3. Roles

There are no hierarchies in Scrum, but there are roles with clear responsibilities. Each role has a specific set of responsibilities. Together, they all form the Scrum Team.

Product Owner

The Product Owner is responsible for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the Development Team's work. They are the only person responsible for managing the Product Backlog. Later we will talk about Scrum's artifacts, but it is basically a prioritized list of everything needed for the product.

Their responsibilities include:

• Developing and communicating the product vision.
• Defining and prioritizing the items in the Product Backlog.
• Ensuring the Product Backlog is visible, transparent, and clear to everyone.
• Ensuring the Development Team understands the items in the Product Backlog to the necessary level.

The Product Owner can delegate the management of the Product Backlog to the Development Team, but they remain responsible for its content, availability, and ordering.

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is responsible for promoting and supporting Scrum as defined in the Scrum Guide. They help everyone understand the theory, practices, rules, and values of Scrum.

• Serving the Product Owner by helping them find techniques to effectively manage the Product Backlog.
• Serving the Development Team by helping them create high-value products.
• Serving the organization by helping it adopt Scrum.

The Scrum Master is a facilitator and a servant leader who helps the team continuously improve and remove obstacles that may arise during the project's development.

Development Team

The Development Team is made up of professionals who work together to deliver potentially usable product increments at the end of each Sprint. Development teams are self-organizing and cross-functional, which means they have all the skills needed to complete the work without depending on others outside the team.

Their responsibilities are:

• Creating a Sprint Plan, the Sprint Backlog.
• Ensuring quality through the Definition of Done guidelines.
• Adapting their work plan daily to optimize the chances of meeting the Sprint goals.
• Being accountable to one another as professionals.

The ideal size of the Development Team is 10 members or fewer.

Now that we know the roles, let's look at the events that make up Scrum.