Roles

In the Project Definition subphase of the PLAN phase, you need to organise human resources for the work. This includes role assignment: deciding who is responsible for what. Some organisations have a more involved schema for associating individuals and departments to tasks, distinguishing multiple modes of involvement, for example by determining separately for each chunk of work who is responsible, who is accountable, and who is consulted or informed. A so-called RACI matrix is often used in this area.

The USoft Approach is neutral with respect to role assignment. In some methodologies and organisations, a business analist is responsible for the tasks of the PLAN phase. In others, a rapid development team has this role.

In Scrum, Business Orientation is assigned to a Product Owner. Project-oriented tasks are assigned to a Scrum Master; these are related to, but do not coincide with the Project Definition subphase. Rather, a Scrum Master has a continuous practical responsibility to facilitate tasks in the DEFINE phase.

When working with Scrum, it is tempting to associate the Product Owner with the PLAN phase and the members of the Scrum team with the DEFINE phase, but this does not give optimal results. In particular, the Scrum team must not be left out of Rapid Analysis tasks; their knowledge and skills are essential to conducting Rapid Analysis successfully.