Overview to Scaled Agile

Scaled Agile:

Scaled Agile is designed to give a team flexibility and it includes set of Lean Agile Principles, Processes, Core Competencies  and Best Practices that assist larger organizations to adopt agile methodologies like Lean, Scrum to develop and deliver quality products and services.

Implementation, Process and Procedure of Scaled Agile:

At Enterprise level, multiple teams work together as team of Agile teams to deliver value. In Scaled Agile this team called ‘Team of Agile Team’ as also known as Agile Release Train (ART). It consists of minimum 52 to maximum 125 people with a single goal to explorer the customer needs and deliver a high quality better solution(s) with right value at time.

Agile Release Train works with in the time boxes called Program Increment (PI), This consist of 5 iterations or you can say sprints.

Roles in Scaled Agile:

• Release Train Engineer (RTE) or Chief-Scrum Master
• Development Team
• Product manager
• System Architect

At beginning all team come together and plan their works in Program Increment (PI) Planning event, PI facilitated by Release Train Engineer (RTE) or Chief-Scrum Master who serve as coach.

Each PI is a multiple-Iteration time box and artifact order is Epics->features->user stories, that is  valuable increment of the system is developed and delivered. Each PI has demo (integrated the solution across all teams), retrospective (how to improve and adopt) sessions and Planning.

Product Manager has authority to defines and prioritizes the program backlog.

System Architect role at the program level is to collaborate day to day work with the teams. It ensures that functional / non-functional requirements should met and to make sure there is sufficient architectural runway to support upcoming user and business needs.

The Program Board is a critical artifact to successful PI planning. It helps teams within the Agile Release Train (ART) visualize and track dependencies across their teams, they have a clear idea of what’s done, what’s being worked on, and what might keep them from getting their work completed on time.

ART build Continuous delivery pipeline uses DevOps practices to release on demand with values when it is needed.

Sometime ART is not enough to deliver solution for large number of Enterprise solution delivery, competencies need Solution Train that coordinates multiple ARTs to deliver very large complex solutions.

Scaled Agile Benefits:

• Combines different Agile thought processes at one place
• Synchronized Cadence
• Consistency
• Structuring the Teams
• Effective Cross-functional teams collaboration

Scaled Agile Weakness:

• Too much planning and process definition