The Horror Of The Scaled Agile Framework

(first published on March 21st 2012, migrated from my deprecated Wordpress site)

I’ve just watched a presentation that’s made me so angry it’s prompted me to write my first blog post in ages! Sorry I’ve been away so long

I’m not a fan of the “Scaled Agile Framework” to say the least. Dean Leffingwell is in on this, a man who I generally find myself agreeing with. However this framework is a horrible, pure money-making bastardisation and Frankenstein of Scrum, Agile and Waterfall that is being sold to large companies who are too afraid to really change and just want to increase productivity, reduce defect counts, etc. and find a place in the “Agile” world for their managers.

The whole concept of iterating over a product rather than simply incrementing features is fundamental to Agile and Scrum but completely bypassed with this framework. Continuous delivery in order to tap into the market as early as possible and adapt the product is ignored (instead a 2-day release plan meeting is held in which all the features the PM wants done in the next 10 weeks are broken down into user stories and put into Sprints — yuk).

There is even a “hardening Sprint” which is a fancy term for a 2-week phase for bug-fixing and deployment activities because companies “really need it” (read it’s too hard to truly get things “done done” so we’ll leave time for it at the end — of course “the end” is a deadline date based on an estimation of how long all the features will take to build — i.e. guesswork around fixed requirements — ring any bells?). Yuk yuk yuk!

Scrum scales perfectly well without this framework, thank you very much! Each product has a backlog, which is derived from an overall program backlog at the portfolio level. Each product has 1 to many synchronised teams — done! Why synchronise the whole frigging organisation’s product development?! Yeah like that will work. Means any one team can’t adapt their process because it’s locked in to the organisation’s “Agile” framework.

Scrum-at-scale is far better because it holds true to the founding principles of Agile and Scrum but also allows hundred of people to be working together towards a common goal. If the business needs to change program priorities then they can do because they are doing Scrum! Simply cease work (if required) on the product or work stream that is being moved down the backlog at the end of the next Sprint and start the team (or a different team) on the new product.

Rant over — for now! Be interested to hear what others think.

Thanks for reading! If you are looking for help with your software or product delivery, I provide agile coaching, public training (both theory and practical) up to executive management level, and more. As well as public events, I can also run training internally in your organisation for a massively reduced cost, so please ✍ get in touch.