Development Team

Definition of Development Team:

A group of 3-9 people who collaboratively develop a product. The Development Team in Scrum has two core characteristics. It is cross-functional and self-organized. Cross-functional means that the team has all the skills or capabilities needed for product development. For example, a development team for the development of a mobile app consists not only of software developers (programmers), but also of designers, testers, etc. - in fact, all the skills necessary to deliver a finished product. Self-organized means that the team manages itself for the most part... there is no team lead, for example. With that comes decision-making authority and responsibility.

Synonyms for Development Team:

Dev Team, Development Team, Squad, Delivery Team, Agile Delivery Team.

Origin of the Development Team:

The Development Team was created to reduce the amount of hand-offs. Just like in a small startup where everyone pitches in to deliver something, the Development Team is supposed to work collaboratively to deliver value to the customer. Development Team members thus also regularly work outside the domain in which they specialize, gaining new knowledge as a result.

Advantages of a Development Team:

A true cross-functional development team gives the product owner the opportunity to prioritize the topics according to added value for the customer and less based on available skills in the team. Thus, added value for the customer can be delivered faster. In addition, such teams have less external dependencies (on other teams in the company or on service providers) and can therefore make reliable predictions and deliver accordingly.