Agile Software Development is a set of software development methods in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams. It promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change.

Agile Software Development is a guiding ideology. Scrum and XP is the concrete methods. Scrum emphasizes process while XP emphasizes practice.

There are three core roles in the scrum framework:

Product owner

The product owner represents the stakeholders and is the voice of the customer, who is accountable for ensuring that the team delivers value to the business. The product owner writes (or has the team write) customer-centric items (typically user stories), ranks and prioritizes them, and adds them to the product backlog. Scrum teams should have one product owner, this role should not be combined with that of the scrum master. The product owner should be on the business side of the project, and should never interfere or interact with team members on the technical aspects of the development task. This role is equivalent to the customer representative role in some other agile frameworks. Role in requirements communication
Communication is a main function of the product owner. The ability to convey priorities and empathize with team members and stakeholders is vital to steer the project in the right direction. Product owners bridge the communication gap between the team and its stakeholders. They serve as a proxy stakeholder to the development team and as a project team representative to the overall stakeholder community. As the face of the team to the stakeholders, the following are some of the communication tasks of the product owner to the stakeholders:

  • demonstrates the solution to key stakeholders who were not present at a sprint review;
  • defines and announces releases;
  • communicates team status;
  • organizes milestone reviews;
  • educates stakeholders in the development process;
  • negotiates priorities, scope, funding, and schedule;
  • ensures that the product backlog is visible, transparent, and clear.

Empathy is a key attribute for a product owner to have—the ability to put one’s self in another’s shoes. A product owner converses with different stakeholders in the project, who have a variety of backgrounds, job roles, and objectives. A product owner must be able to see from these different points of view. To be effective, it is wise for a product owner to know the level of detail the audience needs. The development team needs thorough feedback and specifications so they can build a product up to expectation, while an executive sponsor may just need summaries of progress. Providing more information than necessary may lose stakeholder interest and waste time. There is also significant evidence that face-to-face communication around a shared sketching environment is the most effective way to communicate information instead of documentation. A direct means of communication is then most preferred by seasoned agile product owners. A product owner’s ability to communicate effectively is also enhanced by being skilled in techniques that identify stakeholder needs, negotiate priorities between stakeholder interests, and collaborate with developers to ensure effective implementation of requirements.

Development team

The development team is responsible for delivering potentially shippable increments (PSIs) of product at the end of each sprint (the sprint goal). A team is made up of 3–9 individuals who do the actual work (analyse, design, develop, test, technical communication, document, etc.). Development teams are cross-functional, with all of the skills as a team necessary to create a product increment. The development team in scrum is self-organizing, even though there may be some level of interface with project management offices (PMOs).

Scrum master

Scrum is facilitated by a scrum master, who is accountable for removing impediments to the ability of the team to deliver the product goals and deliverables. The scrum master is not a traditional team lead or project manager, but acts as a buffer between the team and any distracting influences. The scrum master ensures that the scrum process is used as intended. The scrum master helps ensure the team follows the agreed scrum processes, often facilitates key sessions, and encourages the team to improve. The role has also been referred to as a team facilitator or servant-leader to reinforce these dual perspectives. The core responsibilities of a scrum master include (but are not limited to):

  • Helping the product owner maintain the product backlog in a way that ensures the needed work is well understood so the team can continually make forward progress
  • Helping the team to determine the definition of done for the product, with input from key stakeholders
  • Coaching the team, within the scrum principles, in order to deliver high-quality features for its product
  • Promoting self-organization within the team
  • Helping the scrum team to avoid or remove impediments to its progress, whether internal or external to the team
  • Facilitating team events to ensure regular progress
  • Educating key stakeholders in the product on scrum principles

One of the ways the scrum master role differs from a project manager is that the latter may have people management responsibilities and the scrum master does not. Scrum does not formally recognise the role of project manager, as traditional command and control tendencies would cause difficulties

Scrum Model
Task Board
Plan Card

Learn more:
http://www.cnblogs.com/taven/archive/2010/10/17/1853386.html
http://www.scrumcn.com/agile/scrum-knowledge-library/scrum.html#tab-id-1
http://www.cnblogs.com/stay/archive/2011/08/23/2151329.html

comments powered by Disqus