Introduction
Taking orders and implementing projects all alone, without the support of the team, is quite difficult. There are too many tasks that need to be done in a short span of time and a myriad of little things that should be taken into account. You need to assemble a team, so as not to do everything yourself and make a really high-quality product. Okay, now let's figure out who should be in this team and how the responsibilities are shared in it.
Roles in a development team
First, we need to understand what kind of team we need. The most popular method of conducting projects is with a Scrum development team. The Scrum model is one of the most popular models of Agile, which we discussed earlier. Such a team manages itself independently, it does not need strong external control, only good discipline, and motivated members. However, such a team cannot be large, though there surely should be the following specialists:
- Product manager / Product owner
- Team lead / Tech lead
- Developers
- Designers
- Quality Assurance Lead (QA)
- Testers
Let's see what are their responsibilities.
Responsibilities in a development team
What kind of specialists should be on the team? Let's imagine that there is a group of people who want to become a cool IT team. Let's say there are five of them and they are all students: Tim, Tom, Jill, Jane, and Mark. Tim came up with an interesting idea for a project: adding the ability to exchange messages in the HyperApp application. He checked and studied everything, there is no such feature yet, and it can be quite handy. Tim also drew up a rough plan and estimated the costs in terms of software, time, and, of course, pizza, and coffee. Besides, he tried to assess the risks of what will happen if they run out of time. His plan is still crude, but it's there. Tim managed to inspire the guys to this labor feat. Tim is the product manager on the team. This person constantly generates ideas and is usually the head of the team.
Next, the teammates need to define the tasks, create a clear timing plan, and make sure everyone follows it. Jill is very good at planning things. Such a person in a team is called a Team Lead. She estimates who does what the best and also plans how much time the project would take.
As a result, Jill compiled a table with the names of the guys and their tasks and created a separate work schedule for each of them. Mark and Jane were appointed as developers because they know algorithms well and also know how to write programs. The developers are the key to a successful product since they turn the idea into an application.
However, future users will hardly grasp the beauty of their code. Users don't care about classes, functions, loops, and so on. They are very fond of bright and attractive pictures and big buttons. Tom took over the design of the interface and became a team's designer.
The team is almost complete, but the guys have missed an important thing. Every team member has a difficult task and their own vision of the resulting product. Because of the different points of view, guys can overlook some details from the initial plan in the work process. That may be a problem for the forthcoming release. So there must be a responsible person who can check whether everyone sticks to the plan and everything works as intended. Tim found such a person, this is his best friend Jack, the friendliest guy in the world. Jack became a Quality Assurance Lead or QA. The Quality Assurance Lead will oversee the intermediate and the final results of the developers and the designer.
Jack also remembered that after the work is finished, the product should be checked. And it's better not to check it on users. If there are serious mistakes, the product may upset everyone, and no one will use it. To prevent a disaster from happening, specially trained testers come to the rescue. Jack called Lena and Yana to test the messenger. If there were errors in the application or someone forgot to implement an important function, they would find the bug and ask the devs to fix it as soon as possible.
Finally, the guys succeeded to organize their workflow and began to work! Surely, their efforts, motivation, and responsibility will lead them to a perfect result and everyone will enjoy their product.
Conclusion
So, we've reviewed the structure of an IT team and listed its main participants. They will help you make a good product, meet deadlines, and please your customer. We hope that now you know what kind of specialists you need to look for and who you see yourself as in this team.