Explore the Developer Role

Context of the Developer Role

  • Explore the Roles of Lean-Agile
  • The Lean-Agile Framework offers a diagram that sets the roles in the context of the overall work of Lean-Agile and the value stream.
  • The Lean-Agile RACI chart is a common representation of the roles and responsibilities and accountabilities of the many roles in involved Lean-Agile and how the Developer role interacts with other roles.
  • The Overview of Roles by Level offers a more richer description of the roles involved in the Portfolio, Program, and Team levels and what they do.
  • The Standard Work for the Developer describes the primary duties of the Developer role at various stages of Lean-Agile work.

Related roles

Related support for courses

Related topics

Related books with sample chapters

coverdpe_bio-largeDesign Patterns Explained is the standard introduction to design patterns and object-oriented thinking, analysis, and design. It is foundational to emergent design and creating maintainable code.

The book provides over a dozen proven practices that help developers improve their coding practices and make their code more easily changeable and maintainable in Agile projects. Sample chapters are available.Essential Skills for the Agile Developer provides over a dozen proven practices that help developers improve their coding practices and make their code more easily changeable and maintainable in Agile projects.

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The Developer role is responsible for working with other members of the Team to build potentially releasable features in every iteration.

The Developer role collaborates with technical roles and business roles on the team. Technical roles include (for example) Testers, UX Designers, and Database Developers. Team business role(s) include Product Owner (the ideal), or alternatively Business Lead, Business Subject-Matter Experts or Business Analysts. The Developer may also on occasion work with higher-level technical roles such as Program Architect or System Architect, as needed to ensure the team-level products are compatible with the overall system. More…

Featured resources

Getting started

Begin by reviewing the resources in the Context of the Developer Role box to understand how the Developer role fits in the context of Lean-Agile. Then work through the Reading Path (guided readings) and library pages that pertain to the Developer role.

Role_Dev_LargeThe Developer Reading Path. A general introduction to the Developer role including standard work, essential practices, alternatives for your context, how to grow in the role, and helpful resources.

lp_coredevskillsThe Core Developer Skills Reading Path. An exploration of the essential skills required to be a competent developer including code qualities, essential principles and practices, wisdom, patterns, and disciplines.

LP_ScrumThe Scrum Reading Path introduces essential concepts for Scrum in a Lean-Agile environment. Scrum is a conceptual framework for undertaking software engineering projects that embraces and promotes evolutionary change throughout the entire life-cycle of the project.

LP_DecomposingRequirementsThe Decomposing Requirements Reading Path describes the Lean-Agile process of understanding requirements “just in time,” adding “just enough” detail to keep the work progressing but never more than what we need at the time. Developers are involved in decomposing requirements, especially when requirements arrive at the team level: features/stories/tasks. Pay attention to the Activities section, especially Decomposing Features into Stories and Writing Tasks.

Going Deeper

Here are additional resources to explore related to the Developer role.

The Disciplines and Practices page describes competencies at the team level to be mastered. Developers should pay special attention the resources in this area: Architecture, ATDD, estimation, iterative development, and understanding requirements.

Page_LibraryThe Resource Libraries for the Developer page lists the complete set of resources in the Lean-Agile Portal related to the Developer role.

featured_lastpodcastThe Lean-Agile Straight Talk podcast features interviews of experts in Lean-Agile. Subscribe to the podcast to receive updates. Here are sessions that apply to the Developer role:

Acceptance Test-Driven Development: A Quick Introduction
Going Beyond Scrum, Part 1
Going Beyond Scrum, Part 2
Skills that Developers Need to Acquire in an Agile Transformation

page_webinarsNet Objectives routinely hosts webinar series to explore important topics in Lean-Agile. Here are sessions that apply to the Tester role:

Using Guardrails to Tie Business to Technology

technicalresourcesThe Technical Resources page offers a set of resources to equip you in learning essential technical practices of Lean-Agile at the team level.

page_notrainingInvestigate Developer-oriented training by Net Objectives, starting with the training roadmap. Then consider the relevant courses in Technical Agility and in Lean-Agile at the Team.

The Developer Role in a Transformation

The transformation to Lean-Agile involves everyone. While the transformation is guided by leadership, everyone on the team routinely must make decisions about how to realize Lean-Agile in their own context. Lean-Agile Thinking guides these decisions so that everyone in the value stream is aligned.