Core Scrum Role: The Agile Team (Organization’s Powerhouse)

In the Scrum framework, there are three "core roles" which are mandatory for producing the product. They are committed and ultimately responsible for each sprint & the initiative's success. These roles are the Product Owner, the Agile team, and the Scrum Master.

An Agile Team is a group of 5-11 individuals responsible for understanding the business requirements specified by the Product Owner, estimating User Stories, and creating the project deliverables.

Usually, Solution Delivery requires broad and diverse skills. Technical team members define, build, test, and deploy elements of the solution value. The team members with the business expertise collaborate and support in providing legal guidance, end-user training, security & compliance expertise, infrastructure, solution knowledge and many more.

By building and supporting the solutions that deliver value to the customers, Agile teams fuel the enterprise. 

Agile Teams are self-organizing, self-managing, self-sufficient and cross-functional. They are accountable to each other and the stakeholders to deliver quality work. During the sprint planning session, the team decides the sprint backlog (the work items they want to work on during the sprint). Usually, the Agile Team has all the expertise required to complete the work. Any external dependency usually is highlighted by creating a separate User Story (Product Backlog Item) to maintain transparency and clarity.

To produce quality work, team dynamics play an important role. And alignment with a shared vision, agreed-upon quality measures, and mutual trust plays an important role in creating the required Synergy.

Senior management must share the bigger picture with the Agile Team; Top-Down alignment is an important motivating factor that binds the whole team/organization. It also helps the team to know how their work impacts the organization.

If a team is working in an environment where the team can take risks without fear of punishment, the team will be more innovative and will take initiatives to make the solution more efficient. Also, this will encourage them to learn from each other.

Agile teams are motivated by a shared vision and their commitment to delivering value to customers and stakeholders. Each team member is fully dedicated to a single team and works intensely to support its goals. Relationships within the team are based on trust and commitment. Constant communication and collaboration, along with empowered decision-making permit teams to meet their responsibilities. When a team learns together, achieve together (without blaming each other, fail together), they respect each other more, and their productivity increases.

Trust is like love. Both parties have to feel it before it really exists. 
- Simon Sinek

Agile Team has the accountability and responsibility to develop WHAT is defined, refined and agreed upon by them by the end of the Sprint Planning session. To get to an agreement on the Sprint Work, the Agile Team helps the Product Owner finalize the Acceptance Criteria and high-level estimation of the User Stories (PBI) that comply with the Definition Of Ready during the refinement session.

The Agile Team finalizes the Sprint work by creating tasks for each User Story (PBI) and revisiting the effort estimation. Once the Sprint Backlog is finalized, the Agile Team starts developing by following the agreed-upon quality measures and the coding best practices (mostly documented under the Definition Of Done). Every-day, the team meets during the Stand-up ceremony to adjust their plans to keep their commitment. All the statuses of the work-items (PBIs/Tasks) are updated daily to provide transparency.

In Agile, there is no room for micro-managing a team. Based on the capacity and expertise, the Agile Team commits the prioritized PBIs. With (great) power comes (great) responsibility. So, it is the Agile Team's responsibility to complete the committed work within the Sprint (with the help of Scrum Master and Product Owner).

Additional information on 'I,' 'T' and 'E' shaped Employee:

'E' shaped team-members also improve planning flexibility, absorb variability, and help in removing the impediments removes impediments ( they are almost limitless.)