Scrum team roles

Scrum team roles are the three accountabilities that make up a Scrum team: the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Developers. The list is a cast, not a meeting agenda, and Scrum puts no ranks and no smaller teams inside it.

Each accountability owns something different. The Product Owner owns value and the Product Backlog. The Developers own the plan for the Sprint and the quality of what ships. The Scrum Master owns how the team works — the process, not the product.

The three names describe a cast list, not an event. Sprint planning is the timeboxed session those people attend, and it gets its own entry.

The live scrum master offshore page goes deep on one of the three. This page sets out all three and how the work divides between them.

Key takeaways

• A Scrum team holds three accountabilities: Product Owner, Scrum Master and Developers.
• There are no sub-teams and no hierarchy inside the team, whatever the org chart says.
• The Product Owner is one person, never a committee, and the organisation must respect those decisions.
• Teams usually run to ten people or fewer, because smaller teams communicate better.

How it works

A Scrum team works as one unit with three named accountabilities and no layers. The Scrum Guide describes it as one Scrum Master, one Product Owner and Developers, with no sub-teams or hierarchies inside.

The Product Owner is one person, not a committee. They develop the Product Goal, create and order Backlog items, and keep the Backlog visible and understood. They can delegate the work — the accountability stays with them.

Developers are the people committed to building a usable Increment each Sprint. They create the Sprint Backlog, hold to a Definition of Done, adapt the plan daily and hold each other to professional standards.

Developers is a role name, not a job title. A software developer on the team may test, write documentation or handle release work, because the team collectively holds every skill it needs.

Self-management is the part organisations most often skip. The team decides internally who does what, when and how, so a manager who assigns tasks inside the Sprint has quietly removed the accountability Scrum depends on.

The team is also accountable as a whole. Stakeholder collaboration, verification, maintenance, operation and research all sit with the Scrum team, so there is no separate group to hand the awkward work to.

Scaled frameworks keep the same shape. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) defines an Agile Team as a cross-functional group of typically ten or fewer individuals holding every skill needed to define, build, test and deliver value.

Team size is a design decision. Scrum keeps a team small enough to stay nimble and large enough to finish real work, and splits anything bigger into several teams sharing one Product Owner and one Backlog.

Titles outside the team do not create a fourth accountability. A business analyst, a tester or a delivery manager either joins as a Developer or sits outside the team — Scrum has no bench seat between the three.

Larger organisations often write the working agreement down. A cross functional team charter records who is on the team, what they decide together and where the boundaries sit, which helps when members sit in several countries.

Examples

The three accountabilities show up the same way whether a team sits in one room or across three time zones. What changes is how the team keeps its decisions visible to everyone who needs them.

A Manila delivery centre staffing a US software product. The Product Owner sits client side in Chicago, the Scrum Master and the Developers sit in Manila, and the overlap window carries the decisions that cannot wait.

A fintech company with a full stack developer on a team of six. She picks up interface, service and database work inside one Sprint, so the team never waits on a specialist sitting outside it.

A virtual team split between Warsaw and London. The Scrum Master runs planning and retros in a shared two-hour overlap, and the Product Owner publishes the ordered Backlog before the session so nobody arrives cold.

A bank running eight teams on one platform. Each keeps its own Scrum Master and Developers, and all eight share one Product Owner, one Product Goal and one Product Backlog, so priorities cannot contradict each other.

What the four cases share is the split. The Product Owner decides what matters, the Developers decide how much fits and how it gets built, and the Scrum Master makes sure both decisions actually get made.

Related terms

• remote team: a team working away from a shared office; the three accountabilities do not change because of it.
• back end developer: a specialist sitting inside the Developers accountability, not a fourth role on the team.
• scrum master offshore: the Scrum Master accountability staffed from a lower-cost delivery hub.
• software developer: the job title most Developers hold, where Scrum names the accountability instead.
• cross functional team charter: the written agreement recording how one team decides and works together.

FAQ

How many roles are there in a Scrum team?

Three: the Product Owner, the Scrum Master and the Developers. Scrum calls them accountabilities rather than job titles, because one person can hold several titles and still carry one accountability.

Is the Scrum Master the project manager?

No. The Scrum Master owns how the team works and clears impediments, while the team itself owns delivery and the plan for reaching it.

Can one person hold two Scrum team roles?

It happens on small teams — and it costs you something. A Product Owner who also writes code tends to under-serve the Backlog when a Sprint gets tight, and the ordering slips first.

How big should a Scrum team be?

Ten people or fewer is the usual guidance, because smaller teams communicate better. Larger groups split into several teams sharing one Product Owner, one Product Goal and one Product Backlog.

Does offshoring change the three accountabilities?

No, the three accountabilities are identical wherever the people sit.

Find delivery partners who staff all three accountabilities in the Outsource Accelerator BPO hubs.