Scrum Team pros and cons of having a Technical Leader

#scrum #scrumteam #leadership

Nowadays I have been detecting that many companies have been asking for technical leaders to join the scrum team. What influence does this have on the scrum team, is it good or is it bad. After reflecting on the process, I decided to explain in my perspective the pros and cons of having a technical leader in the team.

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We know for a fact that being scrum a process framework does not say much about team roles, nevertheless some rules must be followed. The development team must be self-organized and cross-functional and must exist a product owner and a scrum master. Who works in the world of scrum is aware of this, scrum is a set of simple practices that have made scrum a simple framework that is flexible, results-focused, adaptable, and that do not impose work practices beside those described in the methodology, has result is one of the agile frameworks most widely adopted today.

But in reality, organizations often impose a structure, this can be considered normal, scrum is flexible enough to be adapted to the organization and business characteristics. But sometimes a usual role that organizations define is a technical lead inside the development scrum team, this could bring pros and cons to the work performed by the team.

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Pros and cons:

A technical lead is not a manager, but a technical coach an expert domain, this could be useful because he can be a bridge between external stakeholders and the team to discuss issues related with the product or process protecting the development team of undesirable interruptions. But on the other hand, it can isolate the team from the organization or customers by creating failures in the feedback system that is very important in the agile process. It can also create a sense of lack of importance of the team and their opinions by increasing the possibility of team demotivating and decrease the desired self-improvement.

Here we have to come to a middle ground that promotes harmony, the technical leader can serve as a channel for interaction between the team and stakeholders, in this case it would be desirable for the technical leader to act as a process coach to help the stakeholder work within the scrum process.

When talking with some business managers one of the arguments supportive of the inclusion of a technical leader was the idea of have someone to be responsible or accountable for the work. This is clearly a bad idea, beside to be contrary to the idea of commitment that should exist from the team as a whole, can implies lack of trust between business and the team or between management and team members. It’s desirable that a technical leader in this position be a team anchor, helping the team to find ways to reach good solutions to the problems they are facing, helping to develop effective processes to improve work, including all members in the process. The technical Lead should act as architectural and engineering mentor without overshadowing the work of the team as a whole and its achievements.

Sometimes is asked to the technical leader to serve as a manager. It's a dangerous position because the temptation to direct and manage the work increase the risk of preventing the team from found by themselves the right work processes or the right solutions in the development of their work.

Other times the technical leader is asked to serve as the team’s Scrum Master. Some argue that this situation is possible if the technical leader is disciplined and can separate the boundaries between being a servant leader and the development responsibilities. In my opinion this should be avoid the scrum master should be focus in the performance of the team, removing impediments and helping the team to find the solutions of their problems, mixing the roles, could cause at some point the negligence of a part of the work as developer or as scrum master, ultimately lead to an ineffectiveness in the performance of both functions (even here for me multitasking is evil).

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Conclusions:

More combinations of positions may appear in the scrum framework, in my view it is important that transparency and commitment be the key words. Independently of the individual roles, the team always should be accountable to inspire trust among pairs, they should be committed with the work they assume and be aware of their capabilities, so everyone needs to be transparent about the relative importance of each aspect of the work. All of this helps the team to improve the desirable cross-functionality and self-organization skills. Is also easy for a team with a member with a lead role lose the cross-functional and self-organizational dynamic and fall in the trap of a command and serve dynamic.

As a principle there is no problem with having a technical leader in a scrum team if it does not prevent the team from being effective. It is important that all members of the team be clarified on what the role of the technical leader is, and that the technical leader accepts the responsibilities of working in a self-organized team.

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What situations have you experienced with including these roles in a scrum team?

What were the problems or advantages you noticed with including a technical leader in a scrum team?

Do you really think it is possible for a technical leader to simultaneously play the scrum master role and the development role?