In some unspecified time in the future, you’ve got most likely puzzled, can the product proprietor and the Scrum Grasp be the identical particular person? Banish that thought!
You would not be the primary particular person to attempt combining the Scrum Grasp function with the product proprietor function. Folks ask me on daily basis if they will mix the roles of product and ScrumMaster and provides each units of duties to a single particular person.
Generally, making an attempt to fill these two roles with one particular person is a really unhealthy thought. Completely different people ought to fill these two roles. To see why, let’s look again in historical past on the job of being a pirate ship captain.
The Pirates Knew: Completely different Expertise Require Completely different Folks
Professor Hayagreeva Rao wrote in Harvard Enterprise Overview concerning the outcomes of asking his MBA college students to design the job of a seventeenth century pirate ship captain. His MBA college students designed a job that lumped collectively two areas of accountability:
- Star duties: These are the strategic work of deciding which ships to assault, commanding the crew throughout battle, negotiating with different captains, and so forth
- Guardian duties: These are the operational work of distributing their pirate booty, settling battle, punishing crew members, and organizing take care of the wounded
The issue with this job description is that it mixes star and guardian duties. As Professor Rao factors out, there are only a few people who excel at each kinds of process.
Star duties require risk-taking and entrepreneurship, whereas guardian duties require conscientiousness and consistency. A pirate captain good at figuring out ships to assault and at main his crew into battle would probably be bored by the executive trivia of the guardian duties.
To make issues worse, Professor Rao asserts that folks are likely to spend most of their effort on the duties they’re good at (and presumably get pleasure from). My expertise definitely bears this out. Which means it’s even more durable to succeed when mixing roles that require totally different abilities.
Pirates solved the issue by having two leaders on every ship: a captain liable for the star duties and a quartermaster normal liable for the guardian duties.
4 Causes Scrum Masters Ought to Not Additionally Be Product Homeowners
So what does the decidedly non-collaborative, non-agile surroundings of a pirate ship need to do with Scrum? Simply as pirate ships had separate people as captain and quartermaster normal, agile initiatives ought to have separate Scrum Masters and product house owners. Let us take a look at 4 the reason why the product proprietor and Scrum Grasp shouldn’t be the identical particular person.
1. Scrum Masters and Product Homeowners Carry out Completely different Duties
First, the roles of product proprietor and ScrumMaster have very totally different duties (accountabilities), and due to this fact require very totally different abilities. Product house owners carry out the star duties of creating a imaginative and prescient for a product, defining the perfect outcomes the product can create for its customers, and defining the options that may get it there. Scrum Masters carry out the guardian duties of defending a crew from distractions and enhancing collaboration and focus.
That’s, whereas a product proprietor is figuring out what to construct, the ScrumMaster helps the crew work collectively to allow them to.
In some ways, this may be regarded as just like the concept a crew’s programmer and tester must be separate. Certain, programmer can take a look at and tester can program. However, separating these roles is normally a good suggestion.
2. Every Position Is a Full-Time Job on Its Personal
Second, it’s fairly probably that being both ScrumMaster or product proprietor requires full- or close to full-time consideration. Placing one particular person in each roles on the identical time will nearly definitely shortchange one of many two.
3. Product Homeowners and Scrum Masters Are inclined to Have Completely different Personalities
Third, there’s some overlap within the abilities and character traits that make good product house owners and ScrumMasters. Nevertheless, the roles are totally different, and this can be very unlikely that somebody will be capable of excel at each, particularly on the identical time.
4. A Pure Stress Exists Between Product Proprietor and Scrum Grasp roles
Lastly, a pure stress ought to exist between the product proprietor and Scrum Grasp roles. Though every is undeniably dedicated to the success of the product or system being developed, product house owners naturally need extra, extra, extra.
ScrumMasters, however, are extra attuned to the problems that may come up from a crew underneath undue strain to ship extra, extra, extra.
When a steadiness exists between the roles, a product proprietor is free to observe their pure tendency to ask for extra, secure with the reassurance that the ScrumMaster will stop pushing too arduous.
Are There Ever Exceptions?
As with all rule, there are occasions when one particular person can act as a Scrum Grasp and product proprietor on the identical time. I’ve encountered conditions wherein the ScrumMaster and product proprietor had been the identical particular person, and the place I felt that was applicable. A few of these have included small organizations that would not afford the posh of devoted or separate people.
Different conditions had been small groups who had began within the pursuit of a technical product proprietor’s imaginative and prescient. On such small groups, anyone character can have an outsized impact on the crew, no matter any formal function performed by the particular person.
Different exceptions have been ScrumMasters concerned in contract improvement. It’s common on such a challenge for the “true product proprietor” to exist throughout the consumer asking for the software program to be constructed. Sadly, it is usually frequent for such true product house owners to not wish to be deeply concerned within the challenge on the stage a Scrum crew wants. It’s in these circumstances {that a} good ScrumMaster typically steps up and into the function as a proxy for that true product proprietor.
And in a couple of particular situations, I’ve seen somebody fill each roles efficiently, in opposition to all odds. Every has been an distinctive particular person, maybe the Blackbeards of Scrum. Nevertheless, in every case, my response was to suppose how significantly better the particular person might have completed if enabled to work in solely one of many roles.
So, positive there are exceptions—similar to there are to any rule. Nevertheless, none of these exceptions ought to exist for the long run. And anybody in each roles concurrently ought to pay attention to the challenges the twin function presents. And likewise ought to think about what they would possibly lose in making an attempt to fill each roles.
