Scrum Development Team Roles and Responsibilities: A Complete Guide

The Development Team is an essential part of a Scrum Team. Scrum Development Team Roles include creating products and services and meeting the goals at the end of every Sprint. They are a self-organising and cross-functional team of people. If you want to learn more about What a Scrum Team is and the roles and Responsibilities of a Scrum Development Team, read this blog. 

Table of Contents 

1) What is a Scrum Team? 

2) Characteristics of the Scrum Development Team 

3) Roles and Responsibilities of Scrum Development Team 

4) What is the optimal size for the Development Team? 

5) Conclusion 

What is a Scrum Team? 

A Scrum Team is a group of people (typically five to eleven) working collaboratively on various tasks and responsibilities to complete the project using Scrum. They are self-motivated people who share a standard set of norms and rules. The Scrum Team members communicate extensively to ensure they work on the common goal. Scrum Team stands on three Scrum pillars. These are mentioned below: 

1) Transparency 

2) Inspection 

3) Adaptation
 

Characteristics of the Scrum Development Team 

Development Teams are well-structured members who organise and manage their work. They need to have specific characteristics to fulfil their responsibilities. So, Let's discuss some of them below: 

1) Self-organised: The Development team is self-organised. They need to be directed on how much work they need to do or how to achieve the Sprint goal. They plan themselves in the Sprint meeting, though the Scrum Master checks they follow the correct process. 

2) Cross-functional: The Development team is mostly cross-functional. The members have varied skills necessary to complete the Sprint goal, which helps them control their work without depending on others. 

3) No individual titles: The Development team does not have separate titles. They do not get any title, irrespective of their work within Sprint. 

4) No sub-teams: There is no sub-team within the Development team, regardless of various domains such as testing team, coding team, UI team, architecture team, etc. This is the reason why development is always multi-skilled. 

5) Team accountability: No individual member is alone accountable for the project. Together, they are responsible for achieving the Sprint goal. The Development team does not rely on only one person to do a particular task. 

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Roles and Responsibilities of Scrum Development Team 

The Scrum Development Team creates the product development increment and meets the Sprint objective. They perform several other responsibilities during the Sprint. Some of these are discussed below:
 

1) Arrange Sprint activities: The Development Team participates in a Sprint planning meeting at the start with the Product Owner and Scrum Master. The team aids the product owner in setting the Sprint goal and deciding how much realistic work is required to meet it. Additionally, the team clarifies their doubts about the requirement with the product owner. 

2) Execute Sprint tasks: After completing the Sprint planning, the Development Team spends most of its time on Sprint execution. They receive a Sprint backlog and a Sprint goal to work on. The team designs, builds, integrates, and tests the Sprint backlog items to develop the product. 

3) Daily review to achieve Sprint objectives: The team attends Daily Scrum meetings to examine the progress toward the Sprint goal. They adjust their changes based on their growth, which helps them know there will be no surprises at the end of the Sprint. 

4) Refine the product backlog: The Development Team also grooms the backlog. However, they mainly focus on finishing the Sprint backlog. The team helps the Product Owner refine, estimate, and prioritise the items in the backlog. 

5) Review and adjust product and process: The Development Team performs two tasks at the end of each Sprint, which includes a Sprint Review and a Sprint Retrospective. In the Sprint Review, the team reveals what they had accomplished in the Sprint with the participation of other teams. In the Sprint Retrospective, the Development Team, Product Owner, and Scrum Master review Sprint's execution and areas of improvement. 

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What is the optimal size for the Development Team? 

The Scrum Development Team does not have any fixed size. It depends on one Scrum Team to another. Preferably, the team must be small enough to remain 'agile' and large enough to complete the work in a specific Sprint.   

Suppose the team has at most three members. The number of interactions will be less, leading to less productivity. A too-small Development Team may face skill constraints during the ongoing Sprint.   

Now, the Scrum Development Team has more than nine members, so coordination issues may arise. A Substantial Development Team creates unnecessary complexity, and empirical processes are only sometimes used in those cases. 

Conclusion 

We hope you read and understand Scrum Development Team Roles and Responsibilities. The Scrum Team comprises a Product Owner, a Scrum Master, and a Development Team. The Development Team is the professional team responsible for creating the project deliverables along with other Scrum Teams. Their main roles are understanding the business needs and developing the products and services. 

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