The document presents a model of contributions in Scrum software engineering teams, aiming to clarify and categorize the diverse roles and activities that team members engage in to achieve project goals. It identifies 17 individual contributions, organized into technical, contentual, and managerial dimensions, and emphasizes the importance of visibility and acknowledgment in scrum practices. The model facilitates self-reflection and discussion during retrospective meetings to enhance teamwork processes.

1. Hasso Plattner Institute,
University of Potsdam, Germany
christoph.matthies@hpi.de
@chrisma0
More than Code: Contributions in Scrum
Software Engineering Teams
Frederike Ramin, Christoph Matthies, Ralf Teusner
July ’20
13th International Workshop on Cooperative and
Human Aspects of Software Engineering (CHASE’20)

2. Motivation & Background
2
Agile Software Development and Scrum
[1] CollabNet Inc. 2019. “13th Annual State of Agile Report”. Technical Report.
https://www.stateofagile.com/#ufh-i-521251909-13th-annual-state-of-agile-report
[2] Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. 2017. “The Scrum Guide - The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game”.
Technical Report. scrumguides.org. 19 pages. http://scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2017/2017-Scrum-Guide-US.pdf
■ Agile methods, e.g. Scrum, are de facto standards in SE [1]
■ Teams with all the competencies required for project work [2]
Software engineers’ contributions to progress &
success of modern software projects are varied

3. Research Goal
3
A Model of Scrum Teamwork Contributions
■ Scrum and Agile approaches rely on visibility of project progress [3]
■ Capturing & categorizing contributions to project success
ensures team awareness of accomplished work
Goal: Model of Scrum contributions. Enable appropriate
appraisal & appreciation of Scrum team efforts
[3] Henrik Kniberg. 2015. “Scrum and XP From the Trenches” (2nd ed.). C4Media

4. Definition
4
What is a Contribution of a Software Engineering Team Member?
Contribution: Any activity, demanding human resources, that
adds to the fulfillment of project goals, by adding value to the
developed product or the (future) effectiveness of the team.
■ Technical aspects, e.g., source code changes
■ Also process improvement activities,
meeting facilitation & effective communication [4]
[4] D. Ford, T. Zimmermann, C. Bird, and N. Nagappan. 2017. “Characterizing Software Engineering Work with Personas Based on Knowledge Worker
Actions”. ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. 394–403.

5. Related Work
5
What do Software Engineers Spend their Time on?
■ Devs spend only ¼ of their time on coding-related activities [5]
[5] André N Meyer, Gail C Murphy, Thomas Fritz, and Thomas Zimmermann. 2019.
“Developers’ Diverging Perceptions of Productivity”. Apress, 137–146.

6. Contributions in Scrum
6
Roles of the Scrum Process
■ Scrum acknowledges different
task profiles / “roles” within teams [2]:
■ Product Owner (PO)
■ Scrum Master (SM)
■ Development Team (Dev.)
[2] Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. 2017. “The Scrum Guide - The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game”.
Technical Report. scrumguides.org. 19 pages. http://scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2017/2017-Scrum-Guide-US.pdf

7. Model Construction
7
Contributions Listed in the Scrum Guide
■ Model from first principles, based on the seminal Scrum Guide [2]
■ Successively code text passages
■ Extract mentions of work items, tasks, meetings,
project requirements and responsibilities
■ Deduplicate and cluster
■ Assign short name and designated role
[2] Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. 2017. “The Scrum Guide - The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game”.
Technical Report. scrumguides.org. 19 pages. http://scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2017/2017-Scrum-Guide-US.pdf

8. Results
8
Extracted Scrum Teamwork Contributions
■ 17 individual Scrum teamwork contributions
■ Explicitly included the role All
■ Highlight level of collaboration
■ Contributions arranged along 3 dimensions
■ Technical, Contentual, Managerial
■ Based on related work [4,6]
[4] D. Ford, T. Zimmermann, C. Bird, and N. Nagappan. 2017. “Characterizing Software Engineering Work with Personas Based on Knowledge Worker
Actions”. ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement. 394–403.
[6] Judy L. Wynekoop and Diane B. Walz. 2000. “Investigating traits of top performing software developers”.
Information Technology & People 13, 3 (2000), 186–195

9. Example
9
Extracted Scrum Teamwork Contributions
■ Scrum Guide extracts [2]
■
■
■ Short name: Process Improvement
■ Role: All
■ Dimension: Managerial
[2] Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. 2017. “The Scrum Guide - The Definitive Guide to Scrum: The Rules of the Game”.
Technical Report. scrumguides.org. 19 pages. http://scrumguides.org/docs/scrumguide/v2017/2017-Scrum-Guide-US.pdf

10. Scrum Contribution Model
10
Scrum Contribution Model
(adding to product increment utilizing technical skills)
(influencing the product’s prospect and direction) (concerned with adapting the work process)

11. Model Usage
11
Envisioned Use Cases for Scrum Contribution Model
■ Use Case: Scrum Team Status Check
■ Model as means of conformance analysis, contrasting model’s
teamwork contributions and team’s self-identified ones
■ Mismatches represent starting points for discussion
Facilitate retrospection of chosen
process adaptations and their rationales

12. Summary
12
A Model of Scrum Contributions
■ Structured exploration of the project member’s
contributions described by the Scrum Guide
■ Constricted scope of initial model promotes
clarity and traceability of construction
■ Representative of key contributions in
unmodified, theoretical, “vanilla Scrum” [7]
[7] Lucas Gren, Richard Torkar, and Robert Feldt. 2017. “Group development and group maturity when building agile teams: A qualitative and
quantitative investigation at eight large companies”. Journal of Systems and Software 124 (2017),104–119.

13. Conclusion
13
A Model of Scrum Contributions
■ Model makes the often implicit contributions of Scrum team
members to project progress explicit & visual
■ Allows analyses that foster self-reflection and retrospection
regarding teamwork processes & contributions
May prove particularly useful in
Retrospective meetings

14. Recap
14
christoph.matthies@hpi.de
@chrisma0

15. Image Sources
15
In order of appearance
■ donation by Vectors Market from the Noun Project
■ coding by Gerald Wildmoser from the Noun Project
■ Project by Nithinan Tatah from the Noun Project
■ goal by Alice Design from the Noun Project
■ Scrum team by Sharon Showalter from the Noun Project
■ Definition by Sumana Chamrunworakiat from the Noun Project
■ analysis book by achmad mulyana from the Noun Project
■ List by hans draiman from the Noun Project
■ Check Server Status by Ex Eyecon from the Noun Project
■ icecream by Adrien Coquet from the Noun Project
■ Curtain by NTT from the Noun Project