Scaling an agile project is all about addressing the many complex issues that disciplined agile teams face in the professional world. The agile scaling factors for enterprise Agile are as follows:
Team size
Mainstream agile practices work very well for small teams (typically 10 – fifteen members); however, what if the team consists of fifty people or more? Does the whole team need to be in the same city, or does it make sense for some team members to be located in different geographic areas? The independent testing team should consider geographical dispersion issues and adapt accordingly.
Location
Does your company have co-located teams? Agile Scaling factors for enterprise Agile can be made more manageable when teams are located within the same organization. Some Scrum experts suggest that “co-located” means “working in the same building,” but in Agile Scaling, the opposite is true. “Co-located” teams may not be “agile” enough, and some Scrum experts suggest that “locally” might be a synonym for “not agile enough.”
Context Counts
When co-located teams are geographically distributed, and some of the team members are located in different geographic areas, how many context counts do you need? Some Scrum experts suggest that twenty context counts are sufficient for an agile scaling model to work. Others believe that each context count is too many and that the number of context counts required to create a proper agile scaling model can be as low as ten. The choice depends on the business context of the company.
Demographics
Some Scrum experts believe that a company’s demographic profile has a profound impact on the development process. Demographics can dictate the right agile scaling factors if they are appropriately distributed according to the company’s overall business makeup. A company with diverse business cultures, organizational structures, goals, and business models may require a different set of agile scaling factors than a team that is all unified and working in the same direction. In addition to geography, the makeup of your team may also influence the viability of an agile delivery team model.
Usability
Is your testing process appropriate for your business and customers? Agile Scrum development requires a significant amount of testing, which can be a distraction for a business owner or manager. While some Scrum teams use formal quality metrics, like the Scrum Criteria, some organizations still use informal metrics, like the Five-Factor Test Case. If your scrum master has not developed a formal Scrum method, then this is one of the agile scaling factors that you should look at.