Scrum@Scale Certification Now Available

Scrum Inc. is excited to announce that our Scrum@Scale course is now a Scrum Alliance Continuing Education course. Students who complete the course will also receive a Certified Scrum@Scale Practitioner certificate from Scrum Inc. The Scrum@Scale curriculum is endorsed by the co-creator of Scrum, Jeff Sutherland.

Why is the Scrum@Scale framework the best solution for scaling Scrum across an organization?

The Scrum@Scale framework is modular and context-specific.

The Scrum@Scale framework, created by Scrum Inc. is a minimal extension of the core Scrum framework. It allows you to scale any Scrum implementation in a way that is tailored to the unique needs of your company without introducing anti-Scrum patterns or unnecessary waste. For example, Scrum@Scale can help you implement the Spotify model or improve your Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) implementation. It is also compatible with Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) and the NEXUS Framework.

One of the keys to Scrum's success is that it allows for context-driven solutions and processes – which is why no two Scrum implementations are identical. So why does the conversation about scaling Scrum focus on finding a prescriptive, one-size fits all solution? The conversation should be about how to scale the underlying principles of the Scrum framework that have enabled it to be so adaptable.

There are four major reasons why modularity is important:

1. Modularity allows versatility. Scrum has been successful in a wide variety of product and project contexts. It’s been used for everything from traditional software development to designing a new granola bar or complex integrated defense systems. No single prescriptive approach could work in all of those different contexts. You need something that is modular to adapt to the specific strategic context of your company.
2. Scrum is modular. At its roots, Scrum is inherently modular. For example, the Retrospective ceremony within Scrum doesn’t mandate a specific implementation, it simply gives guidance on who should attend that meeting, how long that meeting should take, and, at the end, that you need to have a plan for improving the team process. This leaves the actual practices for how to do that to the team that is conducting the Retrospective. As a result we’ve seen a proliferation of unique practices that are successful in many different contexts.
3. Deploying incrementally is easier and works better. If you have a modular context and you define all of the inter-connections between modules ahead of time (namely what the goal of the module is, what the input to the module is, and what the output of the module is) then it doesn’t matter what happens inside that black-box. As long as it meets those constraints, it still satisfies the goal of the module. This means that you don’t need to have an entire solution delivered in one “big bang” at the very beginning of your scaling. It frees you to iteratively use Scrum to incrementally develop the modules that are most important to you and, after several iterations, have a fully-fledged scaled Scrum.
4. Modularity supports a pattern library. A library of what people have tried in the past, and in what context, is a great way to accelerate the speed with which you can try new scaling experiments. As an Agile community, we can quickly build, distill, and capture knowledge so that we can improve the state-of-the-art by borrowing patterns and practices that have been used successfully by other companies in similar contexts. We can then contribute incremental learnings back to that library. It’s a powerful concept that allows us to crowd-source the development of scaling Scrum.

Scrum@Scale focuses on Agile Leadership development.

Scaling Scrum is not just about multiple teams, or implementing Scrum across your organization, or supporting globally distributed teams, or scaling velocity which can multiply your team power back a factor of 5. All of these require Agile Leadership. This is why Scrum@Scale is used by the Agile Leadership Academy to train executives on how to build Agile companies.

Is the Scrum@Scale course right for me?
Are you a CSM? CSPO? A coach? A manager? A leader? An engineer?
Are you ready to unleash the full potential of your organization or those of your clients?
Are you on the hook to respond to rapid organizational change by “Embracing Agile” as outlined in the Harvard Business Review?
Do you need a detailed but context-specific solution for your scaling problem?
Are you ready to reduce waste across your organization?
Are you ready to experience hyper-productivity?
Do you dream of disrupting the competition?

If you answered yes to one or more of these, you’re ready for Scrum at Scale.

-- Jeff Sutherland

Our next Scrum@Scale course will be held in Boston, MA on July 7 – 8.

Visit our upcoming courses page for a list of all of our Scrum training courses.