Scrum Roles - Q&A

Scrum Intro.

Scrum Guide.

Here are some scrum Q&A.

Scrum Master

Explain at least three ways the scrum master could support the product owner.

• Ensure that goals, scope, and product domain are understood by everyone on the scrum team as clearly as possible
• Finding techniques for effective product backlog management
• Helping the scrum team understand the need for clear and concise product backlog items
• Understanding product planning in an empirical environment
• Ensure the product owner knows how to arrange the product backlog to maximize value
• Understanding and practicing agility
• Facilitating scrum events as requested or needed

List at least three rights of the scrum master

• Ensure that the scrum events take place
• Ensure that each scrum event does not exceed its time box
• Ensure that non-team members do not disrupt the daily scrum
• Participate as a peer team member in the retrospective
• Encourage the scrum team to improve
• Experiment with new ideas
• Have access to stakeholders and decision makers
• Address issues openly

List at least two responsibilities of the scrum master, not directly associated with a scrum event.

• Not telling the developers how to turn product backlog items into increments of potentially releasable functionality
• Helping everyone understand scrum theory, practices, rules, and values
• Providing servant leadership to the team and organization
• Helping those outside the scrum team understand which of their interactions with the scrum team are helpful and which are not
• Helping everyone change their interactions to maximize the value created by the scrum team
• Using retrospective activities, liberating structures, or analysis techniques to assist the scrum team with impediments

Describe at least three responsibilities for the scrum master during sprint planning.

• Facilitate as requested or needed
• Ensure that the event takes place
• Ensure that participants understand the purpose of sprint planning
• Teach the scrum team to keep it within the time-box

Describe at least three responsibilities for the scrum master during daily scrum.

• Facilitating as requested or needed
• Ensure that the event takes place
• Ensure that participants understand the purpose of the daily scrum
• Teach the scrum team to keep it within the time-box
• Ensure that non-team members do not disrupt the daily scrum

Describe at least three responsibilities for the scrum master during sprint review.

• Facilitating as requested or needed
• Ensure that the event takes place
• Ensure that participants understand the purpose of sprint review
• Teach everyone how to keep it within the time-box

Describe at least three responsibilities for the scrum master during the retrospective.

• Facilitating as requested or needed
• Ensure that the event takes place
• Ensure that participants understand the purpose of the sprint retrospective
• Teach everyone how to keep it within the time-box
• Ensure that the meeting is positive and productive
• Participate as a peer team member in the meeting

Product Owner

Discuss at least two reasons why the product owner is a single person and not a group or a committee.

• Having one person with the authority to set priorities for the team leads to greater focus and clarity than having that authority be distributed. When multiple stakeholders can ask the team to do work, the amount of work in progress tends to go up, and efficiency tends to go down.
• With only one product owner, it is clear who the stakeholders should take their requests to. This eliminates confusion for the stakeholders. It also makes it clear who has ultimate responsibility for the ROI of the product.

List at least three rights of the product owner.

• Add, remove, and order items in the product backlog
• Delegate backlog refinement work, while remaining accountable for it
• Only the product owner may direct the team as to what items to work on.
• Have their product decisions respected by everyone in the organization

List at least two responsibilities of the product owner, not directly associated with a scrum event.

• Clearly expressing product backlog items
• Ordering the items in the product backlog to best achieve goals and missions
• Optimizing the value derived from the work of the developers
• Ensure the product backlog is visible and clear to all, and shows what the scrum team will most likely work on next
• Ensure the developers understand items in the product backlog

Describe at least three responsibilities for the product owner during sprint planning.

• Explain and discuss the desired objective for the sprint
• Identify and clarify the product backlog items that would achieve the sprint goal
• Collaborate with the developers to establish the sprint goal
• Collaborate with the developers to create the forecast of product backlog items to be completed in the sprint
• Make trade-offs based on feedback from the developers

Describe at least three responsibilities for the product owner during daily scrum.

• Support the developers’ self-management, avoid directing the day’s work plan
• Do not disrupt the developers as they hold the daily scrum
• Answer questions and offer clarification as needed
• Support the team in overcoming impediments

Describe at least three responsibilities for the product owner during sprint review.

• Invite stakeholders to the sprint review
• Identify and explain if the sprint goal was met, or not
• Explain which product backlog items have met the definition of done and which have not
• Discuss the product backlog as it stands
• Project likely delivery dates based on progress so far
• Review how the marketplace or potential use of the product may have changed and what appears to be the most valuable thing to do next
• Review the timeline, budget, potential capabilities, and marketplace for the next anticipated releases of the product
• Discuss progress toward the product goal

Describe at least three responsibilities for the product owner during the retrospective.

• Participate in the inspection of how the last sprint went with regards to people, relationships, process, tools, and the definition of done
• Participate in identifying the most helpful changes to improve the scrum team’s effectiveness
• Participate in the creation of a plan for implementing improvements to the way the scrum team does its work

Developers

List at least five characteristics of the developers (from the 2017 Scrum Guide).

• They are self-organizing. No one, not even the scrum master, tells the developers how to turn product backlog items into increments of potentially releasable functionality.
• Developers are cross-functional, with all the skills as a team necessary to create a product increment.
• Scrum recognizes no other titles for developers, regardless of the work being performed by the person.
• Scrum recognizes no sub-teams in the developers, regardless of domains that need to be addressed like testing, architecture, operations, or business analysis.
• Individual developers may have specialized skills and areas of focus, but accountability belongs to the developers as a whole.

List at least three rights of the developers

• Produce quality work
• Provide their own estimates
• Sign up for work rather than be assigned work
• Organize and manage their own work

List at least two responsibilities of the developers, not directly associated with a scrum event.

• Instilling quality by adhering to a definition of done
• Holding each other accountable as professionals
• Produce a valuable (usable) product increment which meets the definition of done, each and every sprint
• Continuously improve their development practices
• Create estimates (product backlog refinement activities are not considered an event in the scrum framework)
• Assist the product owner in maintaining and refining the product backlog

Describe at least three responsibilities for the developers during sprint planning.

• Determine the number of items selected from the product backlog for the sprint
• Forecast the functionality that will be developed during the sprint
• Collaborate with the product owner to create the sprint goal
• Select items from the product backlog to include in the current sprint
• Decide how they will build a product increment during the sprint that meets the sprint goal and the definition of done
• Design the system and the work needed to create the product increment
• Be able to explain to the product owner and scrum master how they intend to work as a self-managing team to accomplish the sprint goal and create the anticipated increment

Describe at least three responsibilities for the developers during daily scrum.

• Conducting the daily scrum
• Plan work for the next 24 hours
• Inspect progress toward the sprint goal
• Adapt the sprint backlog as necessary
• Identify impediments

Describe at least three responsibilities for the developers during sprint review.

• Demonstrate the work that has met the definition of done
• Answer questions about the product increment
• Discuss progress toward the product goal
• Collaborate with the product owner and stakeholders on what to do next

Describe at least three responsibilities for the developers during the retrospective.

• Participate in the inspection of how the last sprint went with regards to people, relationships, process, tools, and the definition of done
• Participate in identifying the most helpful changes to improve the scrum team’s effectiveness
• Participate in the creation of a plan for implementing improvements to the way the scrum team does its work

Final Jeopardy

Discuss how and why the product owner maintains authority over the product while working collaboratively with the developers and stakeholders.

How:

The product owner collaborates with the rest of the scrum team and the stakeholder community to gather ideas and input about what the product should be and what to build next. Still, only the product owner may add, remove, edit, or reorder items in the product backlog. Only the product owner may ask the team to do work.

Why:

This reduces interruptions and distractions for the developers. By providing clear focus, the product owner enables the developers to develop more value, more rapidly.

Describe three scenarios where the scrum master acts as a leader for the scrum team.

• The scrum master provides leadership by teaching the team the purpose of each scrum event and helping them accomplish each within the specified time box.
• The scrum master works with leadership to implement the scrum framework in a way that supports the team in self-organization.
• The scrum master offers the service of facilitation to help the team, and the greater organization, identify and achieve their goals more effectively.
• Teaching, coaching and mentoring the organization and team in adopting and using scrum.
• Shielding the team from disturbance.
• Encouraging, supporting and enabling the team to grow and improve.

Discuss why scrum does not have a project manager and what happens to traditional project management activities.

The duties of a project manager gets split between the product owner, scrum master, and developers. The product owner makes sure the business is kept up to date about the product, the schedule, and the budget. Along with the developers, they make decisions that manage risk. The scrum master is the process expert, facilitator, and chief impediment remover. The developers make estimates, decide how much work will be brought in to the sprint, and decide who will do the work, and when, during the sprint.