I want to be direct in this blog post to share my own perception about the future of the Scrum Roles affected by AI.
AI has been around for about 3 years and has been widely available to the public. I believe every technology has a hype phase when it is introduced to the market, and then moves into real usage.
What I see now is that we have passed the hype phase of AI, and these days, people and businesses are trying to incorporate AI into the resolution of real problems.
And Scrum is not an exception. One of the main triggers for businesses to use AI is that it has a big potential to cut costs.
Let’s check the Scrum Roles one by one:
Developers:
They used to build quality Increments. Their core functionality was building the product. But now, we see that AI can write code, unit tests, and integrate it with other components, etc.
It seems that Developers are going to just communicate the requirements with AI, and the building part will be done by AI. At the end of the building, the developer should review the AI work to make sure the output works based on the expectations.
So, naturally, we will have fewer Developers in a Scrum Team with the skill to manage AI to build the product right.
Product Owner:
As AI can process a huge amount of data, including market research, feedback processing, product metrics digestion, and sentiment analysis, it can manage the Product Backlog as well. I mean writing user stories, acceptance criteria, ordering the Product Backlog, etc.
So, as a big portion of the product ownership can be done by AI, Product Owners will become the AI administrator to review and tune their work to make sure that the right product will be built. So, Product Owners will have more free time, leading companies to assign more teams to one Product Owner. In addition, they need to develop the skill to communicate with AI and manage its outputs effectively.
Product Owners will be like a foreman for AI in product management.
Scrum Master:
I believe the effect on Scrum Masters will be harsher. As the Scrum Teams' size will generally become smaller, the result will be fewer conflicts and easier decision-making, so the teams will not need that much facilitation, coaching, and mentoring.
So, I see that more teams will be assigned to one Scrum Master, and even their core functionality will change. Probably they need to choose, devise, and setup AI tools in the team’s way of working.
In addition, they will be like an AI literacy teacher, helping team members to get AI literacy to use AI fluently. More than that, they should be able to orchestrate the overall workflow between humans and AI Agents in the team.
So, I intend to use these names for their role: AI Coach, AI Fluency Teacher, AI Orchestrator.
*** Warning for Scrum Masters: Right now, start learning how to build AI-based Scrum Teams. It is possible that we will not even have the Scrum Master role with its classic definition anymore. Take action before it becomes late. ***
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Are you an action taker?
If you are a Product Owner and want to migrate from a classic to an AI-aware Product Owner, attend my upcoming PSPO-AI Essentials (Professional Scrum Product Owner - AI Essentials) class. Click here for the class information.
If you are a Scrum Master and want to migrate from a classic to an AI-aware Scrum Master, attend my upcoming PSM-AI Essentials (Professional Scrum Master - AI Essentials) class. Click here for the class information.
