Teamwork and roles in student Scrums

Most software is designed by teams

…but merely throwing people together does not result in a functioning team

To be an effective SE, you have to be able to work on a team.

Real software is large and complex

Teams must work together to:– Agree on goals– Plan their projects– Track their progress– Coordinate activities– Share a common process– Communicate freely

Effective teams have structure

Without structures in place at the start, unorganized teams naturally build them:– Agreeing on goals– Defining a common process– Selecting a leader– Assigning responsibilities

Ultimately, this might be a good exercise, but the team may spend (or waste) large amounts of time by doing so. Conflict and confusion are natural parts of the self-convergence process.

Predefined process frameworks can help teams operate effectively

Scrum is a framework that is characterized by:– Short development cycles (sprints)– Self-directed teams– Dedication to performance and

quality– Process discipline

Software Engineering requires more process self-discipline than other engineering fields

– Most other engineering fields release their designs to others for production

– Software Engineers produce the product almost entirely themselves

A well-defined process helps

Some typical roles and responsibilities used in various process frameworks

Quality Manager – responsible for testing

Team Leader – supervisor/manager; problem solver

Process Manager – makes sure process rules are followed

Contact Manager – handles communication to the outside

Requirements Manager – makes sure the work conforms to spec

Planning Manager – monitors progress

Support Manager - infrastructure

Development Manager – technical guru

Configuration Manager – protects the code

Why have Roles?

Without roles, it can be difficult for an individual team member to understand what needs to be done

– Who’s responsible for what?

– When should it be done?

– Is someone else already doing it?

Explicit team roles address these types of concerns by distributing responsibilities among team members

Some processes (e.g. TSP and others) define specific roles for many team members

Formal Scrum assumes team members are experienced enough to interchangeably cover all needed roles

Roles and Responsibilities in SDLDevelopment Lead – monitors progress on tasks, looks for emergent problems

Quality Lead – monitors reviews, approves pull requests

CI Lead – monitors the builds and deployments

Process Lead – monitors time logs, story and task status

Your Role/Responsibilitiy will change periodically