Scrum roles clarifications
Hello scrum.org community,
I might have a complex or simple question.
My company has an upcoming project which will use Scrum as the project framework of choice. I have been assigned the role as the Scrum Master on my own free choice and I am highly motivated to stick to the Scrum Guide with the team.
In preparation for the PSM I certification which I will do soon, I have read the following books aside from the Scrum Guide itself:
Roman Pichler - Scrum - Agiles Projektmanagement erfolgreich einsetzen
Roman Simschek, Fabian Kaise - SCRUM Das Erfolgsphänomen einfach erklärt
Which role would you assign the data protection official or chief information security officer like those within the scrum roles? I was told that they would be part of the scrum team which would mean, regarding the scrum guide, that they would have to be developers since they are no product owners or scrum masters.
Apart from the standard scrum roles we would generally have stakeholders which do have, by definition, a relevant interest in the success and execution of the project. As a future Scrum Master I would have said that the data protection official and the chief information security officer would be stakeholders. The product owner would have to communicate tickets in the backlog with those instances before the developers would pull those within the sprint planning to the sprint backlog.
Is my explanation anyhow plausible?
Please help me to deepen my Scrum knowledge.
An open discussion might help me to see things more clearly.
Think of it the other way round. How might the organization need to change in order to better support Scrum accountabilities? How might the existing organizational structure, including roles, need to be revised?
Different outcomes will not be achieved by mapping one thing to another.
I was told that they would be part of the scrum team ...
As a new Scrum Master, this could be one of the first things you can do. In the Scrum Guide you see the following in the section that describes the Scrum Master responsibility.
The Scrum Master serves the organization in several ways, including:
Leading, training, and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption;
Planning and advising Scrum implementations within the organization;
Helping employees and stakeholders understand and enact an empirical approach for complex work; and,
Removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams.
The fact that you were told they would be part of the team goes against self-organization. As @Ian points out, the organization often has to change in order to make teams successful with Scrum.
I'd even hesitate to call the data protection official or chief information security officer stakeholders. I see that they would have some vested stake in the work but it should be less on the value that is created by the product and more about the requirements that have to be followed while building it. Their concerns could be addressed by including them in the Definition of Done. Just like any other organizational development standards that have to be followed.