Hotovo life - 2. September 2016
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Scaling Scrum

Thinking about implementing Scrum in a larger scale? No problems, that works too. Think about Scrum of Scrums.

Scrum is often described for smaller teams. Plus the Product owner and Scrum Master. It doesn’t have to end there. If the teams are using scrum, but everybody else is using some waterfall alternative, there will be a lot of friction in the organization. Assuming there is actual support for Scrum in the organization, why not scale it up?

Scrum of Scrums is simply another a backlog, sprints and teams at a higher level. Just zoom out and create a meta-backlog that will contain higher level stories for the smaller teams. A team member of the lower level team becomes a team member at a higher level.

You don’t necessarily need to have a daily standup, perhaps a weekly can do. No smoke and mirrors involved here.

A common argument against scaling up scrum is that various parts of the organization need to know the timing of a project. Sure, otherwise you can’t really plan, right? What if you miss the deadline then? Most of the projects are late. Why? Because the wrong estimates or you have a lot of change management along the way. Then it’s still better to deliver something functional in time rather than delaying the whole product with original scope that may have already changed. 

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