The Challenge with Scaling Agile Practices for Multi-Team Projects

Part 1 of my 8 part Training Series on Scaling Agile Practices

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Have you ever witnessed a successful Agile Team?

Let me tell you something.

There is nothing like experiencing the success of your team’s Agile journey.

When your team is quick and adaptable, sprints are advancing, and productivity is hitting outstanding levels, you know you're doing something right.

Agile becomes the driving force behind your team's everyday operations, guiding you towards greater team productivity.

HOWEVER!!

There comes a time (and it always comes) when you need to take things up a notch, handle larger projects, with multiple teams and navigate the complexities that come with them.

For a moment, I want you to imagine that the excellent project you’re working on is getting bigger. The team is growing.

1. Your backlog is becoming big and scary.

2. Ensuring consistency across various components is becoming difficult.

3. Estimations? They are consuming more time than the actual coding work.

4. And the deliverables? No one knows what they are.

Does this sound familiar? You're not alone.

You are just in the middle of a chaotic large-scale project.

The world of software development is constantly changing and growing, which means that we need to keep evolving our practices, mindsets, and approaches as we work to scale Agile. It's all part of the journey!

And to help you do this I welcome you all to the "Scaling Agile Practices" newsletter series.

I have designed this series to guide you through the art and science of scaling Agility.

No, it has nothing to do with scaling frameworks!

Our journey will have the following checkpoints:

1. Problems with Scaling ← this post

2. First Principles of Scaling

3. Perfecting single-team Agility

4. Multi-team cohesivity

5. Multi-team roles and responsibilities

6. Multi-team backlog

7. Convergence

8. Special Cases

I will elaborate on these topics as we move forward.

Let’s start with the CHALLENGES of Scaling. What are they?

Let’s find out.