Scrum Roles

Core Roles are those roles which are mandatorily required for producing the product of the project, are committed to the project, and ultimately are responsible for the success of each Sprint within the project and of the project as a whole.

There are three core roles in Scrum that are ultimately responsible for meeting the project objectives. The core roles are the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Scrum Team or the Development team. Together they are referred to as the Scrum Core Team. It is important to note that, of these three roles, no role has authority over the others.

• Product Owner: The Product Owner is the person responsible for maximizing business value for the project. He or she is responsible for articulating customer requirements and maintaining business justification for the project. The Product Owner represents the Voice of the Customer.
• Scrum Master: The Scrum Master is a facilitator who ensures that the Scrum Team is provided with an environment conducive to completing the product’s development successfully. The Scrum Master guides, facilitates, and teaches Scrum practices to everyone involved in the project; clears impediments for the team; and, ensures that Scrum processes are being followed. Note that the Scrum Master role is very different from the role played by the Project Manager in a traditional Waterfall model of project management, in which the Project Manager works as a manager or leader for the project. The Scrum Master only works as a facilitator and he or she is at the same hierarchical level as anyone else in the Scrum Team—any person from the Scrum Team who learns how to facilitate Scrum projects can become the Scrum Master for a project or for a Sprint.
• Scrum Team (Development Team): The Scrum Team (Development Team) is a group or team of people who are responsible for understanding the business requirements specified by the Product Owner, estimating User Stories, and finally creating the project Deliverables.

Non-core roles are those roles which are not mandatorily required for the Scrum project and may include team members who are interested in the project. They have no formal role in the project team and may interface with the team but may not be responsible for the success of the project. The non-core roles should be considered in any Scrum project. Non-core roles include the following:

• Business Stakeholder(s), which is a collective term that includes customers, users, and sponsors, frequently interface with the Scrum Core Team and influence the project throughout the project’s development. Most importantly, it is for the business stakeholders that the project produces collaborative benefits.
• Scrum Guidance Body (SGB) is an optional role, which generally consists of a set of documents and/or a group of experts who are typically involved with defining objectives related to quality, government regulations, security, and other key organizational parameters. This SGB guides the work carried out by the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Scrum Team.
• Vendors, including external individuals or organizations, provide products and/or services that are not within the core competencies of the project organization.

The figure summarizes the Organization in Scrum.