What are the challenges with Scaled Agile development?

Over the past 10 years Agile software development has evolved significantly.

From a scrum team with a single backlog to a Scaled Agile world (e.g SAFe framework) where many teams work together to develop a complete solution/product.

An example is what we at Bosch are developing, building a future platform for self-driving vehicles.

Although Scaled Agile is needed and is very helpful to structure big projects, there are several challenges which I describe in this article and explain my thoughts on how to manage these.

This article will focus on the way of working challenges and not the technical challenges, e.g. maturity of DevOps in the company.?

Output vs Outcome

One of the biggest challenges in projects is predictability. We want to have predictable teams that can deliver according to a plan. But how do we measure predictability?

I’ve seen in some projects closed stories/features that are seen as the metric of success. This is what I refer to as output driven development.

Here I think the focus must be on the outcome, i.e. we must verify that the delivered features actually are what the customer asked for. This is what I refer to as outcome driven development.

Although you might say that in a scaled agile project, sometimes there is no direct customer since the team implement only a part of a complex product. Therefore, I believe the focus instead should be on the quality of the delivery. We should instead measure the quality of the development.

To summarize, we need to measure the outcome as the main success factor, instead of output.?

Culture of collaboration

Scaled agile projects often consists of hundreds of people, with very specific and defined roles.

Although this helps everyone to know their responsibilities, but this can also lead to a lack of collaboration between teams, because everyone focuses mostly on their assigned tasks.

In order to be a successful project, no matter its size, a culture of collaboration needs to be promoted by company leaders.

This leads to the next point.

Vision and Mission

Working in an incremental big project can lead to a situation where people don’t fully understand the purpose of their work. Although they understand their responsibilities and daily tasks, the big picture is somehow forgotten.

We all agree that a successful company needs to have a clear vision and mission, which needs to follow throughout the whole organization. Leaders need to ensure that it is continuously communicated and explained. I believe that a clear understanding will help people make the right decisions in their daily work.

If people understand the end goal, and a culture of collaboration exists, everyone will aim for the same goals and are more likely to help each other to achieve that.