A Composite Role is a grouping of Roles that can be used in an Activity or Process to reduce the number of Roles. A Composite Role is thus for the Tasks and Work Products defined for the Roles it refers to. A typical use of this construct occurs within a Process designed for a small team in which multiple standard Roles from the Method Content are assigned to a single resource. By using a Composite Role the Process suggests a typical clustering of Roles to Resources.

A simple example is a Composite Role named Developer that groups together the Implementer and Tester Roles. Now, every time one of the Roles Implementer or Tester would normally be used within the breakdown structure, Developer is used instead. Hence, if a Task Descriptor is added to the Process, that has Implementer or Tester as the primary performer, this Role would be automatically be substituted by the Composite Role instance Developer that links back to either Tester or Implementer (or both if both were listed as the Task performers).