Agile Transformation Anti-Patterns #2: The Scale Fail

Setting the Stage: The Open Enrollment Drama

It’s January, and your company is gearing up for the corporate Olympics of health insurance: open enrollment. Employees are preparing to wade through a buffet of options—health, dental, vision, and more disability plans than you knew existed. On the surface, this sounds simple: build systems so people can make their choices. Easy, right? Wrong.

Behind the scenes, it’s a chef’s kiss of chaos. Developers are staring down a mountain of requirements, all of which need to be ready for high traffic by September. The systems have to work flawlessly and integrate with existing infrastructure without throwing up the digital equivalent of a 404 error. Can a single team of 12 developers pull this off? Not unless they’ve got a time machine and Tony Stark-level tech.

What you’ll need are multiple teams working together like Voltron. But without clear direction, you end up with Voltron’s limbs flailing in different directions. Welcome to the Scale Fail, an Agile anti-pattern where scaling efforts dissolve into misaligned teams, botched integration, and enough finger-pointing to rival a reality TV reunion.

The Anti-Pattern: The Scale Fail

Agile frameworks like Scrum work beautifully at the team level. They’re designed for small, focused groups delivering incremental value. But when you try to scale those practices across multiple teams working on one big initiative, things tend to go sideways faster than your favorite show getting canceled.

Here’s how the Scale Fail shows up:

Teams operate in silos, focusing only on the value of their product deliverables. Integration? That’s “future-us”’s problem.

Agile purists side-eye scaling frameworks like SAFe or Spotify, drop the mic with “Scaling isn’t Agile,” and leave without offering solutions.

Organizations either wing it at scale (spoiler: it rarely works) or revert back to rigid structures that defeat the original purposes they set for agile transformation.

And here’s the kicker: the real difference between Agile and Waterfall lies in where your Agile efforts integrate into the larger organizational structure. Whether you’re operating at the team, program, or portfolio level, your integration must align with the company’s accounting, governance, and planning cycles. If it doesn’t, you’re basically running Agile on paper while sticking to a stealth-Waterfall approach.

Solving the Scale Fail: How to Glow-Up Your Agile Transformation

Scaling Agile doesn’t have to feel like solving a Rubik’s Cube blindfolded. The trick is understanding where your Agile processes should plug into the larger organizational structure and being intentional about how you scale. Here’s how to make it happen:

1. Decide Where to Integrate

The secret sauce of scaling Agile is choosing the level at which your Agile efforts integrate into the broader organization. Are you aligning just above the team level, at the program level, or all the way at the portfolio level?

Team-Level Integration: Teams deliver within their sprints, but integration with the larger structure is minimal.

Best for: Smaller organizations or isolated Agile initiatives.

Program-Level Integration: Multiple teams coordinate to deliver bigger initiatives, aligning with broader timelines.

Best for: Mid-sized organizations or departments within larger companies.

Portfolio-Level Integration: Agile efforts align directly with strategic initiatives, budget cycles, and governance structures.

Best for: Enterprise-level organizations with complex, multi-year projects.

The choice depends on your organization’s size, complexity, and tolerance for change. Remember, Agile isn’t about ignoring structure—it’s about creating flexibility within it.

2. Pick a Framework and Customize It

Frameworks like SAFe, Disciplined Agile, and the Spotify Model get a lot of heat from Agile purists, but they provide a solid starting point. Just don’t treat them like sacred texts. Instead, adapt the framework to fit your organization’s quirks. Think of it as building your dream burger—start with the basics, then add the toppings that make it your own.

3. Don’t Skip Integration Management

Integration is where scaling efforts often flop harder than a belly-flop at a pool party. Without a dedicated focus on integration, you end up with teams delivering great components that don’t play well together.

Treat integration like the boss battle it is. Assign roles or teams to ensure all systems and deliverables align. This includes managing dependencies, stakeholder alignment, and vendor coordination. Integration isn’t a side quest—it’s the main event.

4. Balance Agility with Organizational Realities

Scaling Agile doesn’t mean ignoring the realities of budget cycles, compliance requirements, and market deadlines. Instead of fighting these constraints, build your Agile processes around them.

For example, if your company operates on an annual budget cycle, align your sprints and planning efforts with those financial timelines. Remember, Agile is about being flexible, not rebellious. You can stay Agile and still make your CFO happy.

5. Overcome the Purist Problem

Agile purists often resist scaling, claiming it dilutes the principles of Agile. Instead of letting them mic-drop their way out of the conversation, bring them into the fold. Their knowledge of Agile principles can help keep your scaling efforts true to the manifesto while working within organizational realities.

6. Foster Cross-Team Communication

When teams are scaling, communication is the first thing to get ghosted. Establish clear pathways between teams to ensure alignment. Shared roadmaps, regular cross-team syncs, and transparent reporting can help keep everyone on the same page.

Final Thoughts: Scaling Without the Fails

Scaling Agile isn’t about ditching the core principles—it’s about applying them where they make the most sense in your organization. Whether you’re integrating at the team, program, or portfolio level, the key is aligning Agile efforts with the broader organizational structure.

By choosing the right level of integration, customizing your framework, and prioritizing communication and integration management, you can avoid the Scale Fail and make Agile work at any level.

Next week: We’ll tackle the Struggle Bus, where teams work overtime but somehow still get nowhere. (Spoiler: it’s not because they’re lazy.) Until then, stay aligned, stay flexible, and keep scaling smart!

?

“Does an agile transformation have you in a situationship with chaos? Let’s fix that glow-up. DM me and let’s make your Agile actually work.”