Scrum team

The fundamental unit of Scrum is a small team of people, called Scrum Team. This team consists of one Scrum Master, one Product Owner (PO), and Developers. It is advisable that there are no sub-teams or hierarchies within this team (that why you may notice the Scrum guide changed the term ‘Development team’ to ‘Developers’ to avoid confusion).

Some main characteristics of a Scrum team:

• Cross-functional: the members have all the skills necessary to create value each Sprint
• Self-managing/Autonomous: they internally decide who does what, when, and how
• Ten or fewer people: small enough to remain agile and large enough to complete significant work within a Sprint. Smaller teams communicate better and are more productive

Scrum roles/Accountabilities

There are 3 roles in a Scrum team

Developers (Dev)

These members are committed to creating any aspect of a usable Increment each Sprint. The Developers are always accountable for:

• Creating a plan for the Sprint, the Sprint Backlog
• Instilling quality by adhering to a Definition of Done
• Adapting their plan each day toward the Sprint Goal
• Holding each other accountable as professionals

Product Owner (PO)

The PO is accountable for maximizing the value of the product resulting from the work of the Scrum Team. How this is done may vary widely across organizations, Scrum Teams, and individuals. The PO is accountable for:

• Developing and explicitly communicating the Product Goal
• Creating and clearly communicating Product Backlog items
• Ordering Product Backlog items
• Ensuring that the Product Backlog is transparent, visible and understood

Each product only have one and only one PO. In case it’s a big product, the PO may delegate the responsibility to others or have some assistants, just like Santa and the Elves.

For Product Owners to succeed, the entire organization must respect their decisions. Those wanting to change the Product Backlog can do so by trying to convince the Product Owner.

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is accountable for establishing Scrum, including:

• Coaching the team members in self-management and cross-functionality
• Helping the Scrum Team focus on creating high-value Increments that meet the Definition of
  Done
• Causing the removal of impediments to the Scrum Team’s progress
• Ensuring that all Scrum events take place and are positive, productive, and kept within the
  timebox.

Beside serving a specific Scrum team, the Scrum Master may also serve other team as well as the whole organization in several ways, including:

• Leading, training, and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption
• Planning and advising Scrum implementations within the organization
• Helping employees and stakeholders understand and enact an empirical approach for complex work
• Removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams

So, where is the Quality Assurance roles?

The first characteristics of the Scrum team (as written above) is cross-functional. The members have no titles. In this case, QA is an activity inside the team, not a role. A specific team member may perform it. However, the team is accountable as a whole. Hence, the quality assurance person will belong to the development team. Sometimes, the developers and PO will do the testing as well.