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About this lesson

Agile Scrum projects rely on the leadership of the Scrum Master and Product Owner to assist the project team in accomplishing the project tasks. While neither of these individuals will be the project leader in a classic sense, both take on some of the typical responsibilities of project leadership that are necessary for effective project management.

Quick reference

Scrum Master/Product Owner

The classic project leader roles is split on an Agile Scrum Process.  The Scrum Master facilitates the process but does not have decision-making authority.  The Product Owner role is the person who is responsible for establishing and explaining the desired project scope.

When to use

The Scrum Master and Product Owner roles have important activities before, during, and after a Sprint.

Instructions

In this lesson, we emphasize the role of the Scrum Master and Product Owner during the Sprint. 

The Scrum Master ensures the Agile/Scrum process is being followed and acts as coach and facilitator to the Scrum Team.  It is much more important that the Scrum Master have strong interpersonal skills than any specific set of technical skills, including traditional project management skills. Responsibilities during the Sprint:

  • Facilitator, timekeeper, and scribe during the Scrum Meetings.
  • Maintain the Scrum Board and Burn Down Chart.
  • Remove Roadblocks.
  • Train, coach and encourage the team as required concerning the Agile/Scrum process.
  • Prevent process tampering by senior management or Product Owner.
  • Ensure adequate support from Product Owner.

The Product Owner is responsible for identifying and managing the project scope, including both required deliverables and the level of acceptable performance for all deliverables.  During a Sprint, their responsibilities are:

  • The first step in a Sprint is the Sprint Planning meeting and the Product Owner is there to explain each Story Card to the Scrum Team – both the Story and the Demo Criteria.  This often requires a thorough understanding of the Story, 
  • The Product Owner prioritizes the Sprint Backlog – which may be a different priority than the overall Product Backlog for the project.
  • As the Scrum Team works on the Stories, questions needing clarification will often arise.  The Product Owner answers those questions (or finds the answer) for the Scrum Team.
  • The Scrum Team may suggest modifications to a story as they are working on it, either because of the difficulty of the story or because they have uncovered something better.  The Product Owner will review the requested modifications and decide whether to change the story or not.
  • The Product Owner may be called upon to assist the Scrum Master to remove roadblocks, especially if the roadblock requires negotiation with a stakeholder that the Product Owner has been working with.
  • The Product Owner is the prime interface with stakeholders during the Sprint.
  • The final activity of the Sprint is the Sprint Demo and the Product Owner is the reviewer of the Stories at the Sprint Demo.

Hints & tips

  • A good Scrum Master will recognize when the Scrum Team has team dynamic problems and works to resolve them.
  • The Scrum Master must protect the team from outside distractions.
  • The Product Owner is often swamped with internal politics.  Especially if there are conflicting requirements from different stakeholders.  Ensure the Product Owner is savvy about internal politics.
  • A Product Owner can change any part of any Story between Sprints.  However, during a Sprint, the Product Owner should not change a Story that is part of the Sprint Backlog without a discussion with the Scrum Team so that all understand the new Story and why the change is needed.
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  • 00:00 Hi I'm Ray Sheen, I'd like to talk with you now about the roles
  • 00:05 of Scrum Master and product owner on Agile projects.
  • 00:10 These roles are responsible for some of the duties of a classical project manager.
  • 00:15 Let's start with a high level description of each of the major roles on an agile
  • 00:20 scrum project.
  • 00:21 The product owner is the voice of the customer on the project.
  • 00:24 They are heavily involved at the beginning and the end.
  • 00:27 They establish the project story cards which have the list of requirements and
  • 00:32 they prioritize those for the team.
  • 00:34 At the end of the project,
  • 00:35 they review the results to determine if they're acceptable to the customers.
  • 00:40 As part of their role, they're the communication channel
  • 00:43 between the customers of the project work and the project team.
  • 00:47 The Scrum Master is the facilitator of the agile scrum process.
  • 00:50 It's their job to remove any barriers that are preventing the project team from
  • 00:55 working effectively as possible.
  • 00:57 To assist in this, they maintain the scrum board which tracks progress and
  • 01:01 helps to identify problems.
  • 01:03 They also maintain the burn down chart which helps to estimate project
  • 01:06 completion status.
  • 01:07 They're ensuring communication within the project team and
  • 01:11 they work on external risk issues.
  • 01:14 The scrum team also performs some of the classic project manager role.
  • 01:18 They are doing the estimating of the work during the sprint planning and
  • 01:23 they are doing the execution of the work that they have just estimated.
  • 01:27 During the sprint planning, they work with the product owner to
  • 01:31 determine what stories can be done during the upcoming sprint.
  • 01:34 These stories then become the elements of the sprint backlog,
  • 01:38 which is the project plan for the sprint.
  • 01:41 So what is the role of the senior management?
  • 01:44 A key point to make is that during the sprint they have no role.
  • 01:48 They're to stay hands off and not meddle with the team.
  • 01:51 Where they engage is through the product owner.
  • 01:54 They can provide requirements that are translated into stories and
  • 01:58 at the invitation of the product owner, they can participate in the sprint demo.
  • 02:03 One other point is that they are the ones who authorize and fund the project, so
  • 02:08 they have that responsibility.
  • 02:10 However, for a given sprint, they work through the product owner.
  • 02:14 Let's look a little deeper at the Scrum Master role.
  • 02:17 I want to contrast this with the role of a project leader in traditional projects.
  • 02:22 The Scrum Master has no decision making authority with respect to the work of
  • 02:26 the sprint.
  • 02:27 Their job is to facilitate the process.
  • 02:30 The Scrum Master skill set is heavily weighted towards interpersonal skills such
  • 02:35 as coach facilitator and trainer.
  • 02:37 They keep the team encouraged and on track.
  • 02:40 They also need strong problem solving skills because they have a responsibility
  • 02:45 to resolve the roadblocks or impediments that the scrum team uncovers.
  • 02:49 Note that this does not mean that they do the hard tasks.
  • 02:53 It means that when the team encounters a barrier that prevents them from working
  • 02:58 effectively, the Scrum Master works to remove that barrier.
  • 03:02 The Scrum Master does not provide direction to the scrum team.
  • 03:05 This is because the team is a self organized collaborative team.
  • 03:09 They decide how best to do the work.
  • 03:11 The Scrum Master is there to help them with internal team problems and
  • 03:15 to resolve roadblocks.
  • 03:17 Many times, that means the Scrum Master is helping to negotiate between team members.
  • 03:22 And helps to ensure team members struggling with a decision gets
  • 03:26 the information encouragement they need to make the decision.
  • 03:30 And as I mentioned earlier, the Scrum Master maintains the project artifacts
  • 03:34 of a scrum board and burn down chart.
  • 03:36 This is part of the facilitation of communication.
  • 03:39 In some cases, they must also facilitate the accountability of the team to
  • 03:44 get the work done.
  • 03:45 A good scrum team does not blame each other for problems, but
  • 03:48 works together to solve them.
  • 03:50 They often need a negotiator to help with that.
  • 03:54 Now let's look at the product owner role.
  • 03:57 The product owner is responsible for managing the project requirements.
  • 04:01 The project scope,
  • 04:02 they will interface with stakeholders to collect those requirements.
  • 04:06 That includes the external stakeholders like customers and users.
  • 04:09 It also includes all of the internal stakeholders.
  • 04:12 So that means that the departments and
  • 04:14 operating locations that will be affected by the results of the project.
  • 04:18 And they will probably need to connect with people at various levels
  • 04:21 in the organization in order to fully understand the deliverables and
  • 04:25 requirements.
  • 04:26 All this is happening before the sprint.
  • 04:29 Once they have all the requirements,
  • 04:31 they must prioritize them from number one to number last.
  • 04:35 And what becomes challenging is that during the project,
  • 04:39 the priorities will often change.
  • 04:41 As work is completed or
  • 04:42 new information becomes available the priorities are updated.
  • 04:46 The product owner must review the priorities prior to each sprint and
  • 04:51 make the right changes.
  • 04:52 Every deliverable and every requirement must be written on a story card.
  • 04:57 That means both the story of what the project result must do,
  • 05:00 but also the detailed description of the demo criteria, the definition of done for
  • 05:05 that story.
  • 05:06 During the project, the almost the story card often need clarification
  • 05:10 as the features of deliverables become better defined.
  • 05:14 And of course, it's the product owner who provides that clarification.
  • 05:18 A big portion of the product owner's work occurs after each sprint demo and
  • 05:23 before the next sprint starts.
  • 05:25 They must assess the impact of the performance from the previous sprint on
  • 05:29 the overall project objectives.
  • 05:31 In some cases new stories are needed, in some cases current stories are deleted.
  • 05:36 And often existing stories must be modified especially when the work done
  • 05:40 by the team doesn't measure up to what the stakeholders really wanted done.
  • 05:45 Finally, during project operations,
  • 05:47 the product owner is the person who is talking to senior management and
  • 05:51 answering their questions about status and updates to goals or objectives.
  • 05:56 This protects the project team from interruptions that derail the project.
  • 06:01 Throughout the operations of an agile scrum project, the Scrum Master and
  • 06:06 product owner have key roles that they must fill to keep the project team on
  • 06:10 track and productive.

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