Who are the Developers?

The Developers of a product form a group responsible for carrying out end-to-end product development work, adding, tweaking, and modifying its features and behaviors. Based on the order of items defined by the Product Owner, in each Sprint the Developers implement one or more done Increments of the product (see the chapter Increment), according to the Definition of Done (see the chapter Commitment: Definition of Done) and which mean visible and releasable value to the customers and users of the product.

Bear in mind that in this book I consider product development to be all activities necessary for the work of implementing a product, including adding and modifying features and behaviors. That’s the job of the Developers of the product. This should not be confused with the code writing work performed by software developers, which can be part of the work of developing a product, depending on the context.

Together with the Scrum Master and the Product Owner, the Developers make up the Scrum Team. The official recommendation in the Scrum Guide is that the size of the Scrum Team, including the Developers, Scrum Master and Product Owner, should be ten or fewer members, but that the optimal size can be much smaller (SCHWABER; SUTHERLAND, 2020).

Be aware that in older editions of the Scrum Guide, the Developers were referred to as the “Development Team” and were considered a separate team within the Scrum Team, alongside the Scrum Master, and the Product Owner. The concept of a Development Team no longer exists in Scrum.

The Developers manage their product development work based on the precepts of the Scrum framework. They are the ones who, while subject to the limits defined by the customer and their organizational context, technically determine how each Increment of the product will be developed, plan this work, and monitor their own progress. To this end, the Developers have joint ownership and authority over their decisions and, at the same time, are responsible and accountable for their results.

To conduct this work, the Developers:

solve user and business problems when carrying out the product development, as established with the Product Owner.
implement one or more releasable Increments of the product in each Sprint, working together sustainably and enabling frequent releases of done product parts to the customers and product users.
plan, coordinate, and execute their product development work autonomously, in line with the goals defined together with the Product Owner.
identify and inform the Scrum Master of any impediments that obstruct their work or prevent them when possible.

The Developers are:

motivated, since they have the appropriate stimuli and have everything they need to conduct their work.
collaborative, continuously interacting with each other and sharing responsibilities throughout the work; in addition to seeking collaboration whenever necessary with the Product Owner, customers, and stakeholders during the Sprint in order to define, detail, obtain feedback and have any questions clarified regarding what is being or will be implemented.
excellence oriented, seeking to learn and improve continuously, performing their work with discernment and quality.

Fun fact: Developers, Development Team, Team, team

The first articles written about Scrum loosely defined the group responsible for carrying out the product development work only as a “team” (SCHWABER, 1997; BEEDLE ET AL., 1999; SUTHERLAND, 2004). So did the first published book on Scrum, which also generated confusion when using the term “Scrum Team” for the same objective (SCHWABER; BEEDLE, 2002).

Moreover, the original 1995 article stated that a “SCRUM Project Team” should be formed for each new release. Curiously, this team would involve one or more development teams, which included software developers, documenters, and quality control staff. Furthermore, this “SCRUM Project Team” would also include a management team, containing people who would be affected by the release and led by a product manager (SCHWABER, 1997). However, this format was soon abandoned.

The first official Scrum guide, published in 2009, defined “Team” with a capital letter, as a role in the framework (SCHWABER, 2009). The name “Development Team,” which had existed for almost a decade, was only introduced in the 2011 edition (SCHWABER; SUTHERLAND, 2011). In the 2020 guide, the concept of a “Development Team” – and, therefore, of a team within a team – ceased to exist and those who develop a product were simply called Developers (SCHWABER; SUTHERLAND, 2020).