What type of Scrum will you use in your workplace?

We're going to present all the basis you need for deciding the best framework for you and your organization now, by giving the the context and insight you need into all the major frameworks, including:

• Scrum in the World of Agile
• Hybrid Agile Framework (aka "Iterative Waterfall")
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
• Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)
• Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)

Watch out for the shameless plugs we've purposefully put in this course to asking you to verify for Applied Scrum. We've done it because you really should verify! Not only do you get a certificate from UMD proving your excellence, you'll also get access to lots of free content and tools to start applying these lessons right away.

The last lesson, Pitfalls and Benefits of Agile, is especially focused on helping you consider the best way to continue and not get stuck while starting to apply Agile on your team.  More of these ideas are discussed in greater detail in the verified content (yes that's another plug, but it's true!).

We hope you continue to stay engaged, have fun, and be curious as you explore the world of Applied Scrum at it's most applied: the Agile Frameworks. Time to actuate and pick what kind of Scrum you'll use.

It is official across multiple surveys: roughly half of all projects are now, at least in part, Agile in nature.

And, of those types of projects almost ALL the projects in the organization use Scrum or some hybrid of Scrum at its base. The reason being that Scrum is so effective with small teams that it forms the team-level model for nearly every Agile framework. The four largest "Agile Scaling" frameworks all use the Scrum model as their basis:

• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
• Scrum of Scrums
• Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)
• Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)

Both the Project Management Institute (PMI), which has been very Traditional in nature ("Predictive" as they call it); and the Verizon One "State of Agile" report across industries that over 50% of organizations are using Agile.

Note these surveys are very representative across industries of all sizes. In fact, over half the respondents to the PMI survey had organizations worth over $500M in total annual revenue.

According to PMI's Pulse of the Profession:

• 23% of projects use Hybrid (Agile and Predictive/Traditional) methods
• 23% of projects used Agile
• 7% used "other" approaches
• Only 47% were Predictive / Traditional projects
• 71% of organizations report "Agility" as being essential to staying competitive

According to Verizon One, who also surveyed a similar distribution of companies (although skewed towards technology and finance):

• 56% of all projects used Scrum
• 75% used either Scrum, Scumban, Scrum/XP, or Kanban

Therefore, the World of Agile has arrived. Now it's time to figure out which framework fits you best!

 

Scrum in the World of Agile Summary Points

The World of Agile is HERE!

According to PMI's Pulse of the Profession:

• Only 47% of projects use Predictive / Traditional approaches
• Almost 1/2 of all projects are now Agile in nature
• Half are "pure Agile" and usually Scrum
• Half are hybrid Agile
• Most organizations see Agility as essential to staying competitive (71%)

This means that you've made a great investment learning Scrum, because no matter what you're likely going to need these skills in one out of two projects you conduct professionally. In fact, if we look at the primary reasons why projects fail we see the likelihood that Agile will continue to grow.

Here are the top reasons why projects fail according to PMI's Pulse of the Profession:

• Change in the organization's priorities - 39%
• Change in project objectives - 37%
• Inaccurate requirements gathering - 35%

And these were all tied for fourth at 29%

• Inadequate vision or goal
• Inadequate, poor communication
• Opportunities and risks were not defined

When you review these aspects, who do they align to the Agile Manifesto? How do they align to the benefits we've discussed in Week 3 on how Scrum works? 

The reality is that Agile addresses the primary challenges facing projects today directly: objectives, requirements, and communication.

Understanding that Agile continues to grow, we also see in Verizon One's State of Agile report that most projects use Scrum:

• 56% use "pure" Scrum
• 75% use Scrum, Scrumban, Scum/XP, or Kanban methods

This is because Scrum is simple, works, and is great for small teams. But as we've reviewed, there's no greater "organization" in the Scrum model. So what about Scale? How do these organizations that use Scrum scale their Agile approaches?

There are four major types of scaling methods used today, according to Verizon One's survey:

• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) - 29%
• Scrum of Scrums - 19%
• (Internally Created Methods) - 10%
• Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) - 5%
• Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) - 5%

This accounts for the major majority of methods used. Often we see that internally created methods tend to look like Hybrid methods. In the next sections we'll explore SAFe, DAD, and LeSS. Each has the following items in common:

• All use Scrum as the base model for managing teams
• All have Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and Development Teams
• All differ on how to mange "Support Teams" and how to make an organization Agile.

The simplest means of understanding Agile at Scale is to look at the two methods originally used to Scale Agile:

• Scrum of Scrums - teams coordinate work through sending representatives to have Daily Stand Ups across teams.
• Hybrid Methodology - teams are coordinated by using Predictive or Traditional controls, such as stage gates, to manage delivery

Scrum of Scrums:

• Scrum of Scrums Stand Ups: Teams send a representative, although usually this is a Product Owner or Scrum Master
• Can take literally just a long as a standard Daily Stand Up
• Focuses on reporting out completions and blockers
• Opportunity to identify need for coordination among team memebrs
• Scrum of Scrums have a Scrum Master
• Usually a senior person in the organization
• Responsible for facilitating the coordination of work
• Responsible for overall productivity of the Scrum of Scrum Teams
• Scrum of Scrums applies when two teams have potential dependencies
• Share resources (people, services, etc.)
• Shared product in development
• Shared goal or vision
• Originally this was proposed by Jeff Sutherland, one of the founders as Scrum and signatories of the Agile Manifesto in 2001
• "Agile Can Scale: Inventing and reinventing SCRUM in Five Companies" - Jeff Sutherland, Cutter IT Journal, 2001
• Provides story of using Scrum of Scrums at IDX, where weekly product line Scrums and Monthly Management Scrums occurred.
• Some teams became "hyper-productive," a state of Scrum teams that Jeff Sutherland talks of being 4 to 5 times more productive

Scrum of Scrums offers a very simple, and yet elegant means of scaling Scrum. In fact, the practice has been used by many very large scale organizations to achieve organizational agility. 

In the HBR Article, Agile at Scale (2018), there are examples of Scrum of Scrums spanning hundreds of people in less than one hour:

• Saab's aeronautics business has over 100 agiel teams for its Gripen fighter jet ($43M project)
• Daily Stand Ups occur from 7:30 AM to 8:45 AM
• By the end of the the Stand Ups using Scrum of Scrum approaches, the executive team knows the critical issues it needs to address
• That's over 500 people fully reporting using word-of-mouth in less than 90 minutes

This model is having a resurgence now among many Agile practitioners. Especially as many organizations are expanding their understanding of Agile and using Hybrid means or SAFe to transition into becoming an Agile organization.

The Hybrid model that is most commonly used by organizations is rather simple:

• Traditional means are used to control major decision points
• Stage Gates are leveraged especially for Requirements, Design, and Operations (Deployment)
• This offers a chance for the Traditional / Predictive leadership to approve the next "Stage" of the project
• Agile (Scrum) methods are used to rapidly and iteratively develop products in each stage
• Whole teams are used to develop Requirements, Designs, Development, and Verificatoin
• Whole teams are able to prototype and create reusable document
• Requirements are managed as User Stories
• Stories are generated in Requirements, refined in Design, Implemented and closed in Development
• Development is often still iterative and incremental for speed and learning
• Development may have multiple releases to a "staging" or "pilot" environment
• Verification is run for system-level requirements against use cases

This effectively looks like iterations between stage-gates; and is often more successful in organizations that resist Agile. Since organizational resistance to Agile and misunderstanding of Agile are the primary reasons for Agile failing (according to Verizon One), this makes sense for many new entrants learning Agile for the first time.

When looking at the major reasons that Agile fails, we see the following:

• Organizational culture at odds with agile values - 53%
• General organizational resistance to change - 46%
• Inadequate management support - 42%
• Lack of skills/experience with agile methods - 41%

These statistics show why the Hybrid model is so popular among about half the practitioners of Agile in more traditional organizations. For this reasons "Internal Agile" is a great means of proving the effectiveness of the method when there's no upper management support. However, the only means of truly achieving agility is to have leadership support and good Agile training.

So how do we convince the leaders who are disbelievers in Agile? Show them the data:

• Reasons for Adopting Agile
• Accelerate Software Delivery - 75%
• Manage changing priorities - 64%
• Increase productivity - 55%
• Better alignment of business and IT - 49%
• Increased software quality - 46%
• Benefits of adopting Agile (percentages show counts, not impact)
• Better management of priorities - 71%
• Project visibility - 66%
• Alignment of business and IT - 65%
• Delivery speed / time to market - 62%
• Team productivity - 61%

And in terms of impact, the benefits can be four to five times the productivity and value output; as seen in the Ambysoft survey in 2013.

Now that you understand the Scrum in the World of Agile, and you know that world is here (!):

1. What framework will you choose?
2. How will you achieve the benefits (speed and innovation)?
3. How will you manage the change (leadership and control)?

The other lessons in this week will try to help you answer the first question. To answer questions 2 and 3, we highly recommend you sign up for the remaining courses in the Agile Project Management Certificate. Just like in this course, if you Verify you'll get tools, additional resources, and insights that go beyond these lectures and notes to enable the change in your projects.

Now, go be Agile and win!