4.3 Development Team

The development team is the core group that builds, tests and documents the sprint delivery, but that can be a bit confusing as there might be people with skills that are not programming skills, like testers, test coaches, IT architects, domain experts, etc. The team is a group of individuals who together to commit to work on the user stories in the sprint backlog to create a valuable shippable delivery for the customer.

Often, we talk about the whole team or the 3 amigos, which should be the perfect combination of skills for building high quality software.

Figure: The Whole-Team Approach. Teams consist of Programmers, Domain Experts, and Testers.

The whole-team approach, also called team-based approach, is a strategy for project management in which everyone on the project team is held equally responsible for the quality and success of the project. A good analogy is the “The Three Musketeers” and their motto "all for one, one for all”.

How to do this?

Involve everyone with necessary knowledge and skills
Five to nine people (including business stakeholders)
Ideally positioned
Daily stand-up meetings
Every member is responsible for quality. Testers collaborate with:
1. business representatives on acceptance tests;
2. developers on the testing strategy and test automation.
The whole-team approach (power of three) keys:
1. transferral of knowledge within the team
2. increase of communication and collaboration
3. avoiding unnecessary documentation
4. leverage of everyone’s skills

The responsibilities of the Development Team in various scrum processes:

Process	Development Team Responsibilities
Formation of the Development Team	Provides inputs for creation of the Collaboration Plan and the Team Building Plan
Development of Epic(s)	Ensures a clear understanding of Epic(s) and Personas
Creation of Prioritized Product Backlog	Understands the User Stories in the Prioritized Product Backlog
Conducting Release Planning	■ Agrees with other Scrum Core Team members on the Length of Sprint ■ Seeks clarification of possible new products or changes in the existing products in the refined Prioritized Product Backlog
Creation of User Stories	Provides inputs to the Product Owner on creation of User Stories
Estimation of User Stories	Estimates User Stories approved by the Product Owner
Commitment to User Stories	Chooses User Stories to be committed to in a Sprint
Identification of Tasks	Develops Task List based on agreed User Stories and Dependencies
Estimation of Tasks	Estimates effort for tasks identified, and updates the Task List if necessary
Creation of Sprint Backlog	Develops the Sprint Backlog and the Sprint Burn down Chart
Creation of Deliverables	■ Creates Deliverables ■ Identifies risks and implements possible risk mitigation actions ■ Updates Impediment Log and Dependencies
Coordination of Daily Scrum Meeting	■ Updates Burn down Chart, Scrum board, and Impediment Log ■ Discusses issues faced by individual members and seeks solutions to motivate the team ■ Identifies possible risks ■ Submits Change Requests, if required
Refining of Prioritized Product Backlog	Participates in Prioritized Product Backlog Review Meetings
Presentation and Validation of Sprints	Demonstrates completed deliverables to the Product Owner for approval
Sprint Retrospection	Identifies potential improvement opportunities from the current Sprint and agrees on an improvement action plan for the next Sprint
Project Retrospection	Participates in the Retrospect Project Meeting