My paper on scaling Scrum to the executive level has been published by IEEE. It was selected as the best paper in the agile track at HICSS. Download it here:
Abstract:
Our company manages 25 software engineering teams across 6 products using a single top-down Enterprise Scrum. We know of no other company doing this, yet it provides extreme visibility and control at the CXO level. It promotes agile thinking enterprise-wide, driving non-engineering departments to adopt Scrum. We believe it is making us more profitable.
We estimate effort in team months, run quarterly Sprints, assign whole teams to projects, meet in weekly stand-ups. We start, postpone or cancel whole projects.
Within individual projects, we still use 1-4 week Sprints and all the trappings of the classic Scrum process, including, in some cases, Scrum-of-Scrums.
New challenges arise: Shared resource constraints suggest Kanban methods. Net Present Value can justify prioritization, but creates controversy. Moving teams between projects requires rapid programming environment setup. The process forces executives to justify decisions. We want simple improvement metrics, but they seem elusive.
We are actively adapting this process at Citrix Online. I would love feedback and suggestions related to either the process or the paper itself.
Hi Dan, I was one of the reviewers of your paper and I am happy to learn it was selected as the best paper in the agile track. First rate work.
Posted by: Gmyers | 09 July 2010 at 06:00 AM
Great to hear. I made major changes to the paper based on reviewer comments, so I am really grateful for your work.
Posted by: Dan Greening | 12 July 2010 at 10:30 PM