ScrumMasters and Team Members

As I mentioned in my last post, Scrum only calls for three roles on a project. We get a ScrumMaster, a Team, and a Product Owner.

Pigs and Chickens

These three roles are the pigs... the ones that actually have skin in the game... the ones that are invested and will do the work. Scrum also talks about Chickens... management types that might have an interest in the project, but are not actually involved getting the work done. Never heard the story of the Pigs and Chickens? Click here to check it out.

This post we'll start with the roles of ScrumMaster and Team Member. We are going to try and sort out all these farm animals, figure out who is going to do what, and look at where some of our traditional project roles might fit in.

ScrumMasters

The ScrumMaster is reponsible for making sure the Scrum process is followed. These folks also make sure that impediments are identified and resolved in a timely manner. You might find one of the technical guys playing this role (in addition to their day job) but unless they've got the right facilitation and leadership skills, this can get a little complicated. I've seen developers and QA analysts do very well playing ScrumMaster, I've also seen them struggle.

Some people think this is a good place to put the Project Managers. Right now our industry has a bunch of Project Managers scrambling around to get their CSM certification. Many agile methodologies, Scrum included, don't call out the role of a Project Manager. The idea is that Project Managers aren't really necessary on a self-organizing team. Sometimes you get a Project Manager that plays the role well, but for now, we just need to understand that a ScrumMaster and a Project Manager are not the same thing.

ScrumMasters are process facilitators and support for the team. Project Managers are usually responsible for managing the team and ensuring that time, cost, and scope are balanced according to predefined project constraints. Project Managers usually have ultimate accountability for delivering the project and are authorized to spend money to make that happen. This is not the same as a ScrumMaster, ScrumMasters have no authority over the team. ScrumMasters are more servants of the team... Project Managers are more like a boss.

I used to think the ScrumMaster role was a good place to tuck our Project Managers... now I am not so sure. But that begs the question, if Project Managers are not ScrumMasters, are they Team Members? If not, are we suggesting Project Managers are left out all together?

Team Members

The team should be pretty easy to understand. These are the folks that do the heavy lifting getting the product built. The team decides the implementation details... they write the software... they make sure it is sufficiently tested. The team gets to define how the product is going to be built, and how long it will take, but don't really have a say in what get's built or in what order... that's the role of the Product Owner. The team reviews their work with the Product Owner to make sure it meets their acceptance criteria.

The development team, the database guys, and QA can probably be worked nicely into the role of Team Member. These folks have direct responsibility for designing, building, and testing the code. But what about the business analysts, systems analysts, and user experience specialists we talked about in the last post? These guys don't actually write the code... they more likely play a role in helping the Product Owner translate requirements for the developers and testers. Are they part of the team too? Maybe... that's where many of them end up today, but it's not a slam dunk.

For now at least it doesn't sound like we have a good home for Project Managers. We may have also left out the traditional requirements and design oriented roles as well. We still have yet to find a home for the other chickens we talked about earlier. Hmmm, I wonder if we are getting into trouble here.

Running Out of Roles?

If these traditional roles are not ScrumMasters or Team Members... where does that leave us? The only thing left is Product Owner. There is NO WAY that Scrum could save all these roles for the Product Owner, could it? Might we need to define a few extra roles to accommodate all these missing people in the development process?

(Jeff Sutherland is in Atlanta this week, maybe I'll have to ask him and let you guys know what he says ;-)

Next post we'll talk about the Product Owner role and see if we can figure out where to tuck all these extra project participants.

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Secretaries Make the Best ScrumMasters

Okay... so my writing is slowing down again.

I just spent the past few weeks preparing for Agile 2008 and now am in the thick of getting ready for the APLN Leadership Summit in Atlanta (http://summit.aplnatlanta.org) and preparing more presentations for talks coming up in the next few months. I have new found respect for folks that can write as a full time job. Being creative all the time is hard.

This article was my inaugural post for Artem Marchenko's blog Agile Software Development (http://www.agilesoftwaredevelopment.com). I'll be writing for Artem twice a month. The posts I do for ASD will show up there first, and then a week or so later, I'll share them on Leading Agile. If you are not currently subscribing to ASD, I highly recommend you fix that and add Artem to your RSS reader!

So… to get started, let's kick this thing off with a question… are you ready? Do you believe the title of this post?

If you do, don't feel bad, you are not alone. I have been working in project management and around project managers for years. Over that time, I have worked in traditional environments and agile environments. I have worked with PMPs and CSMs. It consistently amazes me the number of people that are converted into project managers for the sole reason they are good at following people around and asking them when they are going to be done.

Before I get into a full blown rant on this, and the potential is there because this issue really hacks me off, let's be fair… a ScrumMaster is not the same role as that of a project manager. A ScrumMaster is more of an enabler of the team. They are there to remove impediments. They are there to be a facilitator and to make sure the Scrum process is being properly implemented. The team is self-managing, self-organizing, and empowered. The team works with the product owner to get the project done. The ScrumMaster is there to enable the Scrum process.

By design, this is a barely sufficient description of what it means to be a project leader. This perspective breaks down at scale and it breaks down with a team that is not prepared to deal with the full implications of what it means to be empowered and self-organized. On most project teams I work with, the ScrumMaster is a project leader, sometimes even a manager or a director. They have a degree of accountability for the project that is equal to or greater than any other individual team member on the project.

When I've got serious money on the line, when I have made hard commitments to the market, I need someone that really understands how all this works. I need someone that can set the context and coordinate between the team and the business. I need a leader that understands methodology, someone that understands what it takes to build software, someone who understands the business domain and how to work with executives. I want someone that can motivate people, stay focused on the vision, and communicate the right information, at the right time, and tailored to the needs of the audience.

A really good project leader, or a really good ScrumMaster, should be able to help the team [not only] remove impediments but anticipate impediments. They need to help the team stay focused and manage risk. They need to be able to broker complex conversations and help the team come to consensus when communication breaks down and egos get in the way. Most importantly, they need the breadth of experience to help the team devise situationally specific strategies for solving complex business problems.

We need to hold our project leaders to a higher standard. We need to nurture and develop leaders that can do more than facilitate a meeting and go get the pizza when the team gets hungry. We need seasoned IT professionals that know how to balance agility and discipline. We need people that have the experience and judgment to take what they know and apply it for the good of the team and the good of the project. We need people that can really lead a self-organized, self-managing, and empowered team. We need people that can hold them accountable.

None of this is easy, and the people that can do this are really hard to find. I am sure there are many great secretaries, that with the right training and experience, could do a really bang up job leading software projects. I have worked with one or two over my career that I would hire in a heartbeat.

As an agile community, I believe that we undervalue the role of project leadership and the breadth of background and experience required to do it well. Much of the problem though is of our own making. Project managers, and even ScrumMasters, have been applying stupid, simple processes for way too long. We have been operating as if we have all the answers and the team is there to do what we tell them. It is our own fault that people don't generally want to have much to do with us. It is our own fault that we have people defining our role so lightly on agile teams as to make us irrelevant. The problem for us is that the ScrumMaster role is necessary but it is not sufficient.

As project managers, we need to focus more on servant leadership and situationally specific strategies. We need to focus less on checklists, Gantt charts, and documents that no one is going to read. Let's establish the right balance of agility and discipline and create a context that enables great project teams to deliver great product. When project management begins to make sense again, we'll start to see project managers recongnized as they professionals they are or should be.

And by the way... I am happy to go get the pizza and occasionally remove an impediment or two. Do you prefer peperoni or sausage?

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