Agile at Scale

Overview

The course teaches a variety of structures, practices, and roles for effective scaling. It also compares and contrasts some common scaling frameworks, including Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®), Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) and others. Participants will also learn some crucial change management techniques, How do Agile and Lean practices work in a large organization, with many complex systems and interdependent teams and services? There is no single blueprint or cookie-cutter solution that works in all contexts, but there are many principles and patterns that can help you succeed including the empirical change approach embodied in agile42’s proven ORGANIC agility approach.

Intended Audience

This course is aimed at both leaders and practitioners in organizations with 2 to 200 Scrum teams. It is ideal for managers and leaders, ScrumMasters, agile coaches and agile team members seeking to apply the Agile/Scrum principles and practices at scale. If your work involves more than 20 people, you will likely already be running into the challenges of Agile at scale.

Prerequisites

Attendees should have completed a course in Certified ScrumMaster (CSM), Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO), or have equivalent training or experience. Participants wishing to earn Added Qualifications from the Scrum Alliance must be a CSM or CSPO in good standing.

What you will learn?

Complexity and the Principles of Scaling

• Why scale? Growing versus scaling
• Process control: defined, statistical & empirical
• Complex systems and the Cynefin model
• Principles of scaling for agility: decentralize, de-synchronize, value stream orientation, appropriate process control
• Lean Thinking: The 3 Dysfunctions and 7 Disciplines
• Systems archetypes: balancing loops & reinforcing loops

Leading and Managing Change

• Evolutionary versus revolutionary change
• Evidence-based incremental change with the ORGANIC agility approach.
• The Agile Strategy Map™: a framework for your change strategy and metrics
• The Manager’s role in growing and sustaining a Lean-Agile organization
• Building a Guiding Coalition for change and cultivating internal change agents
• Models for managing large-scale change
• How your culture impacts your change strategy

Organization Design

• Organizing in the direction of Value Streams
• Team organization: feature-oriented and component-oriented teams (shared services)
• Managing the transition: co-existence of Agile and traditional projects
• Cultivating skills and roles: I → T → X shaped skills
• Communities of Practice: cultivating innovation and consistency across value streams
• The role of the PMO in an Agile organization

Portfolio and Program Management

• The Lean-Kanban Portfolio system
• Techniques for sequencing and prioritizing projects/products in your portfolio
• Roadmap planning for large programs
• Forecasting and budgeting
• Risk management and governance

Team-level Scaled Agile Practices

• Scrum ceremonies at scale: sprint planning, backlog refinement, review/demos, and retrospectives
• Inter-team coordination to manage and mitigate dependencies
• Practices for geographically distributed and multi-site organizations
• Integration and getting to ‘done’ in short cycles
• Technical practices to enable scaling
• Adapting the Product Owner and ScrumMaster roles at scale

Frameworks and Reference Models

• Compare and contrast the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®), Large Scale Scrum (LeSS), agile42 ETF Reference Model, and other scaling frameworks

Contact us for more information and availability in your region.

Further Resources

• Andrea Tomasini, Stop scaling… Start growing an agile organization!
• Brad Swanson, A Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe™) Case Study