Scaling Scrum: This guide is excellent as it teaches you how to modify Scrum for larger initiatives, coordinate work among multiple teams, and manage more complicated product backlogs. This guide will teach you how to maximize your teams’ productivity and collaboration to achieve success.
Scaling Scrum: Frameworks and Strategies
Scrum scaling is now a reality for many growing organizations, and there are several frameworks designed to help teams scale while remaining agile. Here are a few of the most common options.
SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) is a detailed framework designed for large enterprises. It organizes work into “Agile Release Trains” and focuses on alignment throughout the entire organization.
LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) is designed with the philosophy of simplicity in mind. The framework attempts to scale Scrum principles across multiple teams with as little additional structure as possible.
Nexus is the first framework to introduce a new team role, the “Nexus Integration Team,” which helps coordinate the efforts of 3-9 Scrum teams working on a single product.
Scrum@Scale frameworks use a “scale-free” architecture that allows companies to organically scale Scrum according to their unique needs.
When deciding on a framework, consider your organization’s size, culture, and goals. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. The key is to stick to the core of Scrum while adapting the framework to your specific context.
Remember that 96% of agile practitioners apply Scrum or Scrum-hybrid methodologies, indicating its widespread adoption and effectiveness. However, scaling Scrum requires some modifications to maintain the core benefits of Scrum at scale.
Organizational Structure for Scaled Scrum
Scaled Scrum introduces new roles to handle the increased complexity with Chief Scrum Master and the Chief Product Owner. The Chief Scrum Master supervises multiple Scrum Masters to ensure consistency, and a Chief Product Owner may help align team-level Product Owners.
Team selection is just as important here as it is in basic Scrum. The ideal team size is still typically 3-9 people so they can communicate effectively.
Here are the best practices for selecting teams:
- Keep teams cross-functional.
- Select stable teams who can stay together long-term.
- Don’t select more than 8-10 teams in your scaled implementation.
- Maintain a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 Scrum Masters to teams.
- Don’t have more than 5 Scrum teams per Scrum of Scrums.
Selecting cross-functional teams is also key. Each team should be able to operate entirely on its own to complete a piece of value. This might be a team of people from a single department or a team of people from different departments. You might have to reorganize existing departments or hire new people to fill in the skills the teams will need.
Coordinating Multiple Scrum Teams
Coordination is a major issue as you scale. The Scrum of Scrums solves this problem. It’s a meeting where a representative from each Scrum team meets to discuss progress, dependencies, and impediments.
Scrum of Scrums meetings are usually held 2-3 times per week. This provides a recurring meeting for inter-team communication without overburdening everyone with daily meetings.
Synchronized sprints ensure multiple teams are working together. You can plan together and deliver together with this approach. You’ll also have an easier time managing dependencies and tracking progress across all teams.
Release planning becomes more important at scale. This involves reconciling individual team autonomy with delivering a coherent product increment. You can use methods such as story mapping or release trains to combine the work of many teams into a single product increment.
Managing dependencies across teams is essential. You can use tools like dependency boards or cross-team backlog refinement to prevent bottlenecks before they happen.
Communication needs to change to make large-scale Scrum effective. Consider using:
- Regular all-hands
- Shared digital tooling
- Cross-team communities of practice
- Rotation programs to spread knowledge
Scaling Product Backlog Management
Managing a product backlog at scale requires different strategies. You must reconcile the broader product vision with teams of teams.
Scaling a product backlog typically requires a hierarchical strategy. You break high level epics down into features, then into user stories. This allows you to do top down planning and bottom up team level work.
Prioritization becomes more challenging with multiple teams. Use frameworks like WSJF (weighted shortest job first) or cost of delay to identify what to prioritize next.
The feature teams versus component teams debate is one of the key scaling questions. Feature teams whose mission is to deliver end user value tend to be more versatile. Component teams organized by system part can be more efficient.
Reconciling team autonomy with a broader product vision is a perennial challenge. Regular alignment meetings and clearly communicating the strategy to optimize for these challenges.
Scaling Scrum Ceremonies
Sprint Planning at scale requires some level of coordination. You may begin with a higher level planning meeting with one person from each team present. From there, each team conducts its own planning meeting.
Large Daily Scrums don’t work well, so a Scrum of Scrums is a better option. Each team conducts its own Daily Scrum and then sends one person to a larger cross-team synchronization meeting.
Sprint Reviews at scale become more complicated. You might host a “demo fair” where stakeholders visit different areas for each team at the Review. Alternatively, you might host a combined review and have each team present its top highlights.
Retrospectives at scale should occur at different levels. Each individual team conducts its own Retrospective. Then, each team sends one person to a broader program-level Retrospective for organization-wide issues.
By tweaking these ceremonies, you can still get the benefits of Scrum even if you’re running a larger organization.
Tooling and Infrastructure for Scaled Scrum
Effective tooling becomes more important as you scale Scrum. Collaboration tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams enable team communication across distributed locations.
Agile project management software like Jira VSTS, or Rally allows you to manage a larger backlog and track progress across multiple teams.
You’ll need continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines to ensure quality and speed as you scale. Jenkins, GitLab CI, and CircleCI are examples of CI/CD tools that can automate the build, test, and deployment processes.
Knowledge sharing platforms are essential in a larger organization. This includes wikis, documentation repositories, and internal blogs to share information and best practices across teams.
Selecting the right tools can have a significant impact on your ability to scale Scrum. Choose tools that reinforce transparency, encourage collaboration, and easily integrate with your existing systems.
Measuring Success in Scaled Scrum
Measuring success at scale in a Scrum environment requires a nuanced strategy. You’ll need to measure data points at both the team and program. At the team level, these might be key performance indicators like:
- Time to market
- Customer satisfaction
- Employee happiness
- Defect count
- Velocity data
At the program level, look at data points like:
- Feature lead time
- Program predictability
- Business value
And these numbers show scaling Scrum successfully can generate some impressive data points:
- Customers go to market 30-40% faster
- Increased strategic alignment by 50%
- Team productivity increased by an average of 35%
- Reduced internal and external defects by 25%
- Increased employee happiness by 40%
These numbers illustrate the potential value of scaling Scrum effectively, but remember to always align your data points with your organization’s specific goals and context.
Common Challenges and Solutions in Scaling Scrum
Scaling Scrum brings new obstacles. It’s harder to ensure agility at scale, and you must strike a balance between coordinating teams and allowing teams to maintain some level of autonomy.
Cultural change resistance is a challenge. Some team members may push back against the idea of operating in a more transparent and collaborative environment. Overcoming this challenge usually requires a mix of coaching, leadership support, and patience.
Balancing standardization with autonomy is another recurring challenge. Too much standardization kills creativity, while too little causes chaos. Finding the right solution for your company is important.
Scaling tech practices (DevOps, test automation, etc.) becomes more important. These practices ensure you can maintain quality and speed as you scale. However, it often requires additional investment in training and tools to make it work.
It’s also important to remember that it takes 6-12 months for a scaled Scrum implementation to really gel. Therefore, you need to be patient and continue working through the previous challenges.
Case Studies: Successful Scrum Scaling
Real-world examples: Real-world examples illustrate the opportunity of scaled Scrum. Many organizations have realized substantial benefits by effectively scaling Scrum.
One example is a large financial services company that successfully scaled SAFe to over 1200 people. Here are their results:
- 50% decrease in cycle time
- Quality improved 200%
- Team productivity rose 100%
Another example comes from a global telecommunications company that scaled LeSS with over 20 teams. Here’s how scaling Scrum benefited them:
- 65% faster time to market
- 85% better alignment of teams to business results
- 72% more project visibility
These case studies reveal commonalities among successful scaled Scrum implementations:
- Strong executive support
- Investment in training and coaching
- Emphasis on technical quality
- A mantra of continuous improvement
While your results will likely differ, these case studies illustrate the power of scaling Scrum. The trick is to adjust the framework to your unique organization and relentlessly focus on improvement. Understanding the scrum pillars is crucial for successful implementation and scaling of Scrum in any organization.
Signing Off
Scaling Scrum requires thoughtful selection of frameworks, methods, and organizational structures, and the key to success is efficient coordination, communication, and flexibility. The rewards are a faster time to market, higher productivity, and more employee satisfaction. Just keep in mind that scaling is a process. It requires time and energy, but the impact on your organization can be significant. Just remain dedicated to continuous improvement, and you’ll enjoy the advantages of scaled agility.
