Large Project vs. Typical Scrum Project

The fundamental Scrum processes defined in SBOK Guide by SCRUMStudy are valid for all Scrum projects, and concepts mentioned in the SBOK are sufficient for managing Scrum projects with just a few Scrum Teams, typically 1 – 3 Scrum Teams.

When we deal with large projects generally involving four or more Scrum Teams, some additional processes may be required to address the additional coordination and synchronization efforts.

Some reasons additional processes would be needed for large projects are as follows:

• Increased interaction and dependencies among Scrum Teams, as complexity increases for a large project
• Need for collaboration in a team of Product Owners
• Need to manage conflicts, resolve issues, and set priorities among all the Scrum Teams
• Requirement for specialization as some Scrum Teams may require specialized resources for specific tasks — and these particular skill sets are not needed on all Scrum Teams.
• Necessity to define certain guidelines and standards that should be adhered to by all Scrum Teams (e.g., security standards within a company or legal and governmental guidelines for specific industries). These may need to be defined by the Scrum Guidance Body.
• Requirement to set up an environment, or working area, for the large project, which would then be used by all Scrum Teams
• Need for coordinating the outputs from several Scrum Teams to create a project release for a large project.

The definition of a large project may depend on the company and the complexity of projects undertaken. The key criterion for a project being large versus small is to have multiple Scrum Masters and/or Product Owners.