. A cross-functional team has everything needed to create an increment of value. If architectural knowledge is required to deliver that value, get them in the team.
Infrastructure/Operations
An operational role may also fall within a Scrum team if we create Product teams over Project teams. The Product team has everyone inside it who can take the backlog item to life. If the ability to deploy into production is the goal, get them in the team!
Thank you!
This article has been truly swarmed on in its creation. Thank you to Sam, Ian, Doug, John, Max, Matt, Phil, Willem-Jan & Sjoerd.
