Scrum Roles

In Scrum there are three roles - Product Owner, Development Team and Scrum Master. Together these are known as the Scrum Team.

Product Owner

A Product Owner has a vision. The vision could be anything like “sending a space ship to Mars by the end of Dec. 2014” or “developing a touch screen cellphone with certain features”. For an internal project, the Product Owner and the Customer could be the same. For some projects, he could be representing millions of people. In these  types of projects, the Product Owner is similar to the Product Manager of product organizations. But in Scrum, the Product Owner is different than the traditional  Product Manager. The Product Owner is more involved in the development process where as the Product Manager delegates the development tasks to the Project Manager. The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing return on investment (ROI) by identifying the product features, translating these features into a prioritized list, deciding which should be at the top of the list for the next Sprint, and continually re-prioritizing and refining the list. It is important to note that in Scrum, there is one and only one person who serves as – and has the final authority – the Product Owner, and he or she is responsible for the value of the work

The Team (Development Team)

The Development Team builds the product as per the Product Owner's vision. The Team in Scrum is cross-functional - it includes all the expertise needed to deliver a potentially shippable product increment. Development Team is also self-organizing and self-managing. It does not require a Project Manager or a Leader to manage itself. In Scrum there is no hierarchy of roles. All the team members are at the same level and are called simple team members. The Development Team is also a multi-skill team. Each team member has one primary, secondary and tertiary skill. All the team members are ready to learn newer skills and are always ready to help the Team to deliver potentially shippable product increment. The Development Team is Autonomous, it has freedom to govern itself and take decisions for its own. The Development Team is accountable for its deliverables. 

The Team size in Scrum Team is seven plus or minus two. For Software Development projects, it has different skills like Analysis, Design, Development, Automation, Testing etc. All the Team members are full time members. It is not expected that one team member is allocated partially to two different teams. In Scrum it is advised to have a co-located team for close coordination. But on account of Business reality,  we now have distributed Scrum Teams. It is also expected that there won't be any change in the Team during the Sprint. It is advised to continue the same team for multiple Sprints to achieve better results.

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master helps the Scrum Team to learn and apply Scrum principles to achieve business value. The Scrum Master does whatever in his capacity to help the Team, the Product Owner and the Organization to be successful. The Scrum Master is not a Project Manager. His role is of a facilitator or a coordinator. The Responsibilities of a Traditional Project Manager have been divided and reassigned to different roles in Scrum - mostly to the Team and the Product Owner. As a Scrum Master is not a Project Manager or a Leader, he does not assign the tasks to the team members or tell people what to do. He rather acts as a Scrum Coach and a Teacher. In this role, he helps the team to learn and apply Scrum Principles. In his role, he helps the team to remove the impediments and protects the team from outside interference. It is recommended to have a full time dedicated Scrum Master. In a small team one of the team members can play a role of a Scrum Master.

The Scrum Master and the Product Owner cannot be the same person as their primary focus is different and combining these two roles might lead to conflict. If a Product Owner is performing the role of a Scrum Master then it might lead to a situation of micro-managing Product Owner.