Scrum of Scrums — an introduction
Scaling Scrum, part 5
The Scrum of Scrums is a way to scale Scrum to large initiatives. This solution is already around for more than 15 years and is created by Jeff Sutherland who stood at the cradle of Scrum. It aims to focus on areas where there are dependencies and overlap and on integration items.
This is part five of the series:
Introduction
According to Agile Alliance the Scrum of Scrums was first described in this article from Jeff Sutherland: Agile Can Scale: Inventing and Reinventing SCRUM in Five Companies. That probably makes it the first practice to scale Scrum/Agile.
Jeff Sutherland probably doesn’t require further introduction. Together with Ken Schwaber he introduced Scrum to a larger audience in 1995 and also together with Ken Schwaber he is the author of the Scrum Guide.
How does it work?
Work on a product may require more people than what is seen as reasonable to have in a team (Scrum advises Development Teams to be 3 to 9 people big). Larger self-organising teams will rapidly become less effective. This is why you need to form multiple teams. In order to have alignment between the teams one representative per Scrum Team takes part in the Scrum of Scrums. These are often the Scrum Masters, but others can also be the representative of a team. The frequency of the Scrum of Scrums can be determined based upon the specific need.
With very large initiatives there’s even a possibility to have a ‘Scrum of Scrum of Scrums’. Here representatives of several Scrum of Scrums can align.
Scrum of Scrums adds two additional events to Scrum: the Scrum of Scrums and the ‘Scrum of Scrum of Scrums’. Apart from this the Scrum framework with its roles, events and artifacts remains intact.
Bottom Line
The Scrum of Scrums is a way to align between several Scrum Teams. Typically the Scrum of Scrums tackles dependencies and integration. The Scrum of Scrums is an additional practice that leaves the Scrum framework intact.
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