On the eighth day of Christmas, my true blog gave to me:

Eight Scrums a-scaling,
Seven most-heard retrospective comments,
Six Keystone config tips,
Five Golden Rules!
Four CI tools,
Three powershell scripts,
Two Keystone merge tips,
…and a placeholder rule in the content tree.

You may have found that a lot of the traditional agile frameworks  are missing guidance on how to operate within larger organizations. Over the last few years a series of ‘scaled’ frameworks have appeared, with varying levels of adoption/training/certifications. Let’s take a look at some of what is out there for scaling agile!

1. SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework)

I’ve read Dean Leffingwell’s book on this approach and it definitely has a lot of tools available to you. The visuals provided are great and the site is easy to navigate and really helps you understand the difference between Portfolio, Program, and Team levels.

SAFe:  http://scaledagileframework.com/

2. Nexus

Do you like Scrum? Do you have Ken Schwaber’s photo on your cubicle wall? Then you’ll love Nexus. Scaled Scrum from the folks who brought you Scrum before.

Nexus: https://www.scrum.org/Resources/The-Nexus-Guide

3. Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)

This framework also targets the Scrum crowd, and claims to be simple and abstract to avoid dictating processes and artifacts. They also have an awesome domain name 🙂

LeSS: http://less.works

4. Enterprise Scrum

More Scrum! This time, from Mike Beedle. This framework claims to be focused on organization transformation to deal with the current state of “Innovation Revolution”.

Enterprise Scrum: http://www.enterprisescrum.com/

5. Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)

Disciplined Agile targets Enterprise I.T. groups with the promise of a hybrid agile approach that can do the “heavy process lifting” that Scrum leaves up to you.

DAD: http://www.disciplinedagiledelivery.com

6. Matrix of Services (MAXOS)

A different twist on scaling. This approach suggests programmer-driven service teams that are hyper-specialized as opposed to cross-functional teams that can handle anything.

MAXOS: http://www.continuousagile.com/unblock/ea_matrix.html

7. GROWS Method

I saw Andy Hunt speak on the GROWS method at the Better Software Conference in Orlando this November. My favourite part of this presentation was the focus on the fact that people are not novices or experts, they are novices or experts AT SOMETHING.  This method is a different approach to experiment-driven development.

GROWS Method: http://growsmethod.com

8. Enterprise Transition Framework (ETF)

This is not so much a scaling framework so much as a way to help large organizations transition to agile frameworks. So if you are interested in SAFe, DAD, or one of the other ones, ETF might be a good companion framework to help with the transition.

ETF: http://www.agile42.com/en/agile-transition/etf