I have written a series of agile basics before. From this one, I will write a series of articles on the scaled agile framework. It is expected to introduce the Less framework and the SAFe framework. Readers are welcome to contact me for communication!
From team-level agile to scale agile
In recent years, various organizations and individuals have no longer discussed whether they need to be agile. They are more about thinking about how to achieve agile transformation faster and better, and get the desired value. And team-level agility is also being used more. People are familiar with it, and then everyone began to turn their attention to the topic of scale agile. If you don’t pick the words, scale agility is not equivalent to agile scale. Agile scale seems to be a bigger proposition. You can combine yourself The practical experience of the company has explored the path to agile scale, and can also directly learn from the scaled agile framework that has been formed in the market. In the latest (2020) state of agile report, SAFe is still the largest market share among the scaled agile frameworks. Others including Less, DAD, Nexus, Scrum@scale also account for a higher proportion. But I want to put the introduction of SAFe to the back and start with Less (large-scale scrum).
Less principle
Regarding the information about less, I have only two sentences that are most impressed, "less is more" and "large-scale scrum is scrum", and these two sentences happen to be two of the Less principles, so let's talk about it. Principles of less:
1. Large-scale scrum is still scrum
The basis of less is still scrum. In other words, less is not an upgrade of scrum, but focuses on how to better use the scrum framework in a large-scale environment. The expansion of team size brings about the complexity of the structure. , Which in turn has an impact on communication, management, coordination, and synchronization. Scrum has always emphasized the operation of small teams. How to deal with when the team is too large is not clearly described in the guide. Less hopes to expand scrum to a larger scale. Scope, so you must explain the mechanism and principles of large-scale teams;
then, if you don’t think scrum, you will definitely not approve of Less;
2. Transparent
Friends who know scrum should know that the three pillars of scrum are: transparency, inspection, and adjustment. The principle of less also mentions transparency, but this transparency will focus more on the level of large-scale teams, such as: How to coordinate between multiple teams, how to ensure information sharing, and whether the to-do list needs more changes and modifications. This part of the content will be introduced in detail in subsequent articles;
3. Less is more
The reason why scrum is easy to use is because the scrum framework itself is very concise, and less does not want to break this conciseness, so less has only made simple adjustments at all levels from roles, artifacts to processes, with increases and decreases, but Always follow the philosophy of “less is more”;
4. Overall product focus
To achieve overall product focus, each team must maintain a common goal and deliver the same product, and product management must be achieved by a product owner in a product to-do list. This principle is also the same as the previous " Echoing the principle of "less is more";
5. Customer-centric
This sentence has been constantly mentioned in both agile fields and other fields, and SAFe5.0 also emphasizes customer-centricity. At this level, less seems to be concerned earlier than SAFe. Customers are God, so Customer-centric thinking is very valuable. This is not only reflected at the product level, but should have this kind of thinking and principles in every link from demand, design, research and development, testing, and operation and maintenance to serve customers well and help customers solve fundamental problems. , Strengthen communication with customers, this is the foundation of the success of products and enterprises;
6. Continuous improvement
This principle has been said too much. From lean thinking to agile development to DevOps, every theory and practice is promoting continuous improvement and pursuing perfection;
7. Lean thinking
The origin of agile is inseparable from lean thinking, and the importance of lean thinking is especially emphasized in less. When we learn lean thinking, in addition to learning how to reduce waste and use management tools to achieve lean management, we should pay more attention Cultural construction, such as the pillar of lean: respect for human culture and continuous improvement;
8. System thinking
When talking about the topic of team-level agility, I talked about the importance of system thinking. Partial optimization may not necessarily bring about overall optimization, and may even have a negative impact on the entire system. In less, the so-called overall has risen to multiple teams. Considering the scale of the entire product, whether it is team structure, process improvement, or collaboration mechanism, systemic thinking is required;
9. Experience process control
The essence of empirical process control is to continuously deliver product increments in small batches, and obtain customer feedback while iterating and improving the product. In the less framework, all teams are expected to maintain the same rhythm, which means that each team follows a common The delivery cycle delivers product increments, plans subsequent directions and functions based on overall market feedback, and is also used to guide the continuous delivery of each team;
10. Queuing theory
Manage queue length, number of work-in-progress and delivery cycle based on queuing theory, in order to expect each team to operate quickly and efficiently. Queuing theory must be combined with system thinking to consider the rationality of queues from a higher level to help products Improved delivery capabilities.
less frame design
The above are the 10 principles of less. From the principles, we can see that the core idea of less is not to add a lot of content, but to better use scrum at the level of large-scale organizations under the guidance of the basic ideas of lean and agile. Now that large-scale is mentioned, let's clarify the design of less first;
Less is actually divided into two frameworks, less and less huge. Less focuses on the size of 2-8 teams. When more than 8 teams collaborate together, it is necessary to refer to the less huge framework for operation. Why is there 8 teams as the division? Boundary, in the less official words, this is a number summed up through experience and experimentation. Perhaps your number is 9 and it’s okay. The specific differences between the two frameworks will be explained later. Let’s take a look in the next section. What is the basic structure of less.
