Scrum Team in a Nutshell

Making Scrum work well is mostly about getting the roles right, both understanding them and ensuring that each role can fulfill its obligations to the team and the project.

The 2020 Scrum Guide introduced and implicitly redefined the terms ‘accountability’ and ‘responsibility.’ Responsibility is what you do. Accountability is what you contribute to the team and the whole. It is why you are there.

Focusing on accountability conveys the spirit, ‘We are one team with a common goal, and everybody contributes.” Roles, on the other hand, often delimit territory. “This my lawn, that’s your lawn. Respect the boundaries!”

Let’s not get uptight about whether we say “role” or “accountability”. People have been saying toe-mae-toe and toe-mah-toe for decades and have somehow managed to get along with each other! Let’s focus instead on the contribution of the Scrum Team and its members.

The Scrum Team is responsible for all product-related activities. It is accountable for creating a valuable, useful increment every sprint. It is expected to have all the skills and authority necessary to create value each sprint.

The Product Owner is accountable for maximizing the value of the product and managing the
Product Backlog effectively.

The Developers are accountable for creating the product increment each sprint. It’s expected to work properly, too. In other words, the increment must be done according to the Definition of Done. (Does anyone else wish they were just called, “Members of the Scrum Team” – it would be so much less confusing!)

The Scrum Master is accountable first for establishing Scrum, then for Team effectiveness.

For details, check out the PDF.

If you wonder why there is no project manager, check out yesterday’s post about what happened to the Project Manager role!

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