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Project Management in Scrum

Last post 02:33 pm July 17, 2014 by Charles Bradley
5 replies
07:09 pm July 16, 2014

Hi,

I have been reading The Scrum guide on this website and can't find any reference to project managers. Is it the case that you don't need or should not have a project manager in Scrum?


09:29 am July 17, 2014

Yes, Per scrum guide there is no need of project manager. Normally this work is divided between Scrum Master and Product Owner. Since the scrum team is self organizing and disciplinary and committed to sprint goal. They don't need project manager.


01:38 pm July 17, 2014

Agree. However in organizations making the switch from tradition waterfall SDLC to SCRUM, its not uncommon to have a project/project manager on top of Scrum master and product owner. In this case the role of project manager changes to become a liaison between customer/Application engineering and marketing as well.


01:58 pm July 17, 2014

Also to add.

1. Usually since Scrum Master are management positions, a PM from a waterfall structure may learn and align to the SM role.
2. Defining the product roadmap requires functional and technical roadmap alignment. A PM or Senior PM may help facilitate the roadmap with various stakeholders.
3. Scrum master may need to coordinate with other SMs within and outside their department. At that time, we may want to position a PM or Senior PM to help out these interactions within the Organization to help with dependency, conflict resolutions. This can also be a Scrum of Scrum role.
4. Organizations moving into Agile from Waterfall, will require handholding where Scrum coaches can work closely with existing management staff including Project Managers to align them in various positions within the new framework.

Thanks, Venkat.


02:26 pm July 17, 2014

A successful agile transformation does not involve alignment, but deep and pervasive change. If that isn't understood, an organization is more likely to try and "align" the Scrum framework with their existing roles and practices. The result in such cases is usually very little change at all.


02:33 pm July 17, 2014

IMO, in a truly Agile organization, there is usually no real role for a traditional PM at the team level, and there certainly is no PM role in Scrum.

Sometimes there is a role for a PM above the team level or elsewhere outside of a software team. Sometimes an org ascribes other duties to a PM that have little to do with PM and little to do with Agile per se.

With respect to Venkat's replies above...in an Agile context
I agree with 1, but that is easier said than done... but certainly possible
I believe #2 is a PO duty, not a PM duty.
I believe #3 is an SM duty, in combination with a Dev Team and a PO duty.
Agree with #4.

With regards to an earlier comment:
> its not uncommon to have a project/project manager on top of Scrum master and product owner. In this case the role of project manager changes to become a liaison between customer/Application engineering and marketing as well.

I believe that the above ^^^ is a PO duty.

At a higher level, there is no such thing as a "project," either... unless you want to consider each Sprint as a separate project with the length of the sprint only. At that low a level, I'm also not sure what value there is in terms of thinking of a Sprint as a project -- except to help describe to people who have a waterfall/pmi/traditional mindset. You certainly don't need a PM to manage a one sprint project.


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