DSDM Roles and Responsibilities

There are 13 roles in DSDM, all with clear responsibilities. These roles and responsibilities are designed in a way that maximizes collaboration (following the collaborate principle).

The roles

The following are the roles defined in DSDM:

• Business Sponsor: The project champion, responsible for the business case and project budget
• Business Visionary: Represents the Business Sponsor by communicating the vision of the project and interpreting the needs.
• Project Manager: Responsible for the high-level coordination of the project
• Technical Coordinator: Ensures technical consistency and coherent (especially when there are multiple teams).
• Business Analyst: Facilitates the relationship between technical and business people, and between project level and team level.
• Technical Advisor: Gives teams ad hoc advice on technical aspects.
• Business Advisor: Gives teams ad hoc advice on business aspects.
• Business Ambassador: Brings business knowledge to the teams.
• Team Leader: Responsible for coordination inside a team
• Solution Developer: Develop the product.
• Solution Tester: Test the product.
• Workshop Facilitator: Facilitates workshops!
• DSDM Coach: Helps use the DSDM method.

In some cases, multiple people can play the same role, and sometimes, a single person can play multiple roles.

The nature of people

These roles are played by stakeholders who have one (or sometimes two) of the following natures:

• Business interest
  • Business Sponsor
  • Business Visionary
  • Business Analyst
  • Business Advisor
  • Business Ambassador
• Management interest
  • Project Manager
  • Team Leader
• Technical interest
  • Technical Coordinator
  • Technical Advisor
  • Business Analyst
  • Solution Developer
  • Solution Tester
• Process interest
  • Workshop Facilitator
  • DSDM Coach

The way roles are defined ensures that there’s enough involvement from all types of stakeholders.

The levels

There are three levels in the organization of DSDM projects:

• Project level
  • Business Sponsor
  • Business Visionary
  • Project Manager
  • Technical Coordinator
  • Business Analyst
• Team level
  • Business Analyst
  • Business Ambassador
  • Team Leader
  • Solution Developer
  • Solution Tester
• Support level
  • Technical Advisor
  • Business Advisor
  • Workshop Facilitator
  • DSDM Coach

There’s one project level and one support level, while there can be multiple teams in the project. When there are multiple teams, all their activities will be coordinated and unified with the help of the single project level defined in DSDM.

NOTE: This section of the wiki is not detailed yet. I’ll come back to this after the first increment and add more detail :)

Written by Nader K. Rad

This is (and will be) a work in progress: More details will be added in the future, depending on the feedback.

This wiki is developed and managed by an accredited trainer, independent of Agile Business Consortium and APMG. While aligned with their guidelines, it’s not an official resource.