Using Nexus to Scale Scrum Beyond a Single Scrum Team
Even after achieving success with Scrum, teams are still limited by the amount of work they can do and the value they can create. They need to expand, or scale, to a group of Scrum Teams working together on the same product. When doing so, they often encounter common challenges with cross-team dependencies, self-management, transparency and accountability.
When introducing heavy-weight scaling methodologies, teams often find that the added overhead slows down the teams and distracts from the essence and benefits of Scrum. Instead, Scrum.org created the Nexus FrameworkTM by minimally extending the Scrum Framework to include ways that help solve the dependency and collaboration challenges of cross-team work. Since Nexus enhances the foundational elements of Scrum, it reinforces the benefits of Scrum while also being familiar to those that have used Scrum.
The Scaled Professional Scrum™ (SPS) with Nexus course, builds on the Nexus framework by introducing complementary practices and techniques proven to help teams scale. The course also includes a free attempt at the globally recognized Scaled Professional Scrum (SPS) certification exam.
I use the SPS workshop either as part of a lightweight scaling engagement or to refresh/revisit scaling patterns for an organization that is already trying to achieve agility at scale – whether using a home-grown scaling approach or a formal framework such as SAFe.