SCALING AGILE ACROSS TEAMS - HOW?

The Approach
Scaling Agile across multiple teams and departments is challenging. Many organisations adopt a framework (SAFe, Scrum@Scale, LeSS etc), and interestingly, as shared in the 17th State of Agile Report, 12% create their own framework and 22% don’t follow a mandated framework for scaling.
Many organisations are moving from one-size-fits-all scaling framework to a pattern-and-practices-driven approach. This article brings some of these patterns and practices together into a suggested logical order for how to work across multiple teams and departments.
  • 1. Foundation First 1.1 Agile Leadership Culture & Mindset

  • Leadership must champion the agile transformation. Without buy-in from the top, scaling agile across multiple teams is unlikely to succeed.
  • Leaders set the tone for culture and mindset, which are crucial for sustaining agile practices.
  • 2. Value Stream-Centric Reorganisation 2.1 Value Stream Mapping

  • Understanding how value flows through the organisation helps identify bottlenecks and inefficiencies and enables you to focus efforts on improving value delivery.
  • By mapping value streams first, you gain insights into how work currently flows minimising handoffs and delays before reorganising the teams into a new agile org structure.
  • 2.2 Agile Organisational Structure

  • Once leadership is aligned, and the value streams clearly mapped out, you can now reorganise the teams around value.
  • This ensures that the organisational structure is aligned with the flow of value, enabling more effective and efficient delivery.
  • Teams need to be cross-functional, empowered, as well as being organised around delivering value.
  • 3. Consistency and Alignment

  • 3.1 Consistent ways of working and understanding of agile

  • With the new structure in place, you’ll want to ensure that there’s a consistent understanding of agile practices across the newly organised teams.
  • This consistency ensures that everyone operates with the same principles, reducing friction as teams scale.
  • 3.2 Set business priorities with OKRs at scale

  • After establishing the structure and ways of working, setting business priorities helps direct the efforts of the value stream-aligned teams.
  • Establishing clear objectives with OKRs aligns the teams around common goals. This step ensures that all teams understand the business priorities and are working towards the same outcomes.
  • 4. Strategic Alignment 4.1 Aligning business priorities with Portfolio Roadmaps

  • After setting priorities, it’s critical to align them with portfolio roadmaps. This step ensures that strategic goals are translated into actionable plans that teams can execute.
  • 5. Operational Synchronisation

  • 5.1 Common Calendar and cadence; alignment & planning
  • With strategic alignment in place, it's important to synchronise operational efforts across teams. A common calendar and cadence help teams coordinate and avoid misalignment.
5.2 Quarterly Planning at Scale
  • Quarterly planning ensures that teams regularly align on priorities and adjust their plans to meet the evolving needs of the business.
  • 6. Inter-Team Coordination

  • 6.1 Scrum of Scrums, Meta-Scrum, Business Scrum
  • As multiple teams work towards common goals, it’s crucial to coordinate their efforts. Scrum of Scrums and similar structures help manage inter-team dependencies and integration.
6.2 Managing Dependencies at Scale
  • Actively managing dependencies is essential to avoid bottlenecks and ensure smooth progress. Better still, work to eliminate dependencies through your organisation design!
  • 7. Continuous Improvement and Scaling

  • 7.1 Scaling agile with feedback loops and learning

  • Implementing feedback loops allows for continuous improvement, enabling teams to adapt and improve as they scale.
7.2 Continuous Learning : Chapters at Scale
  • Fostering continuous learning through communities of practice ensures that agile practices evolve and are sustained over time. Chapters help spread best practices and innovation across the organisation.
These 7 steps follow a logical progression from establishing a solid foundation and alignment (both cultural and strategic), through operational synchronisation and inter-team coordination, to continuous improvement and scaling. This sequence ensures that each layer builds on the previous one, creating a cohesive and scalable agile environment.
Want to learn more?
Join the live-online two day Scrum Alliance Certified Agile Scaling Practitioner® 1 (CASP-1) course, designed to equip you with the skills to implement agile practices at scale. Delivered through interactive and immersive learning methods, the course incorporates gamification to ensure high engagement and a fun learning environment. It features real-world insights from the instructor's personal experiences and industry case studies.