Enterprise Scrum is a business-oriented, scalable, adaptable, and flexible framework designed to apply the principles of Scrum beyond software development to manage all types of enterprise activities. This approach addresses the challenges of applying agile methodologies in larger organizational contexts, where managing multiple interrelated projects and maintaining overall strategic alignment becomes crucial.
The primary purpose of Enterprise Scrum is to facilitate organizational agility and responsiveness to change, irrespective of industry. It scales the iterative processes and self-organization principles of Scrum across multiple departments and teams, aligning them towards common business goals.
Principal Concepts
Enterprise Scrum revolves around several key concepts:
Scalability: Adapting Scrum frameworks to suit large-scale operations and multiple teams.
Adaptability: Customizing practices to meet the diverse needs of various departments within an enterprise.
Whole-Organization Agility: Extending agile benefits to all levels of the organization, not just IT or product development.
Theoretical Foundations of Enterprise Scrum
Enterprise Scrum is grounded in agile principles and the foundational concepts of Scrum, including:
Empirical Process Control: Emphasizing transparency, inspection, and adaptation across all business processes.
Self-Organization: Encouraging teams to manage their own work and innovate within their operational boundaries.
Continuous Improvement: Implementing iterative processes throughout the organization to continuously improve products, services, and processes.
Methods and Techniques in Enterprise Scrum
Implementing Enterprise Scrum involves several strategic approaches:
Framework Customization: Tailoring the Scrum framework to fit the unique operational, cultural, and strategic needs of the organization.
Role Expansion: Defining roles such as Enterprise Scrum Master and Product Owner, who operate at the organizational level overseeing multiple Scrum teams.
Integrated Planning and Review: Conducting planning sessions and reviews that involve representatives from all Scrum teams to ensure alignment and coherence across projects.
Applications of Enterprise Scrum
Enterprise Scrum can be applied in various domains within an organization:
Project Management: Coordinating multiple projects across different teams to ensure strategic alignment and efficient resource allocation.
Product Development: Managing a portfolio of products using a unified agile approach to streamline decision-making and accelerate time-to-market.
Operational Management: Applying Scrum practices to improve daily operational activities and respond swiftly to changes in the business environment.
Industries Influenced by Enterprise Scrum
Software and Technology: Enhancing product development processes and project management.
Manufacturing: Streamlining production processes and aligning them with market demands.
Financial Services: Increasing responsiveness to market changes and customer needs.
Advantages of Using Enterprise Scrum
The strategic application of Enterprise Scrum offers numerous benefits:
Enhanced Flexibility and Responsiveness: Faster response to market changes and internal challenges through decentralized decision-making.
Increased Innovation: Fostering a culture of innovation by empowering teams to experiment and iterate on solutions.
Improved Coordination: Better alignment of projects and initiatives with business goals, reducing redundancy and resource wastage.
Challenges and Considerations in Enterprise Scrum
Despite its advantages, implementing Enterprise Scrum presents challenges:
Complexity in Scaling: Difficulty in maintaining Scrum principles such as transparency and frequent communication as the number of teams increases.
Cultural Resistance: Potential resistance from traditional management structures and employees unaccustomed to agile practices.
Integration Issues: Challenges in integrating Scrum practices across different departments that may have varied working styles and objectives.
Integration with Broader Business Strategies
To maximize its effectiveness, Enterprise Scrum should be integrated into the organization’s broader strategic planning:
Executive Support: Ensuring top management understands and supports the adoption of Enterprise Scrum.
Training and Education: Providing comprehensive training and continuous learning opportunities to all employees involved in Scrum processes.
Continuous Evaluation: Regularly assessing the implementation and impact of Enterprise Scrum to refine practices and resolve issues.
Future Directions in Enterprise Scrum
As organizations continue to seek agility in a fast-paced world, the role of Enterprise Scrum will likely evolve:
Digital Tools: Increased use of digital and automated tools to manage Scrum practices across large and distributed teams.
Broader Adoption Beyond IT: Expansion of Enterprise Scrum into non-IT departments such as HR, marketing, and finance.
Conclusion
Enterprise Scrum represents a strategic evolution of traditional Scrum methodologies, adapting them to meet the complexities of large-scale organizations. By implementing Enterprise Scrum, companies can enhance their agility, improve coordination across multiple teams, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. As more organizations recognize the benefits of agile practices, Enterprise Scrum will play a crucial role in shaping modern business strategies.
Related Frameworks
Description
When to Apply
Disciplined Agile (DA)
– Disciplined Agile (DA) is a process decision framework that provides guidance on applying agile and lean approaches within the context of the entire enterprise. It offers a toolkit of strategies and practices for scaling agile beyond individual teams to address complex organizational needs. Disciplined Agile emphasizes flexibility, pragmatism, and tailoring agile practices to suit the specific context and challenges of each organization.
– When seeking a flexible and pragmatic approach to scaling agile practices across the enterprise, addressing diverse business domains and organizational structures, and integrating agile with other methodologies and frameworks. – In environments where agility, adaptability, and responsiveness to change are essential for delivering value, managing complexity, and achieving business outcomes.
Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)
– Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) is an agile scaling framework that extends the principles and practices of Scrum to multiple teams working together on a single product or product line. It emphasizes simplicity, transparency, and customer-centricity while promoting organizational alignment and cross-functional collaboration. LeSS provides guidelines for scaling Scrum in various contexts, enabling organizations to maintain agility and deliver value at scale.
– When scaling Scrum to large and complex projects or product portfolios, coordinating multiple teams and stakeholders, and maintaining a focus on customer needs and value delivery. – In environments where simplicity, transparency, and collaboration are key values, and organizations seek to preserve the core principles of agile while scaling to meet enterprise-level challenges and requirements.
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
– Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a widely adopted agile scaling framework that provides guidance on scaling agile practices across the enterprise. It offers a structured approach to implementing lean-agile principles at scale, aligning teams, and coordinating work across multiple levels of the organization. SAFe includes roles, ceremonies, and artifacts tailored to support agile development at the team, program, and portfolio levels.
– When adopting a comprehensive framework for scaling agile practices across large enterprises, aligning strategy with execution, and fostering collaboration and alignment across multiple teams and business units. – In environments where achieving organizational agility, accelerating time-to-market, and improving business outcomes are strategic imperatives, and a structured approach to scaling agile is necessary for success.
Nexus Framework
– Nexus Framework is an agile scaling framework designed to help organizations scale Scrum beyond individual teams to deliver integrated increments of work at scale. It provides guidelines and practices for managing dependencies, facilitating cross-team collaboration, and ensuring alignment of work across multiple Scrum teams. Nexus Framework enables organizations to scale Scrum while preserving its core values and principles.
– When scaling Scrum to larger initiatives or product development efforts involving multiple Scrum teams, managing dependencies, and coordinating the delivery of integrated increments of work. – In situations where maintaining the simplicity and effectiveness of Scrum while scaling to meet the needs of complex projects or product portfolios is essential for achieving agility and delivering value.
Agile at Scale (DAD)
– Agile at Scale, also known as Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD), is an agile scaling framework that extends the principles and practices of agile and lean approaches to address the complexities of enterprise-level software development. It provides a pragmatic approach to scaling agile, offering guidance on tailoring practices to fit the context and needs of each project or initiative. Agile at Scale emphasizes flexibility, collaboration, and value delivery.
– When scaling agile practices to address the complexities of enterprise-level software development, incorporating lean and agile principles into project management practices, and adapting agile approaches to diverse project contexts and stakeholder needs. – In environments where traditional project management approaches are insufficient for managing complex projects or portfolios, and organizations seek a more adaptive and value-driven approach to software delivery.
Enterprise Scrum
– Enterprise Scrum is an agile scaling framework that extends the principles and practices of Scrum to address the needs of large and complex organizations. It provides guidance on scaling Scrum beyond individual teams to coordinate work across multiple teams, business units, and geographies. Enterprise Scrum emphasizes simplicity, self-organization, and continuous improvement while enabling organizations to achieve agility at scale.
– When scaling Scrum to large organizations with multiple teams and stakeholders, coordinating work across distributed teams or business units, and fostering a culture of agility, collaboration, and innovation. – In environments where traditional hierarchical structures impede agility and responsiveness, and organizations seek a more decentralized and empowered approach to managing large-scale agile initiatives.
Enterprise Agile Framework (EAF)
– Enterprise Agile Framework (EAF) is a customizable framework for scaling agile practices across large and complex organizations. It offers a set of principles, practices, and tools for implementing agile at scale while adapting to the unique context and needs of each organization. Enterprise Agile Framework emphasizes flexibility, continuous improvement, and collaboration, enabling organizations to achieve agility and drive business results.
– When seeking a customizable framework for scaling agile practices to meet the specific needs and challenges of large organizations, adapting agile principles and practices to diverse business contexts, and fostering a culture of innovation and collaboration. – In environments where traditional command-and-control structures are barriers to agility, and organizations seek to empower teams and stakeholders to drive value and achieve strategic goals.
Agile Business Consortium (ABC)
– Agile Business Consortium (formerly DSDM Consortium) is an organization that promotes agile principles and practices for business agility. It offers a framework for scaling agile, known as Agile Business Consortium Framework, which provides guidance on scaling agile approaches to deliver business value in dynamic and complex environments. Agile Business Consortium emphasizes collaboration, adaptability, and delivering customer value.
– When seeking guidance on scaling agile practices to address the specific needs and challenges of dynamic and complex business environments, delivering customer value through agile approaches, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. – In environments where traditional project management approaches are insufficient for meeting business demands and organizations seek to embrace agile principles and practices for achieving business agility.
Agile Scaling Knowledge (ASK) Framework
– Agile Scaling Knowledge (ASK) Framework is a knowledge base that offers guidance on scaling agile practices to address the challenges of large-scale software development. It provides insights, best practices, and case studies on scaling agile approaches across teams, projects, and organizations. Agile Scaling Knowledge Framework enables organizations to learn from industry experiences and adapt agile practices to their specific contexts and needs.
– When seeking insights and best practices for scaling agile practices in large-scale software development initiatives, learning from industry experiences and case studies, and adapting agile approaches to address organizational challenges and opportunities. – In environments where traditional software development methods are insufficient for managing large-scale projects or portfolios, and organizations seek to leverage agile principles and practices for improved project outcomes and business value.
Enterprise Business Agility (EBA)
– Enterprise Business Agility (EBA) is a holistic approach to achieving agility across the entire organization, beyond software development. It encompasses agile practices in various business functions, including marketing, finance, HR, and operations, to drive organizational effectiveness and responsiveness. Enterprise Business Agility emphasizes adaptability, collaboration, and customer focus while enabling organizations to thrive in complex and dynamic markets.
– When seeking to foster agility across the entire organization, including non-IT business functions, adapting agile principles to diverse business contexts and functions, and driving organizational effectiveness and responsiveness. – In environments where traditional organizational structures and processes hinder agility and innovation, and organizations seek a more holistic and integrated approach to achieving business agility and driving sustainable growth and competitiveness.
AIOps is the application of artificial intelligence to IT operations. It has become particularly useful for modern IT management in hybridized, distributed, and dynamic environments. AIOps has become a key operational component of modern digital-based organizations, built around software and algorithms.
Agile started as a lightweight development method compared to heavyweight software development, which is the core paradigm of the previous decades of software development. By 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was born as a set of principles that defined the new paradigm for software development as a continuous iteration. This would also influence the way of doing business.
Agile Program Management is a means of managing, planning, and coordinating interrelated work in such a way that value delivery is emphasized for all key stakeholders. Agile Program Management (AgilePgM) is a disciplined yet flexible agile approach to managing transformational change within an organization.
Agile project management (APM) is a strategy that breaks large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. In the APM methodology, each project is completed in small sections – often referred to as iterations. Each iteration is completed according to its project life cycle, beginning with the initial design and progressing to testing and then quality assurance.
Agile Modeling (AM) is a methodology for modeling and documenting software-based systems. Agile Modeling is critical to the rapid and continuous delivery of software. It is a collection of values, principles, and practices that guide effective, lightweight software modeling.
Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA) is certification in the form of guidance and training for business analysts seeking to work in agile environments. To support this shift, AgileBA also helps the business analyst relate Agile projects to a wider organizational mission or strategy. To ensure that analysts have the necessary skills and expertise, AgileBA certification was developed.
Agile leadership is the embodiment of agile manifesto principles by a manager or management team. Agile leadership impacts two important levels of a business. The structural level defines the roles, responsibilities, and key performance indicators. The behavioral level describes the actions leaders exhibit to others based on agile principles.
The andon system alerts managerial, maintenance, or other staff of a production process problem. The alert itself can be activated manually with a button or pull cord, but it can also be activated automatically by production equipment. Most Andon boards utilize three colored lights similar to a traffic signal: green (no errors), yellow or amber (problem identified, or quality check needed), and red (production stopped due to unidentified issue).
Bimodal Portfolio Management (BimodalPfM) helps an organization manage both agile and traditional portfolios concurrently. Bimodal Portfolio Management – sometimes referred to as bimodal development – was coined by research and advisory company Gartner. The firm argued that many agile organizations still needed to run some aspects of their operations using traditional delivery models.
Business innovation is about creating new opportunities for an organization to reinvent its core offerings, revenue streams, and enhance the value proposition for existing or new customers, thus renewing its whole business model. Business innovation springs by understanding the structure of the market, thus adapting or anticipating those changes.
Business modelinnovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers.
A consumer brand company like Procter & Gamble (P&G) defines “Constructive Disruption” as: a willingness to change, adapt, and create new trends and technologies that will shape our industry for the future. According to P&G, it moves around four pillars: lean innovation, brand building, supply chain, and digitalization & data analytics.
That is a process that requires a continuous feedback loop to develop a valuable product and build a viable business model. Continuous innovation is a mindset where products and services are designed and delivered to tune them around the customers’ problem and not the technical solution of its founders.
A design sprint is a proven five-day process where critical business questions are answered through speedy design and prototyping, focusing on the end-user. A design sprint starts with a weekly challenge that should finish with a prototype, test at the end, and therefore a lesson learned to be iterated.
Tim Brown, Executive Chair of IDEO, defined design thinking as “a human-centered approach to innovation that draws from the designer’s toolkit to integrate the needs of people, the possibilities of technology, and the requirements for business success.” Therefore, desirability, feasibility, and viability are balanced to solve critical problems.
DevOps refers to a series of practices performed to perform automated software development processes. It is a conjugation of the term “development” and “operations” to emphasize how functions integrate across IT teams. DevOps strategies promote seamless building, testing, and deployment of products. It aims to bridge a gap between development and operations teams to streamline the development altogether.
Product discovery is a critical part of agile methodologies, as its aim is to ensure that products customers love are built. Product discovery involves learning through a raft of methods, including design thinking, lean start-up, and A/B testing to name a few. Dual Track Agile is an agile methodology containing two separate tracks: the “discovery” track and the “delivery” track.
eXtreme Programming was developed in the late 1990s by Ken Beck, Ron Jeffries, and Ward Cunningham. During this time, the trio was working on the Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation System (C3) to help manage the company payroll system. eXtreme Programming (XP) is a software development methodology. It is designed to improve software quality and the ability of software to adapt to changing customer needs.
Feature-Driven Development is a pragmatic software process that is client and architecture-centric. Feature-Driven Development (FDD) is an agile software development model that organizes workflow according to which features need to be developed next.
A Gemba Walk is a fundamental component of lean management. It describes the personal observation of work to learn more about it. Gemba is a Japanese word that loosely translates as “the real place”, or in business, “the place where value is created”. The Gemba Walk as a concept was created by Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota Production System of lean manufacturing. Ohno wanted to encourage management executives to leave their offices and see where the real work happened. This, he hoped, would build relationships between employees with vastly different skillsets and build trust.
GIST Planning is a relatively easy and lightweight agile approach to product planning that favors autonomous working. GIST Planning is a lean and agile methodology that was created by former Google product manager Itamar Gilad. GIST Planning seeks to address this situation by creating lightweight plans that are responsive and adaptable to change. GIST Planning also improves team velocity, autonomy, and alignment by reducing the pervasive influence of management. It consists of four blocks: goals, ideas, step-projects, and tasks.
The ICE Scoring Model is an agile methodology that prioritizes features using data according to three components: impact, confidence, and ease of implementation. The ICE Scoring Model was initially created by author and growth expert Sean Ellis to help companies expand. Today, the model is broadly used to prioritize projects, features, initiatives, and rollouts. It is ideally suited for early-stage product development where there is a continuous flow of ideas and momentum must be maintained.
An innovation funnel is a tool or process ensuring only the best ideas are executed. In a metaphorical sense, the funnel screens innovative ideas for viability so that only the best products, processes, or business models are launched to the market. An innovation funnel provides a framework for the screening and testing of innovative ideas for viability.
According to how well defined is the problem and how well defined the domain, we have four main types of innovations: basic research (problem and domain or not well defined); breakthrough innovation (domain is not well defined, the problem is well defined); sustaining innovation (both problem and domain are well defined); and disruptive innovation (domain is well defined, the problem is not well defined).
The innovation loop is a methodology/framework derived from the Bell Labs, which produced innovation at scale throughout the 20th century. They learned how to leverage a hybrid innovation management model based on science, invention, engineering, and manufacturing at scale. By leveraging individual genius, creativity, and small/large groups.
The Agile methodology has been primarily thought of for software development (and other business disciplines have also adopted it). Lean thinking is a process improvement technique where teams prioritize the value streams to improve it continuously. Both methodologies look at the customer as the key driver to improvement and waste reduction. Both methodologies look at improvement as something continuous.
A startup company is a high-tech business that tries to build a scalable business model in tech-driven industries. A startup company usually follows a lean methodology, where continuous innovation, driven by built-in viral loops is the rule. Thus, driving growth and building network effects as a consequence of this strategy.
As pointed out by Eric Ries, a minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort through a cycle of build, measure, learn; that is the foundation of the lean startup methodology.
Kanban is a lean manufacturing framework first developed by Toyota in the late 1940s. The Kanban framework is a means of visualizing work as it moves through identifying potential bottlenecks. It does that through a process called just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing to optimize engineering processes, speed up manufacturing products, and improve the go-to-market strategy.
Jidoka was first used in 1896 by Sakichi Toyoda, who invented a textile loom that would stop automatically when it encountered a defective thread. Jidoka is a Japanese term used in lean manufacturing. The term describes a scenario where machines cease operating without human intervention when a problem or defect is discovered.
The PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle was first proposed by American physicist and engineer Walter A. Shewhart in the 1920s. The PDCA cycle is a continuous process and product improvement method and an essential component of the lean manufacturing philosophy.
RAD was first introduced by author and consultant James Martin in 1991. Martin recognized and then took advantage of the endless malleability of software in designing development models. Rapid Application Development (RAD) is a methodology focusing on delivering rapidly through continuous feedback and frequent iterations.
Retrospective analyses are held after a project to determine what worked well and what did not. They are also conducted at the end of an iteration in Agile project management. Agile practitioners call these meetings retrospectives or retros. They are an effective way to check the pulse of a project team, reflect on the work performed to date, and reach a consensus on how to tackle the next sprint cycle. These are the five stages of a retrospective analysis for effective Agile project management: set the stage, gather the data, generate insights, decide on the next steps, and close the retrospective.
Scaled Agile Lean Development (ScALeD) helps businesses discover a balanced approach to agile transition and scaling questions. The ScALed approach helps businesses successfully respond to change. Inspired by a combination of lean and agile values, ScALed is practitioner-based and can be completed through various agile frameworks and practices.
The SMED (single minute exchange of die) method is a lean production framework to reduce waste and increase production efficiency. The SMED method is a framework for reducing the time associated with completing an equipment changeover.
The Spotify Model is an autonomous approach to scaling agile, focusing on culture communication, accountability, and quality. The Spotify model was first recognized in 2012 after Henrik Kniberg, and Anders Ivarsson released a white paper detailing how streaming company Spotify approached agility. Therefore, the Spotify model represents an evolution of agile.
As the name suggests, TDD is a test-driven technique for delivering high-quality software rapidly and sustainably. It is an iterative approach based on the idea that a failing test should be written before any code for a feature or function is written. Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an approach to software development that relies on very short development cycles.
Timeboxing is a simple yet powerful time-management technique for improving productivity. Timeboxing describes the process of proactively scheduling a block of time to spend on a task in the future. It was first described by author James Martin in a book about agile software development.
Scrum is a methodology co-created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland for effective team collaboration on complex products. Scrum was primarily thought for software development projects to deliver new software capability every 2-4 weeks. It is a sub-group of agile also used in project management to improve startups’ productivity.
Scrumban is a project management framework that is a hybrid of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban is a popular approach to helping businesses focus on the right strategic tasks while simultaneously strengthening their processes.
Scrum anti-patterns describe any attractive, easy-to-implement solution that ultimately makes a problem worse. Therefore, these are the practice not to follow to prevent issues from emerging. Some classic examples of scrum anti-patterns comprise absent product owners, pre-assigned tickets (making individuals work in isolation), and discounting retrospectives (where review meetings are not useful to really make improvements).
Scrum at Scale (Scrum@Scale) is a framework that Scrum teams use to address complex problems and deliver high-value products. Scrum at Scale was created through a joint venture between the Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. The joint venture was overseen by Jeff Sutherland, a co-creator of Scrum and one of the principal authors of the Agile Manifesto.
Six Sigma is a data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating errors or defects in a product, service, or process. Six Sigma was developed by Motorola as a management approach based on quality fundamentals in the early 1980s. A decade later, it was popularized by General Electric who estimated that the methodology saved them $12 billion in the first five years of operation.
Stretch objectives describe any task an agile team plans to complete without expressly committing to do so. Teams incorporate stretch objectives during a Sprint or Program Increment (PI) as part of Scaled Agile. They are used when the agile team is unsure of its capacity to attain an objective. Therefore, stretch objectives are instead outcomes that, while extremely desirable, are not the difference between the success or failure of each sprint.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an early form of lean manufacturing created by auto-manufacturer Toyota. Created by the Toyota Motor Corporation in the 1940s and 50s, the Toyota Production System seeks to manufacture vehicles ordered by customers most quickly and efficiently possible.
The Total Quality Management (TQM) framework is a technique based on the premise that employees continuously work on their ability to provide value to customers. Importantly, the word “total” means that all employees are involved in the process – regardless of whether they work in development, production, or fulfillment.
The waterfall model was first described by Herbert D. Benington in 1956 during a presentation about the software used in radar imaging during the Cold War. Since there were no knowledge-based, creative software development strategies at the time, the waterfall method became standard practice. The waterfall model is a linear and sequential project management framework.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
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