Scrum of Scrums Facilitates Coordination across Teams
Agile Scrum teams are generally organized around projects or core capabilities, where teams support a set of products that serve a common business purpose. When Scrum teams are organized around core capabilities, project initiatives often require deliverables from multiple capabilities. Even Scrum teams specifically organized to deliver a single project can find themselves in need of functionality built by another Scrum team.
Almost every Scrum team in a company large enough to form multiple Scrum teams has cross-team requirements, but very few companies take advantage of Scrum of Scrums. With a strong commitment to the spirit of cooperation and a little organization, cross-team product or project deliverables can easily be managed through the Scrum of Scrums concept.
The Scrum Alliance and Agile Alliance both talk about the Scrum of Scrums technique, but they recommend holding this coordination meeting every day. We think that’s overkill. We think holding a well-organized Scrum of Scrums every other week is good enough. For those who practice two-week sprints, hold the meeting on the off week from Sprint Planning.
Start with a Plan
Every Scrum Team needs to plan. If your Scrum team is not release planning or identifying quarterly deliverable goals, then start today. Before you jump up and down and tell me you can’t plan because you’re agile, cool your jets. I’m not saying you need a 500 line Microsoft Project Plan; I’m saying you need deliverable milestones by Epic. Why? So, you can identify when you need product deliverables completed to stay on schedule.
If you don’t know how to plan for Agile, read Chapter 2 of the GSD Scrum Handbook: GSD Gold Project Planning.
Once you know what you need and when you need it, then you can approach your sister Scrum teams and negotiate delivery dates.
Meet Regularly to Stay on Schedule
Once you have delivery commitments, ensure all Scrum teams stay on schedule by meeting once each Sprint. Remember that not all Scrum teams are on the same Sprint cadence, so be specific about due dates. Give your sister Scrum teams plenty of lead time to get your needs on their Backlog.
Use the Scrum of Scrums meeting time to ensure the right Stories get brought into the right Sprints.
Who runs the Scrum of Scrums?
Depending on the formality of company processes, the scope of the project and the Scrum team structure, the Scrum of Scrums can be chaired by any one of many job titles. With more formal team structures, these meetings may be led by the Program Manager or Project Manager or Product Manager. With less formal teams, the Scrum Master who needs the external deliverables may take the lead.
What Happens at the Scrum of Scrums?
Keep the Scrum of Scrums to a half hour meeting.
Focus only on cross-functional deliverable dependencies:
- Start the meeting with a brief review the upcoming quarterly or release milestones.
- Verify that the Stories identified for completion in the previous Sprint were completed.
- Identify Stories for completion in next Sprint. Obtain commitment from sister Scrum Teams.
What the meeting IS: a meeting about dependencies, shared milestones and issues.
What the meeting IS NOT: a giant Standup or project status meeting.
When your project or product requires cross-team coordination, taking advantage of Scrum of Scrums can keep everyone focused on the right work at the right time.
I’d love to hear about your successful use of the process.
Cynthia Kahn
Cynthia Kahn
CynthiaK@gsd.guru 503.799.5500