Part of my standard training for Product Owners is to help them understand how they relate to everyone else in an Agile/Scrum world. Hence the drawing below.

Project Community Diagram

The Product Owner is not part of the team since their role is to ask for more to keep productive tension in the system. I like the way Ron Jeffries narrates about the Product Owner Role without ever using the term. This is a good story. So is the follow-up one.

I like the XP notion of the customer team to reflect the group representing the customers interests. (If anyone can suggest a good link/definition, I’ll add it.)

Why is the ScrumMaster outside? Their primary role is to act outside of the system to help it function and grow. Why is the ScrumMaster cheering on top? Ooops. That’s a bug. If I had time to re-draw, I’d put them underneath holding up the whole system as a servant leader.

So what do you do, if you don’t like the way I have parsed the world? Please help me understand your perspective – draw a picture to show me the world through your eyes.