| Course | MT247 Agile and Scrum Methodologies |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 3 |
| Paper type | Role analysis |
| Length | About 890 words, 6 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT247 Unit 3
Authority on Paper and Authority in Practice: A Unit 3 Role Analysis of One Scrum Team
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT247: Agile and Scrum Methodologies
Unit 3 Role Analysis
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Larkspur Residential, its app team and every person and event are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.
Method
The analysis compares each Scrum accountability, as the 2020 Scrum Guide words it, with who holds it on paper and who holds it in practice at Larkspur. Evidence comes from three Sprints of the team's own records: backlog change history, emails that changed Sprint contents, and the team's calendar. For each gap the analysis records the symptom the team sees and its consequence for the product.
The Roles Table
Product Owner. Guide: one person answerable for the product's value, who alone decides the backlog's order and whose decisions the rest of the organization is expected to respect (Schwaber & Sutherland, 2020). On paper: the resident experience manager. In practice: the vice president of operations, who reorders the backlog by email two or three times a Sprint, usually the day after Sprint Planning. Symptom: work the team planned is set aside mid-Sprint. Consequence: the Sprint Goal, when one exists, is rarely met, and the resident experience manager has stopped refining items she expects to be overridden.
Scrum Master. Guide: answerable for how well the team works, with a duty to coach and serve the team, the Product Owner and the wider organization. On paper and in practice: the software development manager, who also approves developers' time off and writes their annual reviews. Symptom: the Daily Scrum is a status report to him, and nobody raises an impediment that might look like their own failure. Consequence: problems surface late, and the team's process does not improve.
Developers. Guide: the people who build a usable Increment each Sprint and who plan their own Sprint Backlog. On paper: five Developers, including the tester. In practice: tasks are assigned by the development manager at Sprint Planning; the Developers select no work of their own. Symptom: when one Developer finishes early, they wait for an assignment instead of picking up the next task. Consequence: the team does not act as a team, and the manager becomes a bottleneck.
First Misplaced Authority: Ordering the Backlog
The vice president's emails are not malicious. Each one responds to a complaint from a regional manager or a resident, and each request is reasonable on its own. The problem is that ordering is a single decision, and two people are making it. When the resident experience manager orders the backlog and the vice president reorders it, the team cannot plan, because the order it planned against no longer holds.
Moe et al. (2010), studying a Scrum team in practice, found that teamwork broke down when decision authority was unclear and when individuals were pulled in different directions by outside demands. Larkspur shows the same pattern from above: the team's plan is undone by a decision made outside it.
Adding a ceremony would not help. A second planning meeting, or a mid-Sprint review with the vice president, would give his reordering a place on the calendar without changing who decides. The fix is for the vice president to bring his requests to the Product Owner, who orders them against everything else.
Second Misplaced Authority: The Scrum Master as Line Manager
The Scrum Guide describes the Scrum Master as a servant leader whose job includes removing impediments and coaching the team. That role depends on trust: Developers must be willing to say what is slowing them down. When the same person writes their annual reviews, admitting a problem carries risk. The tester, for example, has not raised the team's habit of skipping automated tests, because it might reflect badly on the developers she works beside.
Rubin (2012) notes that combining the Scrum Master role with line management is possible only when the manager deliberately separates the two, and most do not. At Larkspur, the development manager runs the Daily Scrum as his status meeting, which is a line manager's habit, not a Scrum Master's.
A Scrum Master who writes your review is a manager with a new title.
Recommendations
Three changes would move each accountability to the person the Guide names.
First, the vice president agrees to send all requests to the Product Owner and to accept her ordering for the length of a Sprint. Cost to him: he gives up direct control of what the team works on this week. What the team should see within two Sprints: no mid-Sprint reorders, and at least one Sprint Goal met.
Second, a Scrum Master is named who does not manage the Developers, either a trained person from another team or an outside coach for six months. The development manager keeps people management. Cost to him: he gives up running the Daily Scrum and hearing status there. What the team should see within two Sprints: a fifteen-minute Daily Scrum run by the Developers and at least two impediments raised in it.
Third, the Developers plan their own Sprint Backlog at Sprint Planning, choosing tasks among themselves. Cost to the development manager: he no longer assigns tasks. What the team should see within two Sprints: Developers picking up work without waiting, and fewer half-finished items at the end of the Sprint.
References
Moe, N. B., Dingsøyr, T., & Dybå, T. (2010). A teamwork model for understanding an agile team: A case study of a Scrum project. Information and Software Technology, 52(5), 480-491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2009.11.004
Rubin, K. S. (2012). Essential Scrum: A practical guide to the most popular agile process. Addison-Wesley.
Schwaber, K., & Sutherland, J. (2020). The Scrum guide. https://scrumguides.org/scrum-guide.html
Reading the MT 247 Unit 3 instructions
The third unit asks students to compare the Scrum accountabilities as the Guide defines them with how they are held on a real or composite team. Set out who holds each accountability on paper and in practice, the symptoms the team sees and the consequences for the product. The prompt usually expects analysis of why the gaps occur, often because authority sits with someone outside the team or a role is combined with line management. Recommendations should move authority to where the Guide places it and say what each change costs the people who hold it now. Explain why adding meetings would not solve an authority problem. Five pages in APA 7, with a roles table, is typical.
How this MT247 Unit 3 example is built
The analysis states its method and evidence, backlog history, emails and the calendar, then presents the roles table for the Product Owner, Scrum Master and Developers, with a margin note on measuring the gap. A section on the backlog explains why two people ordering it means nobody can plan, with Moe and colleagues on unclear decision authority, and shows why a new ceremony would not help. A second section on the Scrum Master as line manager follows the tester who has not raised skipped tests, cites Rubin on combined roles and carries the highlighted line about a manager with a new title. Three recommendations close it, each with its cost and a two-Sprint check, marked by a final note.
Reading the MT247 Unit 3 grading rubric
Role analyses earn credit for accurate statements of each accountability, evidence of how it is actually held, sound explanation of consequences and realistic recommendations. Quoting or closely paraphrasing the Guide for each role sets the standard against which practice is judged. Graders reward evidence such as email histories or calendars over general impressions. Explaining why each gap produces its symptoms shows analysis rather than description. Recommendations score best when they name who loses authority and what they lose, since that is where resistance will come from, and when they set a short-term check. The table should let a reader see every gap at once, and the Guide and other sources need correct APA references. Instructors also look for evidence that the writer considered why the people holding misplaced authority took it, since that shapes how the change should be proposed.
Common MT247 Unit 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many students describe each role from the Guide and stop, without showing how it is held on the team. Another common error is blaming individuals, such as calling the vice president a micromanager, when the problem is where authority sits. Some recommendations add training or meetings without moving any decision. Others ignore the cost of change to the people losing authority. Make sure every claim about practice has a piece of evidence. Describe who really decides what on your team, and a writer will turn it into the roles table and a set of costed changes. Be careful to describe roles, not personalities, since the paper will be read by people who may recognize themselves.
Get an MT247 Unit 3 example written to your instructions
Titles, reporting lines and who really changes priorities are what a role analysis runs on, whether they come from the assigned case or from a team you know. Add the Unit 3 prompt and rubric, and a free first analysis arrives within 24-48h, each misplaced authority traced to what it breaks. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More MT247 papers and BS in Business Administration samples
- MT247 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- MT247 Unit 2: Framework Explanation
- MT247 Unit 4: Backlog Ordering Exercise
- MT247 Unit 5: Estimation Exercise
- MT247 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- MT247 Unit 7: Sprint Planning Artifact
- MT247 Unit 8: Impediment Analysis
- MT247 Unit 9: Retrospective Design
- MT247 Unit 10: Adoption Assessment
- MT246 Unit 3: Estimating Exercise
- MT245 Unit 3: Business Case
- MT243 Unit 3: Prospect Research Brief
- MT242 Unit 3: Scheduling Exercise
MT247 Unit 3 questions, answered
Can a manager ever serve as Scrum Master?
The Guide does not forbid it, but line authority makes the accountability difficult. A Scrum Master is meant to serve the team and cause impediments to be removed, and people rarely raise problems in front of whoever writes their reviews. The example argues the combination is breaking this particular team and recommends separating the two, while noting some organizations make it work with care.
What if the executive who overrides the Product Owner outranks everyone?
Then the analysis says so, because that is the real constraint. A recommendation cannot simply order the executive to stop; it has to offer a route that serves his interests, such as bringing his requests to the Sprint Review, where priorities are inspected openly. The example frames the change as giving the vice president visibility he currently lacks.
Should the analysis cover the Developers too?
Yes, briefly, even when the main failures sit elsewhere. Developers who receive assigned tasks have lost the self-management the Guide gives them, and that loss usually follows from the authority problems above. The example gives the Developers one row and one paragraph, showing how the manager's task assignment connects to the Scrum Master problem rather than treating it separately.
Where can I find a free MT247 Unit 3 sample paper?
This page holds the full MT247 Unit 3 role analysis. It compares who holds each Scrum accountability on paper and in practice on a property company's app team and recommends three changes with their costs.
Why can't the MT247 Unit 3 team fix the problem by adding ceremonies?
Because the gaps are about who decides. A new meeting would give the vice president's reordering a slot on the calendar without moving the ordering decision back to the Product Owner.