5 common mistakes to avoid when scaling Scrum
Does your product require more resources? Are you looking for ways of multiplying your scrum teams? In this article, we explain the major risks connected with scaling Scrum. Many organizations scale Scrum incorrectly, and that brings more harm than good. Read our tips to protect your company from Scrum scaling mistakes.
Table of contents:
Warning: when you scale, you scale everything
1. Avoid putting processes and tools over individuals
2. Avoid building teams around product components
3. Avoid scaling Scrum without proper preparation
4. Avoid creating many different backlogs for one product
5. Avoid scaling Scrum in high-dependency conditions?
Scaling Scrum - final words
Warning: when you scale, you scale everything
The main trouble with scaling Scrum is that multiplying teams that don’t work well, will just bring more teams like that, causing further problems. Unfortunately, bad habits scale too. If you have a single scrum team and it doesn’t deliver valuable increments in each sprint, copying it will just make things worse.
Scaling Scrum requires specific conditions. If you have to do this without any professional support, get ready. It’s best to consider using one of Scrum scaling frameworks (Nexus, SAFe, LeSS, Scrum@Scale) and you need to prepare well for that process. In this article, we don’t describe the frameworks in detail, but we give you an overview of the most common mistakes to avoid when scaling Scrum.
1. Avoid putting processes and tools over individuals
Many companies, when scaling, get lost in all the rules and processes. That’s one of the mistakes to avoid. You need to remember that processes and frameworks are there to serve your team, your product, your organization. Not to disturb.
Another thing is applying more Agile rules and terms without the accompanying mindset. Large organizations tend to use Agile terms - like ‘squads’ or ‘tribes’ - for teams and whole departments, but that’s often the only change they make. Scaling Scrum is not about adopting new terms. First it requires shaping an Agile organizational culture, by coaching employees in an Agile mindset, so they are equipped with all they need to focus on delivering value.?
2. Avoid building teams around product components?
When multiplying scrum teams, it is easy and tempting to focus teams around product components instead of product features. When you ‘cut’ a customer journey into small pieces and assign the product development of each of these pieces to a different team, it might get quite difficult to integrate the components and deliver great value to users. If team members focus only on their own chunk of a product, they often tend to lose the wider product perspective and understanding.?
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What should be done instead? Instead of building teams around components, it’s safer to focus them around product features. A ‘feature team’ works with many different aspects of the customer journey. It’s especially important for products at the early stages of development but also for those in the product-market fit phase.
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3. Avoid scaling Scrum without proper preparation
Many organizations start scaling Scrum without previous training and consulting to save on budget as scaling Scrum is expensive. It requires dozens of training and consulting hours to prepare all teams and respective departments for the change. Implementing a new Agile culture without understanding the basics of it can be hard and frustrating, not to mention the lost time and money.?
It all needs to start with the leaders. They are the ones that are able to transfer and spread a new mindset among the teams. Top management should be one of the first groups adopting Agile principles and practices. What can help them is in-depth analysis of management models and rules that have been used so far, and building a strategy of changing them iteratively.?
When Agile transformation takes place, the business vision might also need adjustment. Scrum teams need to have a strong understanding of the business goals and overall vision of their organization. Only then can they work towards common benefits. It’s also recommended to set definitions of done for every team and prepare a common understanding of terms and rules to follow.
4. Avoid creating many different backlogs for one product
Scaling Scrum can’t work well when you have one product and more than one backlog. Even with multiple teams, it’s always better to keep it simple and hold on to one product backlog. The rule of a thumb is this: for one product there should be one backlog and one product owner.?
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5. Avoid scaling Scrum in high-dependency conditions?
You would think, with all departments trained and settled in an Agile culture, you are ready to scale Scrum. But that’s not always true. Imagine there is a team in your organization that can’t operate without previous actions taken by other teams. Even one team operating like that can cause troubles with scaling Scrum.?
As we mentioned earlier, incorrect structures, habits, and processes scale too. You don’t want that. Before scaling, try to minimize the number of dependencies between your teams or departments and prepare strategies to deal with them.?