1. SCALING SCRUM STEP BY STEP:
“THE MEGA FRAMEWORK”
Rafael Maranzato, MSc
Marden Neubert, MSc
Paula Herculano, MSc
Universo Online S.A – http://www.uol.com.br
UOL R&D Department
São Paulo, Brazil
2. Background
• UOL R&D department develops products and
services for Brazilian Internet users
– Before 2006: used a RUP-based development
process with teams organized per function
– 2007: some teams were organized per product,
with different functions in each team
– 2008: started using Scrum
– 2010: started scaling Scrum
3. My experience with Scrum
• First ScrumMaster in the company
• Helped other teams to use Scrum
• Gave introductory training in the company
• Became Product Owner after one year
• Started scaling Scrum in a live system
4. Case study: leading online payment
system
• Tried to use Scrum for more than one year,
and failed (previous paper at SPLASH’11)
• Returned to Scrum and scaled it using “The
Mega Framework”
5. The Mega Framework
• Additional layer to Scrum framework
Sprint Planning Sprint Planning
Update Product Daily Scrum & Update Product Daily Scrum &
Backlog Work Backlog Work
Scrum Scrum
Framework ...... Sprint
Framework
Product
Sprint Product
Rerospective Increment Retrospective Increment
Sprint Review Sprint Review
6. The Mega Framework
• Set of practices and meetings
• It provides synchronization in all levels
Teams
Stakeholders Management
7. The Mega Framework
• Motivated by a huge backlog
– One Scrum team was not enough
• Growing revenues and competitive product
8. The Mega Framework
• Challenge: how to synchronize and scale
Scrum with multiple teams keeping agility
– Created an additional framework above the
Scrum framework
• Started with 2 teams in 2010 and now we
have 10 teams (7 published in the paper)
10. The Mega Framework
1. Feature teams
2. Mega Backlog
3. Grow, then split
4. Hiring and ramp up
Strategy 5.
6.
7.
Sprint length
Teams per release
Values instead of rules
8. Development environment
9. Continuous improvement
1. Mega Planning
2. Mega Stand-up
3. Mega Retrospective
4. Sprint Reviews
Framework 5.
6.
Weekly Pre-Planning
Weekly Product Owner and ScrumMaster
meeting
7. Regular Mega meetings with business area
8. Knowledge sharing
11. Strategy
1. Feature teams
2. Mega Backlog
3. Grow, then split
4. Hiring and ramp up
5. Sprint length
6. Teams per release
7. Values instead of rules
8. Development environment
9. Continuous improvement
12. 1) Feature teams
• Teams focused on features instead of
software components
• Multiple teams, but one big team
• Scalability, refactoring and other engineering
practices are solved by feature teams
13. 2) Mega Backlog
• High-level features
• Prioritization of feature teams
– New teams
– Change focus of existing teams
14. 3) Grow, then split
• Add people to existing teams before creating
new ones
• Knowledge in the product is shared
• Motivational factor opportunities
15. 4) Hiring and ramp up
• Strict hiring process
• Written test and interviews
• Skills instead of technologies
• After hired, evaluated by the team
16. 5) Sprint length
• 3-week length 4-week length
• It is better to synchronize agendas
• Timeline will be shown at the end
17. 6) Teams per release
• Releases every
week
– Merge code too
• Each feature
team releases
once a month
• Group related
teams to release
together
18. 7) Values instead of rules
• Agile development is not a set of rules it is
based on values
– Commitment, transparency and teamwork are
more important than the process
• Communication is a key factor to synchronize
multiple teams
19. 8) Development environment
• Each feature team has its development
environment
• They share just one pre-production
environment
20. 9) Continuous improvement
• We know it is a key factor to move on
• Team members contribute to improve the
process
• Everything can be improved!
21. Framework
1. Mega Planning
2. Mega Stand-up
3. Mega Retrospective
4. Sprint Reviews
5. Weekly Pre-Planning
6. Weekly Product Owner and
ScrumMaster meeting
7. Regular Mega meetings with business
area
8. Knowledge sharing
22. 1) Mega Planning
• Occurs after Sprint Plannings of teams in the
same release
• ScrumMasters and one tech leader of each
feature team
– in the beginning, everybody was invited
• We continue to improve this very important
meeting
23. 2) Mega Stand-up
• In the middle of the Sprint, with all the team
members of the release
• The goal of this meeting is just to synchronize
the teams
24. 3) Mega Retrospective
• Every six months
• Captures global impediments that can be
hidden in local retrospectives
25. 4) Sprint Reviews
• Uses the pattern of single Scrum teams
• Besides the team and stakeholders, we invite
one member of each feature team
• We don’t have a Mega Review
26. 5) Weekly Pre-Planning
• Attendance is Product Owners and
stakeholders
• Product Owners show the prioritized backlog
• Two days before each Sprint Planning
27. 6) Weekly Product Owner and
ScrumMaster meeting
• Agenda: impediments, main features
planned, changes, pending issues, corporate
policies and decisions
• High level of synchronization
• One of the most important meetings of this
framework
28. 7) Regular Mega meetings with
business area
• At the beginning, it was more often
– Nowadays, just once a month
• Agenda: pending issues, problems and new
opportunities to the product
• Synchronization among Product Owners,
stakeholders and management
29. 8) Knowledge sharing
• Every week
• Team members are responsible for the
agenda
• Encouraged by Product Owners and
ScrumMasters
30. Before timeline
• 7 teams
• Group related teams per release
– Release I: Team A & B
– Release II: Team C
– Release III: Team D & E & F
– Release IV: Team G
31. The Mega Framework: Timeline
Week Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
Planning A Mega Planning Release C Retrospective
1 Planning B A&B Pre-Planning C C
Review C Weekly PO/SM Knowledge Sharing
Planning C Review D Mega Stand-up Release D & E & F Retrospective
2 Review E A&B Pre-PlanningD&E&F D & E & F
Review F Weekly PO/SM Knowledge Sharing
Planning D Mega Planning Release G Retrospective
3 Planning E D&E&F Pre-Planning G G
Planning F Review G Weekly PO/SM Knowledge Sharing
Planning G Mega Stand-up Release A & B Retrospective
4 D&E&F Pre-PlanningA&B A&B
Review A & B Weekly PO/SM Knowledge Sharing
Planning A
5 Planning B
32. Where we are right now
• 10 feature teams
• Adapting Mega meetings
• Planning to have more teams in 2012 and 2013
– And studying how to customize the framework to fit
it in the timeline
33. Challenges and problems
• Rollbacks and mistakes from one release
affect the calendar and releases of others
• How to deal with more than one release per
week
– What is the limit of that timeline?
– Of course, we will learn and adapt
34. Conclusion
• We presented a framework to scale Scrum
– Strategy
– Framework itself
• Synchronization in all levels
• There is always room for improvement
