Team Roles and Responsibilities

Different from other methods, in Scrum a team does not just take direction from a project leader. The team works together to decide which requirements it can accomplish in each sprint – the team, in effect, becomes its own manager. This new self-conception of the team necessarily changes how the project is managed. The changed role perception is one of the most important aspects, when someone wants to understand Scrum and how it influences how projects are developed.

That being said, there are always decisions that need to be made and specific work that needs to get done. In these cases, it is often useful to designate someone to be responsible for doing it. These roles highlight just a few of the many roles you might be asked to take on during the semester. We expect that someone on the team will be responsible for each of these roles at all times during the semester so that none of the basic responsibilities fall through the cracks. However, we strongly suggest each student spends some time in each role during the semester you get a more complete understanding of the software development life cycle.

Project Manager

• Primary contact for team
• Removes impediments to progress
• Maintain project milestones and timeline
• Communicate project status to instructors
• Manages Sprint tasks on Issue Board

Business Analyst

• Primary client contact
• Understands and represents client needs
• Communicate project status to client
• Coordinates client meetings
• Manages project documents

Quality Assurance Lead

• Provides direction about what testing is necessary to insure project quality
• Communicate testing status to developers
• Manages (but not necessarily produces) project tests

Technical Lead

• Provides direction in technical matters, such as solution platform (iOS, Android, Web), database, languages, toolkits, design patterns
• Communicate technical risks or issues to team
• Final authority in making technical decisions if team cannot reach a decision
• Manages repository, build and deployment tasks