[teampractices] [Engineering] Feedback requested on proposal for creation of Agile Specialist Group

[Erik Moeller]

On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 9:53 PM, Matthew Walker <mwalker at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> I'm a bit confused on the role of the 'product manager' and 'scrummaster'...
> to me they're mostly the same thing. It seems like you're implying that only
> engineers can be scrummasters? (Basically, what does a scrummaster in your
> world do?)

I recommend reading (really fully reading - it's a quick read) the
Scrum Guide. It's not a Bible, but it was written by smart people and
there's generally good ideas that can inform how we think about these
questions, even to the extent that we radically remix and rethink
things to be appropriate for our context.

https://www.scrum.org/Portals/0/Documents/Scrum%20Guides/2013/Scrum-Guide.pdf

The Scrum Master is, quite literally, the "master of the scrum
process", hence the name. The role is intended to be a service
leadership role to the whole team, to help the team continuously
optimize how it works. For example, a good ScrumMaster will put a lot
of thought in how to run a good retrospective for each sprint, to
ensure that lessons are learned and the team actually acts on what's
been learned. In medium to large sized teams, it is deliberately kept
apart from the Product Manager / Product Owner role for many different
reasons - mostly to ensure that both roles are fulfilled effectively.
See the guide above for more detail.

Erik

-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation