Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) is used since 2005 and is used for lean and agile development of big product groups. LeSS aims to stay within the constraints of the standard Scrum rules. This framework can be used up to eight teams of eight people each. An additional framework called LeSS Huge can be used for up to a few thousand people on one product. It is therefore a scaled up version of the one-team Scrum, and it maintains many of the practices and ideas. The framework includes a single product backlog because it’s for a product, not for a team. There is one definition of done for all teams. At the end of each sprint there is one potentially shippable product increment. There is one product owner and many complete, cross-functional and no single-specialist teams. In LeSS all teams are in a common sprint to deliver a common shippable product every sprint.

The Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) advocates that projects should do just “Enough Design Up Front” in order to understand and clarify the structure of the overall solution and to create an agile plan for delivery of the project. This is seen as the key differentiator for DSDM. In a DSDM project, analysis and design activity undertaken covers the full breadth of the project but deliberately avoids going into detail. This approach promotes agility in developing the required solution whilst avoiding the risk of “No Design Up Front” that makes many larger and more strongly governed organizations nervous.

The Discipilined Agile (DA) mindset is captured in the form of principles, promises, and guidelines. The principles provide a philosophical foundation for business agility. They are based on lean and flow concepts. The promises are agreements made between teammates and stakeholders. They define a collection of disciplined behaviors that enable effective and professional collaboration. The guidelines help to be more effective in the way of working and improving that way of working over time.

Prepare the Organization for Change

Preparing the organization is mostly a part of the integrator function. It analyzes the sensemaking activities required to facilitate the change and reports results to the program team. During planning, the integrator identifies areas of resistance and support and monitors them before the change process begins. Resistance is often the manifestation of dissatisfaction with the solution rather with the change itself. The integrator should meet with the resisting parties to discuss their issues and find a solution. Supporters should be recruited as agents to actively promote the change. Preparing the organization for change also requires identifying influences from the program environment. Finally, the program team should ensure that all actions are aligned with the vision and strategy of the program.

Scrum in a Nutshell

1. Create small, cross-functional, self-organizing teams.
2. Split your work into a list of small, concrete deliverables. Prioritize the items in the list and estimate their relative effort.
3. Split time into short fixed-length iteraions (max. one month), that can each deliver a finished product / feature.
4. Get regular feedback from the customer in order to optimize the release plan after every iteration.
5. Optimize the process by analyzing feedback after every iteration.

Culture will always influence the use of agile approaches. Organizational culture is a continuum that reaches from highly predictive plans to lean startup where everything is an experiment.
Agile approaches might fit well with lean startup culture, but highly predictive organizations can still move towards agile approaches by encouraging empirical measurements, small experiments, and learning.

Tools of management are not only ineffective, but they actively get in the way of transformational leadership intended to inspire deep change. Neither the sincerity of intentions, nor the soundness of the ideas can guarantee that the leader’s behavior will be perceived as constructive. The cultural, psychological, and political complications of any power position can lead the audience to misunderstand the leader’s goals.

When we think we know something to be objective truth, our immediate reaction to news indicating the opposite is to jump to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with the source.

“The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.” This phenomenon called confirmation bias was noted by Francis Bacon almost four hundred years ago.