The senior management of some (if not many) large organisations, having accepted the IDEAS behind Agile and knowing that the one-team Scrum framework is inadequate for their organisation, try to go straight from a TRADITIONAL organisation to a ‘Scaled Scrum’ organisation.

Those that have tried this have hit severe cultural problems and perceive that ‘Agile does not do what it says on the tin’.

Implementing the cultural changes required for single-Team Scrum is difficult enough; the problems with trying to implement the cultural changes required for ‘Scaled Scrum” are exponentially more difficult.

The following is advice about when not to scale Scrum:

• Don’t try to scale when you are first starting out –  

When beginning the agile journey, it’s critical that you start small and master the basics. Introducing a large enterprise framework with multiple dependencies presents a steep change curve and typically requires extensive investment. 

In the early stages, you will reap greater benefits if you focus on developing the core agile principles and Scrum Values

Work on developing a good backlog, meeting commitments, reaching a standard velocity, and achieving high-quality output. 

Additionally, starting small creates excitement, focuses on quick wins and learning more nimbly. 

• Don’t start before you have NAILED the basics –  

You may have reached the stage where you have multiple Scrum teams, that are working well in a Scrum environment and have started introducing larger epics that could benefit from being split across multiple teams.

This may seem like a natural point in the journey where you may start to ask whether you are ready to scale. 

Before taking that leap, it is strongly recommended to optimise your current Scrum teams and Agile processes; really concentrate on strengthening your base in order to maximize throughput and ROI—instead of trying to build the product-development processes that you will need for Scrum at scale. 

If you are at this point in your Agile journey, take a LOOK at implementing test-driven development, continuous integration and deployment (not included in the Scrum Guide) and meeting commitments on a regular cadence. 

• Don’t do it just to do it – 

Scaling Scrum has become incredibly popular in many industries; SAFe is a buzzword in the agile community; companies that are truly ready for enterprise frameworks are getting major rewards from them but that by itself is not a sufficiently good reason to move to an enterprise framework. 

The transition from team-level Scrum processes to an enterprise framework requires a significant investment in change management. The move should be well thought-out and cautiously approached. If you have specific problems that scaling can solve, lay them out with an advisor and see if the journey is worth the investment. 

When you’re ready, know that enterprise frameworks are tried and true TOOLS that have delivered tremendous benefits for many organizations but you have to be at the right point in your journey to take advantage of these tools.