In the previous article, we briefly introduced the scrum framework. In this article, we will talk about the three roles stipulated in scrum, prodcut owner, team and scrum master;
Prodcut owner
Prodcut owner is abbreviated as PO. It is the only person who is responsible for the value of the product. The functions of the PO can be briefly summarized in four aspects: describing the product vision, prioritizing the needs and reflecting the value, Ensure that requirements are transparent and stakeholders understand, accept or reject team deliveries.
1 Depicting the product vision Speaking of product vision, first understand what vision is. Vision is the scenario you want to see. For example, “walking for the sky” is the vision of Liangshan heroes. Even if we are not the product owner, we may have heard of corporate vision. For example, the visions of several large domestic Internet companies are as follows:
Become the world's top high-tech company
that understands users best and can help people grow---Baidu allows customers to meet, work and live in Alibaba, and continue to develop for at least 102 years---Alibaba
builds a smart world with all things connected- --Huawei
's most respected Internet company---Tencent
There is also a more interesting content. Alibaba's vision is to continue to develop for 102 years. Why is it 102 years? Alibaba Group was founded in 1999. At least 102 years of sustained development means spanning three centuries. This is an achievement that few companies can achieve.
As for Taobao’s product, its vision "is to provide an excellent platform for Chinese people to shop and trade online, build a leading domestic online personal trading market and online business community, and provide online business services to millions of members worldwide. "It is obvious here that the scope of the corporate vision and the product vision are completely different, but the vision also has one thing in common. The vision is not static. The vision will follow the development of the company and the product and the environment. Change and change; back to our topic today, the product owner is to describe the product vision. This seemingly imaginary content is actually very important. It can tell all relevant parties why we are working hard and what our goal is , We must use this to control the direction.
2 Prioritize requirements and reflect the value . The content of prioritization of requirements will be explained in detail in subsequent requirements management articles. Here we can make a simple understanding. The fundamental goal of prioritization of requirements is hope, Satisfy customer value as soon as possible. The high value must be delivered to the customer first. However, the need to order is to consider all aspects of the impact. Simply considering the value may ignore many important factors, such as the urgency of demand (window period) and demand. The risk of inclusion, etc.
3 Ensuring demand transparency and stakeholders' understanding. Demand transparency is the state of demand management expected by agile. Some friends say that waterfall development has written detailed requirements documents, isn't it also very transparent? In fact, the so-called demand transparency is not only the superficial demand visibility, but also the easy accessibility, easy communication, and easy change of the demand. In agile, face-to-face communication is more emphasized. As the product owner, the product to-do list should be organized. It is clear enough, detailed and appropriate, and clarified in time when necessary, so as to ensure that the information of all relevant parties is aligned.
4 Accept or reject team delivery Although we use various technologies and practices to achieve resource coordination and information transparency throughout the entire R&D process, we still cannot ensure that product increments must meet customer needs. Therefore, at the end of the iteration, the product owner must clarify whether the functions delivered by the team are Acceptable, even if it is rejected, the reason for nonconformity should be clearly stated so that it can be adjusted in time in subsequent iterations. This process of acceptance or rejection is generally carried out in the team's iteration review meeting.
The above is a brief description of the relevant responsibilities of the product owner. Then you can simply think about a question. Why must the product owner be a person? The reason is actually very simple. Just like the product owner is the driver when driving, can you drive the car if there are two drivers? Who will listen to when there is a disagreement?
Team
The team in Scrum consists of about seven people (plus or minus two people), and each member of the team is just a "team member". The desired state is that there is no fixed professional title. There will be no business analysts, no data stewards, no architects, no team leaders, no interaction/user experience designers, and no programmers. They work together in any appropriate way to reach them in each Sprint. Set goals for yourself. However, looking at the various status quo in corporate practice, such a state is still relatively ideal, requiring individuals to have high abilities and qualities, as well as a good organizational culture. But anyway, we are trying to work in this direction. The team can be summarized as the following characteristics:
1 Self-organization Self-organization means that no one (even the Scrum Master) tells the development team how to do the product The items in the item list become potentially publishable features. Therefore, self-organization should be bottom-up. It does not require managers to exert influence, and does not require strong commands and constraints. It is a spontaneous behavior, just like the migration of wild geese. As a post-80s, I am still impressed with the text of "Autumn Is Here" , "The wild geese will line up into individual characters for a while, and then they will be lined up in a single character." The migrating team of wild geese does not have a fixed head. The leader is constantly changing. The flock of geese relies on the strength of the team to move forward. A single flying geese cannot complete the migration. When a geese is injured, other geese will spontaneously stand up to help. The whole process is self-organized and efficient. Although there is no leadership constraint, it is very standardized and tidy. of.
In the book Empowerment, it is also described that the U.S. military encountered a strong counterattack from Al-Qaeda when attacking Afghanistan. During the battle, the U.S. military also discovered the characteristics of al-Qaeda. They have no fixed leader. They are leaders, any of them can form a small team, relying on self-organization to launch a counterattack at any time and place, and the flexibility and adaptability of these teams are exactly what every team in our company needs of.
However, there is another point to remind companies that try to establish self-organizing teams in the early stages of agile transformation. If self-organization is not done well, they may become unorganized. Therefore, self-organization is not just to throw work on the team, nor is it unorganized or undisciplined. The disordered state. Self-organization should be a way of management. On the premise of giving the team sufficient trust and space, the necessary management systems and constraints are also critical.
2 Stability and stability are what agile teams hope. Any team has to go through many stages from forming to becoming an efficient team. If the team is not stable enough, it will always be in a running-in period and it is difficult to achieve an efficient state, but we cannot hope that the team Always the same group of people, the ultimate stability is lack of creativity and lack of vitality, so the best state is that the team can continue to have new blood on the premise of maintaining the stability of the main body, with different personalities, nationalities, and backgrounds. , Interested people participate, so that your team can maintain vitality on a stable basis.
3 Cross-functional cross-functional means that the team as a whole has all the skills needed to create product increments. This does not seem to be that difficult, but there are many aspects that can be considered to do better, such as from each individual From the point of view, we expect team members to become "T"-shaped talents. T-shaped talents mean that individuals should have areas that they are very good at, and be able to achieve excellence, but on this basis, they should also have some expertise in other fields. Involved, so that when each individual becomes a T-shaped talent, the team can have more possibilities, and from the perspective of the team, in the final analysis, the hope is a feature team, that is, the team can deliver features independently, rather than A certain part of the component of the feature, the advantage of such a team is that it can be vertically connected with the business team to form an efficient team, and it also avoids the situation where a business demand requires multiple teams to collaborate and deliver, and avoids excessive communication and waste between teams. In fact, there is another obvious feature of the team that has not been elaborated. It has been clearly explained at the beginning. The agile team is small, with 5-9 people. Since the expectation is that the team is small, there are multiple small teams. How to collaborate? Let's talk about this topic later.
Scrum master
In the previous article, we briefly explained the role of scrum master. First of all, there is a fundamental difference between the role of scrum master and traditional project manager. The key word of project manager is the word "pipe", while the key word of scrum master It is the two word "service". This difference fully reflects the positioning of the two functions. The ScrumMaster serves the team. He helps to remove obstacles and protect the team from external disturbances, just like a shepherd dog protects the flock, and protection alone is not enough. When encountering difficulties, he should be able to help the team remove obstacles and have the ability to provide the team with the necessary Guidance and training, so we will be a scrum master in various meetings and practices of scrum, because he must always pay attention to the team status, he should stand up when necessary, so as a scrum master, in addition to having sufficient agile knowledge In addition, it is necessary to change its own management methods and use techniques such as coaching, guidance, and coaching to help the team. The situational leadership model shown in the figure below can reflect management methods that can be referred to in different situations.
Finally, let's tell a story
A chicken and a pig were walking on the road. The
chicken said to the pig, "Do you want to open a restaurant with me?" The
pig thought about it and replied, "I'm happy. What will the restaurant sell?" The
chicken replied "Ham and eggs!" The
pig stopped, hesitated, and said, "I decided not to open this restaurant with you. Because I have to give my heart and soul, and you just simply participate."
This is in the agile circle. A very popular story. I hope that the three roles in our scrum can be fully committed like pigs, and for those roles that belong to the chicken, we must do a good job of management, make full use of their abilities to help the team succeed, and also It is necessary to avoid the bad interference caused by the role of the chicken, so in order not to be disturbed, who should stand up at this time?
