Definitions
A Role includes the definition of areas of responsibility and corresponding tasks. Persons can take on different roles, possibly several roles. However, not every person can handle several roles at the same time. There are also role conflicts and role exclusions.
Skills are personal abilities that combine knowledge, experience and competence. There are certain skills for each role that a person should possess when fulfilling that role. However, some skills are not linked to roles. People can have skills without having the corresponding role.
In contrast, Positions define a person’s status within the organizational hierarchy.
Roles and Skills in the P4-Framework
In the P4 framework only a few roles are defined that separate the different areas of responsibility (see “the principle of separation of powers”). Many of the roles defined in classic processes are skills in the P4 framework.
| Skill | Role: | PO | SM | SE | CoP-Lead | Working Team Member |
| Requirements Engineering | X | x | ||||
| Moderation | X | X | x | x | ||
| Test-Engineering | X | x | ||||
| spezifische Expertise | X | x |
More about further skills and roles in the next but one section.
Role conflicts and role exclusions
Conflicts between different roles cannot be avoided and are in many cases even value-adding and useful. However, these conflicts should always be between several people, so that a discussion and agreement process can take place. In order to prevent conflicts from occurring “within one person”, certain roles are mutually exclusive in the P4 framework.
If one person takes over several roles, it is very important to make sure that this person is able to carry the double burden.
| Roles | PO | SM | SE | CoP Lead | Working Team Member |
| classic Line Manager | Avoid | Try | Avoid | Yes | NO |
| Product Ownwer (PO) | NO | NO | Yes | NO | |
| Scrum Master (SM) | Opt | Yes | Opt | ||
| System Engineer (SE) | Yes | Yes | |||
| Community-of-Practice Lead (CoP) | Yes |
Explanations:
Yes: The combination is suitable to be combined depending on the person
Opt: The combination is suitable for small teams
Try: If classical roles still exist in the organization, this combination is worth a try
Avoid: If classical roles still exist in the organization, this combination is rather unsuitable and should be avoided
NO: These combinations lead to role conflicts and should not be used
Additional skills and roles
The organization defines which skills are organized in separate Expert Teams and which skills are established as special roles. However, Expert Teams have advantages and disadvantages that should be weighed up carefully:
Advantages
- Experts can exchange information and support each other, e.g. as vacation replacement (load and experience balancing)
- Education of individual experts can be well organized. Very often the group leader is the most experienced person.
Disadvantages
- Scheduling of the assignment of each individual expert
- Many hand-overs in the workflow
- Experts are either over- or underloaded
- Perceived demarcation: Fostering of a “us and them” attitude. Experts feel like a small cog in the work process.
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