Since the publication of the Agile manifesto in 2001, Agile methodologies have transformed the ability of organizations to meet demand for new products quickly, dynamically, and flexibly.

With the emphasis on rapid feedback and incremental improvement, it’s easy to see why these methods have gained favor over sequential and linear practices like Waterfall. In the pursuit of a competitive advantage, expanding agility is a key objective of many organizations.

However, Agile methodologies were initially designed with smaller-sized teams in mind—they are not particularly suited to enterprise-sized organizations. Implementing Agile approaches in organizations composed of hundreds or thousands of team members can present several obstacles.

Introducing: enterprise agile frameworks.

What is an enterprise agile framework?

Enterprise agile frameworks seek to answer the question of how to apply Agile approaches (such as Scrum, ExtremeProgramming, and Kanban) to organizations that have hundreds of teams, teams-of-teams, or even teams-of-teams-of-teams.

Enterprise agile frameworks help large organizations to scale Agile principles, practices, and ways of thinking across many departments. They provide guidance on managing dependencies, alignment with organizational goals, cross-team collaboration, and the delivery of value.

In particular, these frameworks address the specific challenges of managing a large number of Agile large-size teams, offering structure and guidance to help scale Agile to meet business needs and realize its benefits.

The benefits of scaling Agile to enterprise level

In order to preserve (and grow) market share, all businesses need to innovate, adapt, and promote digital transformation. New products need to be rolled out and existing products need to be improved. For this, modern businesses need flexible, nimble teams at an organizational level to stay competitive.

As well as improving operational and delivery processes, Agile methodologies promote strategic ways of thinking and alignment with business needs and goals. The overall result: a more productive, efficient, collaborative organizational culture and a better work environment.

That said, implementing Agile methodologies at an enterprise level raises a host of questions and challenges. Enterprise agile frameworks became necessary because classic (or first-generation) Agile methodologies do not tackle the question of how to scale Agile and realize these benefits. 

What are the challenges of scaling Agile?

The move to an enterprise-level agile framework can represent a profound shift in company culture and ways of thinking. Those going through the process should be braced for a number of issues:

  • Visibility: How do you keep track of the work-in-progress of hundreds of small teams, and the way their work combines into features, when the teams are largely autonomous and self-organized? How do you get a sense of schedule or cost?
  • Coordination: How do you get teams of hundreds of people to communicate and coordinate their work in such a way as to deliver the features for which they are responsible, with an acceptable level of quality, and in a reliable manner?
  • Alignment: How do you make sure that these autonomous and self-organized teams all work in the right direction to further your strategic goals?
  • Learning: How do you “clone” the success of one team to other teams?
  • Understanding: How does an organization with a more traditional, linear approach comprehend (and commit to) the Agile mindset of continuous improvement?
  • Risk-management: How do you ensure that failure does not take down the whole organization?

Types and examples of enterprise agile frameworks

There are three preeminent enterprise agile frameworks for helping organizations navigate the challenges of implementing and extending agile beyond individual teams: Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), and Disciplined Agile Delivery (DaD). Many of these frameworks share overlapping principles and practices.

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

SAFe was developed by Scaled Agile, Inc in 2011. It is a body of knowledge on collaboration, quality, alignment, and leadership. SAFe follows Agile’s key concepts for rapid delivery throughout project lifecycles, while providing more support for larger teams.

SAFe is a structured, prescriptive, governance-focused approach that promotes alignment between disparate teams, improving collaboration, flexibility, and predictability. One key feature is Agile Release Trains (ARTs)—these are cross-functional teams of experts, aligned to a common vision, that work together over the long term to meet a single goal and achieve deliverables.

There are a number of configurations for SAFe to suit different types of organization: Essential, Large Solution, Portfolio, or Full. Essential SAFe is a lighter configuration that works well for small-medium businesses, while powerhouse organizations with global, cross-functional teams will be more suited to Full SAFe.

We’ve written in more detail about SAFe here: its core values and principles, different configurations, real-world case studies, and considerations for implementing it at your organization.

Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)

This framework takes the basics of Scrum—a lightweight, simple, agile project management framework characterized by 30-day iterations (called “Sprints”)—and adds multiple cross-functional teams. It suits organizations wanting to remain close to Scrum practices.

The focus, instead, is on the whole product, rather than one team’s individual role. Teams work in one sprint model, with one product owner, but have daily Scrum meetings within their dedicated teams, so it works optimally when all teams are working on the same product, not necessarily for a team scaling across a large portfolio.

One feature of LeSS is Product Backlog Refinement—these are more infrequent meetings to determine and align priorities. LeSS Huge is a scaled-up adaptation of LeSS, and can involve thousands of product developers working on a project.

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DaD)

Also referred to as Disciplined Agile (DA), DaD is particularly suitable for more mature organizations who are already familiar with Agile principles. It does not offer a huge amount of prescriptive teaching, but rather lightweight guidance for orchestrating a large, distant team.

DaD is a toolkit approach that emphasizes guided continuous improvement. It focuses on flexibility and customization to suit the needs of the organization.

Other enterprise agile frameworks

SAFe, LeSS, and DaD frameworks account for the majority of Agile adoptions at enterprise level, but there are a number of other popular frameworks, including:

  • Scrum@Scale (S@S): Created by Jeff Sutherland, S@S addresses the issues of volume, speed, delivery, and communication when implementing Agile. The focus is on transparency, inspection, and adaptation. Unlike most other enterprise agile frameworks, S@S emphasizes minimum bureaucracy with only a few governing bodies. The aim: faster decisionmaking and delivery.
  • Nexus: Like LeSS and S@S, Nexus builds on Scrum practices. The methodology allows for three to nine Scrum teams working under one product owner with a single product backlog. One feature is an overarching “Nexus integration team” who ensures every sprint and team delivers value.
  • Kanban Maturity Model (KMM): Also known as “Enterprise Kanban,” KMM helps organizations to gradually improve their agility using Kanban’s agile principles. It has seven maturity levels, starting at Level 0 (Oblivious) through to Level 6 (Built for Survival). It can help an organization identify where it currently stands and then guide them on a structured journey of maturity.

As we mentioned, many elements of these frameworks are shared and overlapping. By nature, these frameworks are dynamic, flexible, and able to be modified to suit you. 

Enterprise agile frameworks: criticism

Not all experts agree on the necessity for a distinct framework for Agile to be applied to the enterprise.

Quite a number argue that “scaling Agile” is just a different way of applying Agile principles to development issues. For them, enterprise agile frameworks show a fundamental lack of understanding of the Agile philosophy, and introduce unnecessary rigidities and complexity in product development processes.

Instead, these critics advocate returning to the fundamental principles of Agile and recasting “scaling Agile” issues in terms of those principles. Then, you work on each one in small increments—in a similar way to incrementally improving the processes of a small Agile team.

Choosing the right agile framework for your enterprise organization

Almost all businesses can benefit from scaling Agile, but no two journeys towards agility are the same and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. When choosing a framework, consider your maturity level, objectives, industry, and product lines/portfolios. It’s always possible to conduct small-scale pilots before rolling a framework out across the entire organization.

For inspiration, it might be helpful to take a look at some examples of organizations who have scaled Agile methodologies to an enterprise level—and you’ll find plenty of them in our customer stories hub. We have also detailed several successful Agile transitions in our guide to SAFe.

Becoming agile is a continuous process, and you need the right tools in place. If you’re looking to bring the benefits of agility—rapid feedback, quick response to change, incremental development—to your large organization, Planisware is a Scaled Agile Partner platform.

We can help you navigate these challenges and successfully implement Agile at scale. Start your journey to enterprise-level agility—request a demo today.