They sit together and work together and everyone has a very specific role - for the employees at MediaMarktSaturn Technology, working in so-called Product Teams is nothing new. It’s the core element of the collaborative unit known as a ‘Scrum’, which is intended to create synergy and enable teams to develop solutions quickly and independently. However, each company is free to interpret this form of cooperation for themselves, including deciding what roles a team should comprise.

One example is the app team from Munich, which develops the apps for the MediaMarkt and Saturn online shop. In addition to the Product Owner, the app team in Munich consists of the roles of UX Designer, Data Analyst, DevOps, Quality Assurance, Scrum Master and the Developers. Although everyone has defined tasks, teamwork is enormously important. All decisions are team decisions. Everyone in the team uses their skills to contribute to solutions and decisions. The team are proud of their product.

Who contributes to success – and how?

Existing data need to be checked for quality and consistency. The Data Analyst identifies, analyses and interprets important trends and patterns. The results are then presented in such a way that recommended actions can be concluded.

The UX Designer then sets to work to make the human–machine interface as simple and intuitive as possible. If using an app is fun, the UX Designer has done a good job. Their duties include for example carrying out tests to ascertain what colour works best for the client for a certain button

Development cycles in agile software development are becoming shorter and shorter. This is where the DevOps Engineer comes in. The DevOps Engineer is responsible for automating the deployment and testing process. The main tasks of this role are creating, maintaining and improving deployment, distribution, and the execution of test automation.

To ensure the quality of the software, some test processes can be automated. However, certain aspects of app development cannot be tested in this way and are instead verified by the person in the Quality Assurance role.

The close cooperation of all the roles in the team results in a new user story, for instance a function intended to give the client added value, such as a share button. Once this user story has been worked out by everyone in sufficient detail, it can be implemented as desired by the Developers.

The Scrum Master – a kind of moderator – ensures that the processes work in a team. Scrum is an agile method in software development in which the developers’ team organizes itself without needing a project manager. The Scrum Master acts as a mediator between the various roles and also ensures that the development process isn’t interrupted.

Is this form of cooperation successful? When it comes to employees at MediaMarktSaturn, definitely. “We learn to take responsibility for our product and hence identify with it." This phrase is heard frequently.