Member roles

Depending on the scope of your project, the size of the team, and the management strategy that is being used, you will have a number of roles that need to be filled within the team. Below is a list of some common roles that may be applicable to your project along with a short description. It should be noted that not all roles are required for all projects, and that the roles do not need to map to people on a 1:1 basis. It is normal to have multiple people per role and to have some people acting in multiple roles. The most important thing is that you consider the different roles and responsibilities, and have at least an implicit agreement on who is going to be filling each of the roles. This will help people to understand their responsibilities and who they should be handing work over to or working with during the project development.

Roles

• Software Developer
  • Primarily focused on writing the software, fixing bugs, implementing new features.
  • Should be responsive to issues, and provide implementation advice to the team.
• Documentation and Test Developer
  • Primarily focused on the creation of documentation and developing tests.
  • Test cases and docstrings should be consistent.
  • Typically also will be responsible for automating the testing process and reporting issues.
  • Documentation can be focused on docstrings but can also include online documentation, help files, tutorials, and examples.
• Product Owner
  • The person who takes responsibility for setting the software project goals.
  • This person is tasked with understanding the client/user needs and translating them into user stories, milestones, and tasks.
• Domain Expert
  • Someone who has a good understanding of the context in which the software will be deployed or used.
  • When developing software for astronomers, it is not essential for all the development team to have a good understanding of the general or specific field of application.
  • A domain expert can be an internal point of contact for the development team when they have questions about the correctness or utility of an aspect of the project.
• Project Manager
  • Primarily focused on the organisation of the team, ensuring that team members have tasks matched to their skills, and that the required skills are available within the team.
  • The project manager will be responsible for the timing and scheduling of work and deadlines.
• Reviewer
  • Any piece of work that is completed should be assigned to a reviewer to ensure that the work is up to standard.
  • The reviewer should have a good understanding of the goals of a piece of work and be able to give feedback on areas that need improvement.
  • The reviewer should ideally not be involved in the development of the piece of work they are reviewing.
• Approver
  • Similar to a reviewer, except that there is no requirement for an approver to understand the implementation of the work being done.
  • An approver is focused on ensuring that the proper procedures have been followed.
• User Acceptance Tester
  • Someone who is able to perform the necessary tests to ensure that each of the user stories have been met.
  • Acceptance testing is typically not able to be automated and will require manual interaction to ensure that the end user can perform the tasks outline in the user stories.

The following workflow describes the interaction of the above roles within a generic software project: