Roles
The roles in a technical Scrum framework are:
- Product Owner. Responsible for defining and prioritizing the product's features, ensuring that the development team's work is aligned with customer expectations and business goals.
- Developer. Each of the professionals who build the increment in each sprint.
- Scrum Master. Responsible for ensuring compliance with the rules of the Scrum framework. They make sure these rules are understood by the organization and that work is carried out in accordance with them.
The Committed and the Involved
Everyone who takes part in the project or has a direct or indirect relationship with it falls into one of two groups: the committed and the involved. In Scrum circles, the former are often called "pigs" and the latter "chickens," although this terminology was removed from the official Scrum Guide in 2011 and is not recommended in formal settings.
These names come from the following metaphor, which vividly illustrates the difference between "commitment" to and "involvement" in the project:
A chicken and a pig were walking down the road. The chicken asked the pig: "Do you want to open a restaurant with me?"
The pig considered the proposal and replied: "Yes, I'd like that. And what would we call it?" The chicken replied: "Ham and eggs."
The pig stopped, paused, and answered: "On second thought, I don't think I'll open a restaurant with you. I'd be truly committed, while you'd only be involved."
The committed ("pigs") are those whose work and reputation are directly tied to the outcome: the development team, the Product Owner, and the Scrum Master. The involved ("chickens") are those who have an interest in the project but are not directly accountable for its outcome: executives, customers, end users, and other departments.
This distinction is relevant in Scrum meetings: during Sprint Planning and the Daily Scrum, contributions from the involved should be limited so as not to interfere with the work of the committed.
Evolution of Roles in Teams with AI
The Scrum Manager guide Scrum en equipos con IA [Scrum in Teams with AI, in Spanish] describes how the three roles evolve when the team works with generative AI tools:
- Product Owner → Product architect: the backlog shifts from being a list of features to a set of hypotheses to be validated. The strategic question is no longer "Can we build it?" but "Should we build it?" The Product architect manages the productivity paradox: the team produces more, but that only generates value if there is strategic validation behind it.
- Developer → Product builder: value shifts from implementing to orchestrating: designing architectures, writing specifications that guide the AI, reviewing and validating what is generated, and ensuring quality and security.
- Scrum Master → Agile enabler: facilitates not only interactions between people but the entire system of humans + AI agents. The Agile enabler is responsible for the governance of AI use: policies, limits, auditing of outputs, and accountability.
Common mistake
Treating the Scrum Master as the project manager. The Scrum Master does not assign work, manage resources, or make product decisions. Their role is to ensure that the Scrum framework works properly, facilitate the events, remove impediments, and protect the team from outside interference. When the Scrum Master starts behaving like a traditional project manager, the team loses the self-management that makes Scrum effective.
Resources
📄 Product Owner v.2.0Free download (in Spanish) · Scrum Manager
📄 Scrum Master v.4.0Free download (in Spanish) · Scrum Manager
See also
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