[MUSIC] Welcome to the last topic for the project management practical with multiple projects course. Today, we will focus on the Scrum of Scrums Agile project management technique and the release retrospective for the Scrum of Scrums environment. By the end of today's lesson on the Scrum of Scrums, you'll be able to describe Scrum of Scrums Agile project management and you'll be able to lead a release retrospective for the Scrum of Scrums environment. So what is Scrum of Scrums? A Scrum of Scrums is a tool to run multiple projects using the agile methodology at one time. Each Scrum team within the Scrum of Scrums is considered it's own separate project. The Scrum of Scrums has an assigned Scrum of Scrums master and it's typically facilitated via a daily Scrum of Scrums meeting. So a Scrum of Scrums is a technique to scale agile project management and Scrum teams to large groups and multiple teams. Here's some more detail on how it works. First, the group is divided into agile Scrum teams, each having between five and ten resources. These teams meet on a daily basis. Each team designates one member to be an ambassador who then meets on a daily basis with ambassadors from the other teams. The meeting of ambassadors is called a Scrum of Scrums meeting. Typically, the Scrum master of each Scrum team attends the Scrum of Scrums meeting but it does not all to need to be so. Depending on the meeting topics or situation, an ambassador may be a technical contributor on the individual Scrum team. A Scrum of Scrums meeting typically lasts 15 minutes, and is where the Scrum masters of the various teams answer the same question that their Scrum team members answered during the individual Scrum meetings. However, the key difference is that the Scrum of Scrums ambassadors answer on behalf of their various teams. The questions are, what was completed yesterday by your Scrum team? What is the team working on today? What are the blockers or impediments the team is facing. The resolution of impediments is taken offline. The goal of the Scrum of Scrums meeting is for the teams to identify the challenges they are facing and share their progress. The Scrum of Scrums master manages a program wide backlog from which items are assigned to the backlogs of the various individual Scrum teams. Thus a Scrum of Scrums is a way by which a large program can be run in an agile fashion with multiple Scrum teams focused on the various portions of the backlog. There's always one Scrum of Scrums master who will coordinate the Scrum of Scrums meeting and the Scrum of Scrums backlog. The Scrum of Scrums master will also coordinate the other Scrum masters. Let's look at an example of a Scrum of Scrums. Assume a large project is to be undertaken to develop a new navigation device for helicopters. The project needs to be completed in a year and requires an estimated 50 workers, on average, throughout the duration of the project. Obviously, a single Scrum team is not feasible here. Therefore, the product manager sets up seven Scrum teams. Each team consists of seven members, plus the team's individual Scrum master. The first Scrum team meets at 9 AM for the individual stand-up meeting. The second team meets at 9:15 AM and so on. The project manager attends at least two of these meetings a day and brings on a Scrum of Scrum master to run a daily stand-up meeting with the seven Scrum masters. She also helps keep the overall program progressing. As we have multiple Scrum teams, the product owner divides the release backlog into multiple subordinated backlogs, one per Scrum team. Each subordinate backlog is overseen by junior product owners who are assigned to a subset of the Scrum teams. This allows the product owner and the agile Scrum team methodology to scale. Now let's assume the scope of the project increases by a factor of five. In this case, the product owner may need to result to a Scrum of Scrums of Scrums, with 50 Scrum teams each consisting of seven members. Although Scrum can become very complex with increasing levels, the methodology is scalable and has been used by very large teams with multiple hierarchical levels, all scaling up to a Scrum of Scrums master, or a Scrum of Scrums of Scrum master. And the product owner who oversees junior product owners who are assigned to a subset of the backlog and subsets of the Scrum of Scrums team. Many practitioners have reported that having a cross-cultural team that works virtually is highly beneficial. This is because different members have different ways of thinking and looking at situations. These different team members bring new ideas and good innovative solutions. However, implementing successful Virtual Agile teams or Scrum of Scrums for geographically separated locations can be difficult. To be successful, the teams will require the right attitude, processes for managing backlogs, integrating and releasing products virtually, and use of an online agile project management tool, like Jira, Trello, SprintGround, VersionOne or Redmine. Web based agile project management portals and online kanban boards are great tools for helping ensure that the team stays in sync. In recent years, web based tools have extensively been used to manage different Scrum artifacts, including the product backlog, release backlog, Scrum boards, or kanban boards. These tools can be used to construct a product and release backlogs, and they come with the ability to update velocities automatically. They also provide workflows for moving stories across different Scrum boards. Another approach for ensuring the success of virtual Scrum of Scrum teams involves co-locating individual Agile teams throughout the world and having the Scrum masters conduct their meeting virtually. This approach provides numerous benefits. The first and foremost benefit of collocation is the ease with which the communication can take place when a team is working together in the same place. Collocated Agile teams especially in the Scrum of Scrums world rely heavily on both planned and impromptu interactions. In a typical agile organization, it's not unusual to see workers interacting in the hallway and near water coolers as they do quick design reviews, brainstorm, and resolve issues informally. Obviously, this is challenging in a virtual environment but by co-locating the teams it becomes possible to replicate an agile work environment while still taking advantage of the benefits of geographical diversity. When setting up multiple geographically dispersed Scrum of Scrums teams, it's important to have the first release planning and first iteration planning meetings face-to-face with the work then continuing virtually. This is because people who meet face-to-face at least once or people who have a history of working together face-to-face tend to communicate better virtually. In a virtual Scrum of Scrums environment, the Scrum of Scrums master will need to be heavily involved in each Scrum teams planning meetings. He or she may even schedule those meetings to ensure that everyone's needs are accommodated. The Scrum of Scrums master will also need to encourage teams to work together offline using the telephone, instant messaging, web conferencing, and other forms of virtual communication in an impromptu or schedule fashion. The virtual Scrum of Scrums master will also need to decide upon the processes that the teams will use for agile project management. Although many co-located teams use a physical card-based Scrum board, others prefer web-based tools even though they are co-located. Choosing between physical card-based Scrum boards and online tools becomes part of the art of applying Agile to our projects. Lastly, when dealing with cultural differences, there are no easy answers for developing processes that will work for everyone. Thus it's important for the Scrum of Scrum master to adjust the Scrum of Scrums method to the preferences of all Agile teams. Experiment carefully and gradually. The key is to respect all cultures within the geographically diverse areas and develop an approach that will work for all of them.
