Elastic Role BoundariesChris Priest & Katrina Clokie

How do you explain roles in an agile team?

Let’s imagine a project team with three roles

Business Analyst

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DeveloperR

TesterR

In agile, these roles are likely to overlap rather than be entirely

separate

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DeveloperR

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Some tasks will belong to a certain role while others will be shared

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Some tasks will fall outside the bounds of any role

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So someone in the team has to stretch to pick this task up

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As more of these tasks appear…

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… the team will be stretched in many different directions

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Now imagine the boundary of your role is elastic

Once you have completed a task that falls outside of your role

The boundary of your role snaps back to its original shape

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Where we have stretched, our elastic role boundary distorts

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These distortions mean that when the same task appears again…

…it may be easier for the same role to stretch and pick it up

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Business Analyst

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It’s not always easier for the same person to stretch though

Imagine one role has a lot of tasks

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Then the stretch might come from a role who has never completed that

task before

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We may also stretch between roles to help each other out…

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…but the elastic always snaps back.

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What happens when somebody leaves the team?

A new person will join with brand new elastic…

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…that may alter who is best suited to stretch towards a task

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Elastic boundaries highlight the difference between tasks and

enduring commitments

Though we are flexible in taking ownership of small activities…

…the elastic boundary reflects our natural tendencies and strongest competency.

Within our role we work to increase our skills…

…to anticipate problems…

…and to be accountable.

“Without enduring rolesthere are eternal amateurs”

James Bach

The idea for this presentation stemmed from collaborative discussion at the fifth annual Kiwi Workshop for Software Testing (KWST5) with

James Bach, Oliver Erlewein, Richard Robinson, Aaron Hodder, Sarah Burgess, Andy Harwood, Adam Howard, Mark Boyt, Mike Talks,

Joshua Raine, Scott Griffiths, John Lockhart, Sean Cresswell, Rachel Carson, Till Neunast, James Hailstone, and David Robinson.

Chris Priest@cbpriest78

Katrina Clokie@katrina_test

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