The document discusses scaling scrum to large distributed teams and the challenges involved. It notes that while scrum was designed for small co-located teams, many enterprises are now adopting agile at large scales across multiple locations. Scaling scrum introduces challenges related to roles, events, artifacts, team structure, communication, knowledge reuse, and infrastructure. The document proposes various approaches to adapt the scrum framework, roles, and events when scaling to multiple scrum teams and provides examples of restructuring teams and consolidating communication channels. It emphasizes starting with a small approach rather than big bang, allowing teams to improve processes, and investing in automation and infrastructure.

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© 2014 Persistent Systems Ltd
Scaling Scrum To Large Distributed
Teams and its Challenges
Pooja Wandile

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Scrum
 As designed for use
 2 – 4 weeks sprints
 Small and self organized team,
7 members +/- 2
 Co-located
 Face to face communication
 Cross functional
 3 roles, 3 artefacts, 4 scrum
meetings
 Potentially shippable product at
the end of each sprint

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Scrum XXL?
Complex
Products
Large
Teams
Agile Manifesto
& Principles
Scrum
Practices

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Scrum: S to XXL
 Different versions
 Multi locations
 3> Scrum teams < 20-25
 100+ people
 Team size > S
 Non IT teams
 Global teams
 Enterprise adoption

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Enterprises Adopting Agile Rapidly
57%
Enterprises having 5+ agile
teams. Doubled in last 2
years!
43%
Enterprises having 10+
agile projects
76%
Enterprises have distributed
teams, doubled in an year
SCRUM continues to be most popular agile practice, Scrumban is gaining momentum.
Agile projects’ failure could be attributed to inappropriate Change Management.
Cultural Change is cited as most challenging aspect.80%
Source: 8th Annual State of Agile Survey by Version One: http://www.versionone.com/pdf/2013-state-of-agile-survey.pdf

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 Agile methodologies intended
for smaller teams were not
designed for large scale
deployment
 Agile practices alone can’t serve
the purpose of enterprises IT
 Scaled deployment is possible
by blending with Portfolio &
Program practices
Can Agile Scale?
Program
Management
Agile Methodologies
Portfolio
Management

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Key Considerations
Business Value
Productivity
Time to market
Changing Priorities
 Large scale deployment is rising
 Business wants prioritized delivery of
value at a speed to rival the competition
at the reduced cost

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Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Agile Manifesto
Manifesto is unclear about key Enterprise Asks
Predictability
Business IT-Alignment
Strategy
Risk Management
Processes
IT Budgets
Security Architecture
InnovationPortfolio Management

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Scrum XXL: What Changes?
Roles and Responsibilities
Any thing Else?

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Scrum XXL: Challenges

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Scrum XXL Challenges
 Scrum Framework
 Roles
 Events
 Artifacts
 Team structure
 Team Communication &
Collaboration
 Knowledge & Reuse
 Infrastructure & Operations

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Scrum Roles Challenges
 Product Owner
 Insufficient bandwidth
 Overloaded
 Addressing teams queries
 Scrum Master
 Too many meetings
 Managing dependencies and
issues across teams
 Team
 More processes &
Documentation
 Someone else is calling the shots

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 Product Backlog grooming
 Product Scope vs. Budget,
 what gets in – what gets out, ongoing exercise
 Long grooming meetings for all teams
 Sprint planning
 Mapping of Sprint goal vis-à-vis big picture
 Inter team dependencies
 Daily Scrum Meeting
 Hard to accommodate distributed team members
 Difficulty in understanding active participation (body language/facial expression)
Scrum Events Challenges

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 Sprint Review
 Fragmented view of features developed
 Not exactly complete increment, value stream missing 
 Sprint Retrospection
 Complete lack of active participation in the retrospection conference
 “It is not my problem” attitude
 Scrum of Scrums
 Managing Impediments across teams
 Aggregated view of progress
 Co-ordination challenges, too many people involved
Contd…

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Team Structure Challenges
 Pyramid team structure
 Delay in communication
 Dealing with additional roles
 Pigs & Chickens roles merging
 Component and feature teams
 Additional non feature based
teams
 Addition of PMO

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Communication & Collaboration Challenges
 Overdose of email communication
 Every email is urgent
 Internal & External communication
 Conflicts, misunderstandings,
uncertainty in communication
 More documentation, can’t help
 Keeping documents up to date
 Dependency on multiple
collaboration tools
 More teams, more confusion, more
delay in decision making

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Knowledge & Reuse Challenges
 Reinventing the wheel
 For the same set of common
issues
 Duplication of efforts
 Lack of consistency in
processes across teams

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Infra & Ops Challenges
 Lots of different environments
 Dev, INT test, staging, UAT, production
 Environment configuration &
Management issues
 Budget constraint
 Infra not scaling in proportion with
team scaling
 VPN, Access request, Licenses
issues
 Automation
 Test, build, integration, regression,
deploy

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Scrum XXL: Approach

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 Restructure teams
 Product, Engineering, Feature, Ops, QA, PMO
 Adapt to Scrum framework
 Tailoring of scrum events
 Consolidate Communication & Collaboration channels
 Communication modes, collaboration tools and processes
 Establishe Chapters & Guilds for capability building
 Spotify model
 Optimize cost and usage by investing in Cloud infrastructure and VMs
Steps

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Project Management Office
Team Metrics
Program Metrics
Overall Status:
Costing,
Budgeting &
Returns
Program
Sponsor
Offshore
Program
Manager
Project
Manager
1
Scrum
Master 1
Scrum
Master 2
Project
Manager
2
Scrum
Master 3
Scrum
Master 4
Client
Program
Manager
Onsite
Program
Manager
Onsite
Team

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Product Management Team
Chief Product Manager
Product Manager, Feature Product Manager, UX/UI
Product Owners, Feature
UX/UI Designers
Business Analysts
Overall owner of the product roadmap, release plan, final
authority in conflicting situations
• Manage program backlog
• Provide Feature feedback
• Manage Feature backlog
• Provide user story feedback
• Act as a liaison between team
and PO
• Resolve day to day queries

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Engineering Team
Chief Architect
• Own system architecture and
infrastructure
System Architect
• Define technical Epics
Enterprise Architect
• Define NFR epics
• Define enterprise architecture governance
Solution Architect
• Define technical stories
Team Captains : Technical
• Own low level implementation
• Manage tech debt
1 2 3
Team Captains : Enterprise
• Own performance, load and
other NFR implementation

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Scrum team, QA, Ops
Create build:
Feature 1
Integration, Regression,
UAT testing of features
Create build:
Feature 2
Create build:
Feature 3
Deploy and release to
staging & production

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 Product backlog grooming
 CPO & PMs: Program backlog: Once in 2 weeks grooming
 PMs, POs, Architects, BAs: Feature backlog: Weekly grooming
 Sprint planning
 BA, Scrum Team: Team Sprint backlog: One sprint ahead
 SoS
 Team Captains, Architects, POs: Impediment log: Once a week,
 Inter team dependencies, backlog status
Scrum Framework Adaptation

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 Sprint Review
 User Story acceptance by POs at sprint level
 Monthly demo of features to other stakeholders
 Sprint retrospection
 Team retrospection
 Monthly Common retrospection
 Consolidated findings across teams
 Metrics
Contd…

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Communication & Collaboration
 IM, VDO chats
 Confluence, wiki
 Home page for the program
 Team space for each Scrum team
 Team space for Prod, PMO, Architects,
Enterprise teams
 Blogs, Contact details, Vacation plan
 Anything and Everything goes there

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Knowledge & Reuse
 Adopt Spotify model
 Set up “Chapters” forums for
each community
 Design processes & Guidelines
 Conduct training to create
awareness
 Chapter forums for effective
learning and continuous
improvement

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Infra & Ops
 Common code base, frequent
auto builds, continuous
integration
 SVN, Jenkins
 Sonarqube
 Weekly automated regression
testing
 Automated deployment
 INT to Staging to Pre prod

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 Performance metrics
 Release and sprint velocity
 Velocity variance
 Delivered business value
 Effort utilization
 Product metrics
 Code coverage and automation coverage
 Defect leakage
 Performance metrics
 Build statistics/build efficiency
 CSAT
Metrics

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 Scaling practices are not easy to implement
 Sense of ownership and responsibility becomes loose
 Communication gets harder as more and more org layers get added
 Inter team dependencies only gets more & more complex
 Sprint Zero is definitely needed
 Start small as against big bang approach
 Involve teams on process improvements
 Invest in infrastructure and automation
 A combination of Kanban, Scrum and XP practices works well
Summary & Conclusion

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Questions????

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© 2014 Persistent Systems Ltd
Thank You
Pooja_wandile@persistent.co.in
pooja.wandile@gmail.com