Originally designed for small, cross-functional teams addressing complex problems, Scrum is a lightweight yet powerful framework (only 19 pages) that deliberately avoids prescribing overly detailed practices. This flexibility allows teams to adapt and tailor Scrum principles to best fit their workflows and business contexts.

Scrum primarily supports a single team’s operations, but it inherently encourages collaboration across teams, even if multi-team coordination is not explicitly defined within the original framework. Successful collaboration requires strong interpersonal skills or guidance from experienced Agile coaches to align teams effectively and maintain timely communication.

In scenarios where multiple teams contribute to a shared product, organizations typically create an overarching framework to harmonize delivery cadence, synchronize planning efforts, and conduct joint roadmap reviews. This ensures cohesion and visibility across teams working toward a common goal.

Agile scaling has evolved over the past two decades, leading to a variety of mature frameworks designed to extend Agile principles across large enterprises. According to the recent 14th Annual State of Agile Report, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) leads adoption with 35% of large enterprises utilizing it. Besides SAFe, notable scaling models include the Spotify method, and Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), which provides one of the most detailed scaled Scrum implementations.

LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum):

LeSS retains the foundational Scrum roles, events, and artifacts but extends them to multiple teams working on the same product. For example, LeSS introduces combined sprint planning sessions and joint retrospectives while maintaining teams of 3 to 9 members. This framework scales from a handful of teams to hundreds or even thousands across an organization. LeSS promotes independent, cross-functional teams delivering incremental business value. However, adopting LeSS often requires significant organizational transformation, including breaking down functional silos so each team possesses all the necessary skills to build and deliver the product. LeSS represents a revolutionary shift in culture and structure rather than an incremental change.

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe):

SAFe offers a more gradual, evolutionary path for organizations balancing Agile adoption with existing traditional management structures. It bridges classic waterfall processes with continuous Agile delivery, maintaining core Agile manifesto principles while accommodating management priorities like alignment and compliance. SAFe organizes teams into Agile Release Trains (ARTs) of 50 to 125 cross-functional members, including developers, product owners, system architects, and others needed to deliver value at scale. Though ART teams strive for cross-functionality similar to LeSS, it is not mandatory for ART launch.

A core aspect of SAFe is its structured cadence: a two-day planning event aligns multiple two-week sprints and roadmap objectives, leaving some flexibility for adjustment but typically preserving 70-80% of the planned work. SAFe works best when program goals are relatively stable over the medium term. Other key SAFe practices include system demos, product owner sync meetings, Scrum of Scrums, and program increment problem-solving workshops.

To facilitate adoption, organizations often establish a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence comprising executive sponsors, Agile experts, and transformation stakeholders. This group supports less experienced teams and drives the framework’s scaling throughout the enterprise.

Implementing Agile at scale can encounter several hurdles. The most frequent challenges include:

• Insufficient Communication: Failure to clearly communicate changes in roles, processes, and expectations can breed confusion and resistance within the organization. This often leads to frustration and employee disengagement, sometimes even attrition.
• Regression to Old Habits: It is common for teams to revert to siloed, traditional ways of working, which contradict Agile’s collaborative principles. Changing ingrained behaviors requires focused cultural effort and leadership support.
• Overlooking Infrastructure and Team Readiness: Manual testing and infrequent releases may suffice in traditional setups, but Agile’s fast-paced cycles expose inefficiencies and technical debt. Establishing a robust DevOps culture, investing in automated testing, flexible infrastructure, and continuous metrics collection is critical before scaling Agile frameworks enterprise-wide.

Yoter Up’s approach emphasizes a thorough context assessment and tailored implementation roadmap. Our experts conduct targeted workshops and role-specific training for product owners, Scrum Masters, and key stakeholders. We focus on embedding a sustainable Scrum and DevOps culture—not just ticking process boxes—to ensure lasting Agile success.

With deep expertise in Agile transformation, Yoter Up delivers practical, context-driven strategies to help organizations select and scale the ideal Agile framework, overcoming challenges and maximizing business value at every level.