Scrum Framework

Scaled Agile, what frameworks can you use?

Your company has a great product, which perfectly fits its market. The company is hiring and getting bigger. The product your company is developing requires more and more effort. One delivery team, not enough people to deliver on schedule defined in Product Roadmap. You need to scale!

Does your company consider using scaled Agile to improve product development? Which scaled Agile framework should you use? Can this framework be tailored for the problem you are solving, or rather not?

In this post we would like to introduce you to the scaled Agile frameworks concept and add some context around them. In this post we will cover the topics like:

1. What should you consider before scaling Agile?
2. Briefly describe five core scaled Agile frameworks — SAFe, Nexus, SoS, DAD and LeSS,
3. How to select scaled agile framework for your company?

What should you consider before scaling Agile?

Of course, there is no way you can scale Agile if you are not working this way. The best options is to

1. Properly implement Agile in one project (project level),
2. Implement Agile in several other teams (project level),
3. Implement scaled Agile practices, so that the teams that are working separately on the project level, can now work together on one single Product Backlog.

There are several things you need to consider before scaling Agile. Try to find answers for those questions:

1. Are we sure our delivery teams are understanding and practicing Agile?
2. Did we automate as much as possible in order to maximize the benefits of Agile?
3. Are our delivery teams feature based to minimize inter-dependencies?

Getting ready to scale

Agile is a mindset. It is all about transparency, inspection and adaptation. Your teams need to understand that there are a lot of unknowns in what you are building. You cannot predict, design and estimate all of the work in advance. Before scaling Agile you should think about:

1. MVP / Lean startup mindset — do not over-engineer, do not build end-to-end heavy solutions. Consider Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD), development and validation of small chunks of work,
2. Product Backlog — do you have one product backlog? Are you going to develop on project/program level? Or you have a project portfolio (several projects/programs that do not have to be related to each other)?
3. Collaborative culture — are your people seeking to work together?
4. Training and certifications — how do you know that the delegated people know how to scale Agile?
5. Know possible scaled Agile options.

Now we are going to describe briefly scaled Agile frameworks

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

When it comes to the scaled agile frameworks, SAFe is the most popular one. It takes about 30% of the scaled Agile market. It can be adopted on different levels, depending on the company needs, if it wants to implement Agile on a basic project level, scale it up to manage programs and portfolios or to implement the Agile solution on the whole enterprise. SAFe can be adopted and configured in four different ways:

1. Essential level SAFe — to be implemented on the project/program level,
2. Large level SAFe — to be implemented on the project/program level,
3. Portfolio SAFe — cover work on Portfolio level,
4. Full SAFe — combination of essential, large and portfolio SAFe levels.

SAFe should be considered when you are going to implement scaled Agile in large company or corporation. In start-up and middle-size companies it can be a bit overwhelming.

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)

DAD is very interesting position, when it comes to scaled agile frameworks. It should be considered more as a toolkit, because it depends on specific scenario you are going to handle. In a nutshell it consists of three phases — Inception, Construction and Transition, which can be easily mapped with traditional project management model (Design, Implement, Deploy).

DAD distinguished four delivery approaches, and those are:

1. Agile basic Life cycle — this approach is great if you are already using Scrum teams for product development,
2. Lean/Advanced Life cycle — this is the right choice if the organization is using Kanban, therefore it is more Operations-Centric,
3. Program/Continuous Delivery life cycle — allows multiple teams to work together,
4. Explanatory Life cycle — this one is great for the startup.

This approach for scaling Agile is a good chose, if your employees are already very good in Agile.

Large-Scaled Scrum (LeSS)

LeSS takes the best from Scrum and scales it to allow multiple Scrum Teams to work on a common product. There are two variations in this framework.

1. LeSS for organizations that develop product which requires up to eight teams,
2. LeSS Huge for organizations that requires higher number of teams.

LeSS is the same as Scrum, however it synchronizes several Scrum Teams working on a Single Product Backlog. Scrum Teams are working in parallel in the same iterations.

It is very good approach if your organization is excellent in Scrum.

Nexus

Nexus is a scaled Agile framework, or to be precise Scaled Scrum framework, which allows up to 9 Scrum Teams to collaborate on one Product, therefore one single Product Backlog. Why use Nexus, instead of SAFe, DAD, SoS, LeSS? Well, everything depends on the problem you want to solve and your organization.

Nexus is a very simple approach with which about 90 people can work on a single Backlog. It does not require much more roles and is easy to implement.

The main objective of using Nexus is to mitigate problems related with project Increments integration. It is the main risk, while multiple teams are developing related features — the integration.

Scrum of Scrums (SoS)

The concept of Scrum of Scrums is very simple, and easy to understand. We distinguish between 3–9 Scrum Teams collaborating closely on a Single product. Each team indicates a person, that meets together with colleagues indicated in other Scrum Teams, to join together a Scrum of Scrums Daily meeting. This meeting is used to remove impediments, interdependencies, and share common problems.

If more Scrum Teams are required in order to deliver a product, we can build SoSoS (Scrum of Scrum of Scrums), which works basically the same as the SoS option, but with another layer of Scrum Team.

How to select scaled agile framework for your company?

Of course we need to assume that your organization is already doing Agile. Now we need to dive deeper to find out, which one scaled Agile framework should you use?

Does your organization know Scrum?

1. YES — you can chose frameworks that are build on Scrum like: Nexus, SAFe, LeSS, SoS,
2. NO — you do not use Scrum, however your organization has broad Agile experience. Choose DAD, which is a toolkit of Option, which does not require Scrum. It can be for example Extreme Programming, Kanban or Lean.

Does your organization requires RIGID approach, or can it be more FLEXIBLE?

1. RIGID — choose well structured approaches like: Nexus, SAFe, LeSS, SoS,
2. FLEXIBLE — go with DAD.

Are you going to implement scaled Agile frameworks due to management decisions and want to go TOP-DOWN? Or do you want to enhance your delivery teams and scale Agile BOTTOM-UP?

1. TOP-DOWN — choose SAFe & DAD,
2. BOTTOM-UP — go for Nexus, SoS or LeSS.

Can you afford multiple brand new roles to be included in delivery process, or prefer fewer roles?

1. FEWER — LeSS, SoS, Nexus,
2. MORE — SAFe, DAD.

Do you want to implement complex solution, or simple one?

1. COMPLEX — SAFe, DAD,
2. SIMPLE — Nexus, LeSS, SoS.

If you want to check how exact selection criteria process looks like, I will write a post about it very soon!

Thank you for reading this post. Now I would like to encourage you to write down your comment about this topic ;)