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What is a job title that conveys the duties of the manager of a product team that is striving to be Agile, that is meaningful in the broader market and would convey that person's value both outside and inside the company?

The product team's members would report to this person; this person is dedicated to their team and will facilitate any organization-related needs for the team. They are a leader and a liaison to senior managers and the broader organization, but they are not the Product Owner. This person wouldn't necessarily help to build the product, though they could if they want. If the team is running Scrum, this person would only serve as Scrum Master if the team determined they were the best to serve as such.

So what title would you give this person?

Patrick Szalapski
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  • I realize this question is subjective, but it meets the six criteria here: https://softwareengineering.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/350/the-six-subjective-question-guidelines-enforcement-notice so I believe it is proper for this site. – Patrick Szalapski Jan 22 '18 at 21:29
  • Thanks for the thoughts. I re-checked the Scrum guide, and there is no such title as "team lead" in Scrum. I'm indeed asking for any Agile team, not necessarily for Scrum. (Incidentally, key to a Scrum Master in Scrum is to help remove impediments and coach the team in Scrum and Agile, which this role wouldn't necessarily do as a top priority.) – Patrick Szalapski Jan 22 '18 at 22:07
  • I've also removed the Scrum tag to help avoid confusion. If Agile==Scrum to you, that is a huge impediment. – Patrick Szalapski Jan 22 '18 at 22:08
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    Why does the role exist? There must be a business reason to have a pesron in this position, right? The closest thing right now just seems to be "Team Manager", but you already seem to have ruled that out. – Erik Jan 22 '18 at 22:12
  • Team Leader doesn't seem to fit, as they aren't really serving to build the product on the team. They are more of a manager who might lead than a leader who might manage. – Patrick Szalapski Jan 22 '18 at 22:12
  • Erik: The role exists for lots of reasons, I'll call out a few: (1) HR needs someone to be the manager-of-people, and we want to have that person dedicated to one product team rather than be an outsider. (2) This person may or may not have expertise to contribute in building the product, but definitely has big responsibility to make sure the product is built well and meets business need (3) Many of our business-side Product Owners are at varying degrees of Agile maturity and aren't interested in serving as organizational liaison, manager of people, facilitator, or team advocate. – Patrick Szalapski Jan 22 '18 at 22:22
  • @PatrickSzalapski IMO the answers wouldn't really be able to explain why they recommend something, they'd probably be short, and mostly opinions that can't really be backup up with facts or references. If this is specifically about Agile, some version of this question might be on topic on [pm.se] (but probably more along the lines of asking whether such a person has a place in Agile). – Bernhard Barker Jan 22 '18 at 22:53
  • I'll just keep asking; but why does HR need someone to be "manager-of-people"? Also, your (2) is the PO's job and your (3) is the Scrum Master's. (Within Scrum, anyway). What are they supposed to be doing if this manager is doing their job? – Erik Jan 23 '18 at 05:57
  • @Erik employees need a line manager so they have someone to hand in their notice to :) – AakashM Jan 23 '18 at 09:29
  • @Erik, I have no influence over HR and very little over the POs. I do have influence over the title of the position I am asking about. These are my constraints; I appreciate the need to question them, though. And I think I disagree in part: in Scrum, the Scrum Master's duty is not really to be an organizational liaison or a manager of people. – Patrick Szalapski Jan 23 '18 at 13:48
  • Possible duplicate of How do I choose an appropriate job title? – David K Jan 23 '18 at 14:35

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At work, we call this person "Team Lead".

About ten years ago, we started using Scrum, and teams had a Scrum Master. After a year, we recognized that Scrum wasn't agile enough, and that we needed people who did more than just being Scrum Master. So, we got Team Leads (for a short while, they were called Scrum Master/Team Lead).

Nowadays, we have hundreds of teams. Many of them have Team Leads, but not all of them.

Most teams have Product Owners, although many teams share a Product Owner.

People transition from Team Lead to Product Owner, and from Product Owner to Team Lead, but only rarely someone plays both roles at the same time.

Abigail
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