Can we have a 'Technical Lead' in our Scrum Team?
Recently I had an interesting question come from one of my friends practicing Scrum on whether it's wise to have a technical lead role in her Scrum Team. Let me debug this scenario and find what best can be done here.
Is Technical Lead a role part of Scrum or a management role?
"The Scrum Team consists of a Product Owner, the Development Team, and a Scrum Master." - The Scrum Guide
According to the Scrum Guide, there are three roles highlighted as part of the Scrum Team and definitely, there is no mention of Tech Lead / Project Lead roles.
Further, the reason behind having no such additional roles are also called out explicitly in the Scrum Guide.
"The team model in Scrum is designed to optimize flexibility, creativity, and productivity. The Scrum Team has proven itself to be increasingly effective for all the earlier stated uses, and any complex work." - The Scrum Guide
There is no catch on creating any number of management roles outside of Scrum to help implement Scrum. It is left up to the discretion of organizations to add any number of overheads and hurdles to slow down the flow and delay value getting delivered.
"Scrum recognizes no titles for Development Team members, regardless of the work being performed by the person; Scrum recognizes no sub-teams in the Development Team, regardless of domains that need to be addressed like testing, architecture, operations, or business analysis;" - The Scrum Guide
Is the Technical Lead meant to provide technical directions to the Development Team?
In Scrum, no one Development Team member would be responsible for leading the entire team's work. The Development Team is self-organizing without sub-roles such as team lead, technical lead, or a test specialist.
"No one (not even the Scrum Master) tells the Development Team how to turn Product Backlog into Increments of potentially releasable functionality" - The Scrum Guide
Having a leader responsible for making decisions kills the collective ownership of the team. Responsibility is not inferred by any specialisms a team member may have. The Scrum Guide makes it clear that there are no exceptions to this rule.
Why not the Development Team have a Technical Lead as their representative in the Development Organization?
A team representative should take care that they do actually represent the team, and don't exert a greater influence on decisions than their peers. Honestly, it's easier said than done. Having a technical leader is completely different from treating the entire team as leaders with technical skills.
The role of the Scrum Master is to create a self-organizing team that requires identifying clear boundaries and protecting the team from outside influences for which the team is not yet ready.
An individual with more knowledge and experience in the team just does not qualify to entertain specific rights and authority in the team. If someone still does, it could prevent nurturing the team and definitely will not yield the desired outcomes from them.
Wrap up!
A strong 'No' for having a 'Technical Lead' in regard to all the above-mentioned factors.
If the organization thinks they still need a technical lead whose role is to provide direction, instructions, and guidance to the Development Team (part of the Scrum Team), maybe it's a good conversation to have and ask what are their prejudices to come up with such an ask.
Development Manager at RBS
4 年Very interesting topic Ravi and thank you for posting it. I completely agree that Technical Lead shouldn’t be add to the team with an intention he/she would lead the team. But I do have a question or may be a clarification required here. The organisation will have a designation of Technical Lead or in an engineering team members career progression there will be a Designation Technical Lead in their path and they aspire to grow. Where do they go once they become Technical Lead?