When scaling Agile, an effective Scrum of Scrums is fundamental to success. This presentation covers common patterns for Scrum of Scrums, with varied purpose and format. Successful practices, learned experience, potential anti-patterns, and alternatives to Scrum of Scrums are included.
Presented at Agile New England as an ANE 101 session on 4 February 2021.
2. Agile 101:
Scrum ofScrums
David Hanson
dphanson63@yahoo.com
linkedin.com/in/david-hanson/
slideshare.net/DavidHanson5
About the session and me
When scalingAgile, an effective
Scrum of Scrums is fundamental to
success.This session will review
common patterns for Scrum of
Scrums, with varied purpose and
format. Successful practices,
learned experience, potential anti-
patterns, and alternatives to Scrum
of Scrums will be discussed.
David Hanson has established 8
Scrum of Scrums for 4
organizations over the past 8 years
as an Agile coach or Scrum master.
About you
What’s your experience scaling
Agile?
Are you practicing Scrum of
Scrums?
Are you considering Scrum of
Scrums?
Has your Scrum of Scrums been
effective?
What are you hoping to learn?
2
3. Scrum of
Scrums
3
The Scrum of Scrums is a recurring event for multiple Scrum teams to coordinate
their work during a sprint. The Scrum of Scrums is analogous to the Daily Scrum.
5. Standard
Pattern
Attendees
• Any one team member from
each team
• Stakeholders and management
may attend as observers
Questions: 3 + 1
1) What our team accomplished
since last SoS?
2) What our team plans to
accomplish by next SoS?
3) What obstacles our team has
impeding our progress?
4) What impending risks our team
will be introducing to other
teams?
Purpose
• Inspect and adapt towards
collective sprint goals
Frequency & Duration
• On cadence, as often as
needed
• Up to 30 minutes per meeting
• Same time, same place
After Meeting
• Extend for problem solving, if
right participants available
5
6. Scaled Daily
Scrum
Purpose
To optimize collaboration and
performance across teams
Goal: reduce decision latency
Questions (“examples” verbatim)
1. What impediments does a team
have that will prevent them from
accomplishing their Sprint Goal
or that will impact the upcoming
release?
2. Is a team doing anything that will
prevent another team from
accomplishing their Sprint Goal
or that will impact their
upcoming release? (risks)
3. Have any new dependencies
between the teams or a way to
resolve an existing dependency
been discovered?
Attendees
• One representative per team
• Plus representative from PO
team
• Chief Scrum master facilitates
• Other team members as needed
• Maximum five Scrum teams
• Misinterpretation: part of Scrum
master cycle, so send only Scrum
masters
Frequency & Duration
• Meets daily for 15 minutes
After Meeting
• Next level Scrum of Scrums
follows immediately after,
concluding with Executive Action
Team
6
https://www.scrumatscale.com/scrum-at-scale-guide-online/
7. Nexus Daily
Scrum
Purpose
• Address any unresolved
integration issues between
teams from prior day
• Assumes all teams integrate
code at least daily
Questions
1. Was the previous day’s work
successfully integrated? If not,
why not?
2.What new dependencies or
impacts have been identified?
3. What information needs to be
shared across teams in the
Nexus?
Attendees
• One member from each team
• Up to 9 Scrum teams
• Members may also serve on the
Nexus IntegrationTeam
Frequency &Timing
• Meets daily before each team’s
Daily Scrum
After Meeting
• Unresolved integration issues
inform each team’s daily plan,
discussed in their Daily Scrums
7
https://www.scrum.org/resources/online-nexus-guide
8. A
Bended Rules
Approach
Purpose
• Meet collective commitments, no
excuses, w/o management
Attendees
• Two members from each team,
one speaker, one listener
• Up to five teams participate
• Chief SM as facilitator
• Optional: Shared cross-team
resources as participant
• Optional: Chief PO as observer
• Management invited as observer
Prompts
1. Obstacles want help with
2. Dependencies want to highlight
3. Risks to other teams
4. Current focus; yesterday, today,
tomorrow
Frequency & Duration
• Meet two or three times weekly
• If twice/week keep to 30 min
• If thrice/week keep to 20 min
Whiteboard
• Same time, same place with
whiteboard
• CSM records keywords for next
meeting and insures prior
meeting issues resolved
After Meeting
• Participants determine when to
meet for problem solving before
meeting adjourns
• CSM escalates to EAT as required
8
This “bended rules” pattern evolved over the course of a year starting from the “standard” pattern for our SoS.
9. Whiteboard
Team Obstacles
want help with
Dependencies
want to highlight
Risks
to other teams
Current Focus
yesterday, today,
tomorrow
Core Need data
Advanced
Related Infrastruc-ture team A related story
Data Vendor Next data
Support Next release next
weekend
10
10. Whiteboard
Team Obstacles
want help with
Dependencies
want to highlight
Risks
to other teams
Current Focus
yesterday, today,
tomorrow
Core Need data Test w/ related A core story
Advanced Test failing External team An advanced story
Related Infrastruc-ture team A related story
Test w/ core
Data Next data, tomorrow Finished data
Starting next
Support System outage Defect logged Next release next
weekend
11
11. Learned
Experience
Current Focus
Attempts to report what
accomplished before and plan to
accomplish after proved
challenging when aggregated by
team and not reported daily
Dependencies
• Dependencies escalated to
Obstacles when blocking
• Dependencies served as
notification of risk from teams
not represented in SoS
Speaker and Listener
• Speaker focused on insuring
team’s needs represented
• Listener focused on insuring
other teams understood need
Timing
• Start when one representative
from each team present
• Some members felt 15 minutes,
even twice weekly, enough
Representation
• Initially attended by PO and SM
• Later attended by team member
(speaker) and PO or SM (listener)
Facilitation
• Whiteboard time saver over Jira
• Calling out teams using prompts
kept meeting on focus with pace
• Flag unresolved or recurring
issues or broad statements
lacking measurable progress
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13. Walk Board
Purpose
• Escalate impediments,
dependencies, and risks
Format
• Board with impediments,
dependencies, and risks
• Note Done items, commenting on
actions for teams and lessons
learned
• Note Doing items, commenting on
progress, path to closure, help
needed, timeline
• Note To Do items, commenting on
path forward or asking for inputs
Representation
• Each team
• Whomever logged impediment or
dependency
Options
• Add swimlanes
• by impediment, dependency, risk
• by team
• Handle risks as risk of impediment
or dependency risk
Before Meeting
• Teams log issues for escalation
• CSM or CPO prioritize backlog
• CSM might prioritize impediments
• CPO might prioritize dependencies
After Meeting
• Follow up actions to resolve issues
• between teams
• with external teams
• Flag issues for escalation to next
level Scrum of Scrums
To Do Doing Done
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14. Observed
Anti-patterns
Purpose
• Issues or status meeting
• Changing sprint goals
Attendees
• Just Scrum masters
• Stakeholder interjecting or
manager micromanaging
• Sporadic attendance
• Always same people, never same
people
• Waiting for someone
“important”
Format
• Dual impediment, dependency
meetings
• Open ended discussion
• No format
Content
• Broad statements
• Speaking without listening
• Raising self-managed issues
• Reporting to look busy
Frequency & Duration
• Meets daily for 30 minutes
• Meeting only weekly
• Meeting canceled
• Expands to fill time
After Meeting
• Rushed with no opportunity for
follow-up after meeting
• Recurring issues not escalated,
not resolved
Lacking need; teams independent
15
15. Meeting
“Values”
Purpose: empowering teams over informing managers
Attendees: team members over Scrum masters
Format: repeatable cadence over ad hoc discussion
Content: impediments & dependencies over yesterday & today
Frequency & Duration: recurring & timeboxed over as needed &
unlimited
After Meeting: taking joint action over relying on others
Tools: discussion & collaboration over logging & recording
Inspect and adapt
While both sides have value, I value the left side more.
17. Scrum of
Scrums
Alternatives*
• Ambassador or Observer
• Collocate Teams (Just Talk)
• Communicate in Code
• Communities of Practice
• Traveler (as Mentor)
• Common Planning, Tasking, Refinement, Review
• Leading (or Trailing) Team
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https://seattlescrum.com/seven-alternatives-to-scrum-of-scrums/
* Alternatives or compliments to
Scrum of Scrums
18. Onshore-
Offshore
Considerations
Not good: tracking and distributing minutes
Okay: recording and playback
Okay: sharing snapped picture of physical board
Good: sharing a board in Jira with comments
Good: shared virtual whiteboard in Mural or Miro
Better: rotating representative to attend off hours
Best: overlap East Coast with India; West Coast with China
• West Coast with China not bad (5 PM PDT is 8 AM Beijing CST)
• East Coast with India doable (7:30 AM EST is 6 PM IST)
• West Coast with India not easy (6:30 PM PDT is 7 AM IST)
• East Coast with China challenging (7 AM EDT is 7 PM Beijing CST)
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20. ProductOwner
Cadence
S@S PO Cycle
Product OwnerTeam and
MetaScrum event
MetaScrum is a planning event
designed to isolate teams from
Product Owners and
stakeholder planning and
replanning typically weekly or
sprintly
PO team leads dependency
management as part of backlog
prioritization, decomposition
and release planning
But not during sprint
SAFe PO Sync
SAFe equivalent to MetaScrum
event
More typically a weekly
planning meeting
Assess progress toward PI
objectives and planning next PI
21
https://www.scrumatscale.com/scrum-at-scale-guide-online/ https://www.scaledagileframework.com/program-increment/
21. My
Observations
Done Right
• More information
• Less time
• Teams self manage
• Managers stay informed
• Teams feel empowered
• Managers less stressed
• Team representatives act as leaders
• Team representation rotates
• Issues resolved
• Participants say less
• Progress visible
• Teams collaborate
• Favorite meeting
SoS for teams that need to collaborate on
product
Done Wrong
• People speak, nothing learned
• Meetings run longer
• Managers take over
• Stakeholders change goals
• Teams loose focus
• Managers create stress
• Participants drift away, hold back
• Scrum masters protect teams
• Items repeat
• Participants sound busy
• Progress stalls
• Teams attend
• Dreaded meeting
SoS not for teams that report to same
manager
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To optimize collaboration and performance, the Scaled Daily Scrum event mirrors the Daily Scrum, in that it is a forum to discuss how teams can work together more effectively, what has been done, what will be done, what is going wrong & why, and what the group is going to do about it.
The main talking points of a Daily Scrum are the progress of items in the Sprint Backlog and impediments to getting them done.
In a scaled setting, the Scrum of Scrums needs to understand collective progress and be responsive to impediments raised by participating teams.
Prior version added (paraphrased):
Has team learned anything new to be shared with other teams?
Goal: reducing decision latency
This pattern in use at SSGA since 2014. Held late morning, included representatives from US, UK, and India.
Format: prompts or questions
Frequency & duration: total 1 hour/week: 30 min 2 days, 20 min 3 days, 15 min 4 days
Tools: whiteboard and marker or Jira and keyboard