Non-Core Roles
Non-core roles are also essential to the scrum process and consist of individuals, organizations, or groups that are interested in the project but are not involved in the daily sprints, ceremonies, or every day scrum processes. This includes, but is not limited to, vendors, suppliers, implementation managers, customers, external departments, users, and sponsors. These external stakeholders typically do not contribute to the development of the product or scrum team, but likely use, benefit from or financially support the project. The non-core roles will depend on what is necessary for a project and situation.
Therefore, the Scrum Master’s role in managing non-core roles is two-fold. First, they are responsible for bringing in external stakeholders when necessary and managing expectations, communication, and understanding among these diverse members. Secondly, they are responsible for protecting the Scrum team from uninformed, potentially harmful, or unnecessary opinions and decisions imposed by non-core stakeholders.
External stakeholders may create disturbances for a number of reasons: “ignorance, weak enforcement, failed support, habit, lack of faith, contention for control, or legitimate input”. Thus, a number of suggested solutions for a Scrum Master addressing these difficulties include: “be consistent, conduct training, have a contract, use the retrospective pro-actively, bring stakeholders to the Scrum,” and protect your team as a guard dog protects his post. Balancing between bringing external stakeholders and setting rules for levels of involvement should be of the utmost importance to the Scrum Master.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course:
Course Contents
Section 1: Agile Project Management
Section 2: Using the Agile Manifesto to Deliver Change
Section 3: The 12 Agile Principles
Section 4: The Agile Fundamentals
Section 5: The Declaration of Interdependence
Section 6: Agile Development Frameworks
Section 7: Introduction to Scrum
Section 8: Scrum Projects
Section 9: Scrum Project Roles
Section 10: Meet the Scrum Team
Section 11: Building the Scrum Team
Section 12: Scrum in Projects, Programs & Portfolios
Section 13: How to Manage an Agile Project
Section 14: Leadership Styles
Section 15: The Agile Project Life-cycle
Section 16: Business Justification with Agile
Section 17: Calculating the Benefits With Agile
Section 18: Quality in Agile
Section 19: Acceptance Criteria and the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 20: Quality Management in Scrum
Section 21: Change in Scrum
Section 22: Integrating Change in Scrum
Section 23: Managing Change in Scrum
Section 24: Risk in Scrum
Section 25: Risk Assessment Techniques
Section 26: Initiating an Agile Project
Section 27: Forming the Scrum Team
Section 28: Epics and Personas
Section 29: Creating the Prioritised Product Backlog
Section 30: Conduct Release Planning
Section 31: The Project Business Case
Section 32: Planning in Scrum
Section 33: Scrum Boards
Section 34: Sprint Planning
Section 35: User Stories
Section 36: User Stories and Tasks
Section 37: The Sprint Backlog
Section 38: Implementation of Scrum
Section 39: The Daily Scrum
Section 40: The Product Backlog
Section 41: Scrum Charts
Section 42: Review and Retrospective
Section 43: Scrum of Scrums
Section 44: Validating a Sprint
Section 45: Retrospective Sprint
Section 46: Releasing the Product
Section 47: Project Retrospective
Section 48: The Communication Plan
Section 49: Formal Business Sign-off
Section 50: Scaling Scrum
Section 51: Stakeholders
Section 52: Programs and Portfolios