The many approaches to scale Scrum — an introduction

Scaling Scrum, part 1

Scrum is a framework to address complex adaptive problems. The single source of truth for Scrum is the Scrum Guide. This Scrum Guide is very clear about what Scrum is in a single team environment. It is less clear about multiple teams on the same product. Sure, the Scrum Guide has something to say about this:

“Multiple Scrum Teams often work together on the same product. One Product Backlog is used to describe the upcoming work on the product.” — Scrum Guide 2017

Knowing that a Product Backlog has one Product Owner it does establish that a Product Owner can work with multiple teams.

Another quote is this one:

“If there are multiple Scrum Teams working on the system or product release, the Development Teams on all the Scrum Teams must mutually define the definition of “Done”.” — Scrum Guide 2017

But that is basically it.

But what do you do when you have 3 to 5 teams working from the same Product Backlog. Or perhaps even more teams? There are many challenges that need to be resolved when working with multiple teams from the same backlog:

• How to manage dependencies?
• How to prioritise integration issues?