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Best method to coordinate 2 scrum teams on 1 product

Last post 05:06 pm October 1, 2019 by Daniel Wilhite
2 replies
Laurent VIDAL
01:45 pm October 1, 2019

Hello,

I would like an advice on what would be the best way to coordinate 2 scrum teams working on 1 product with 1 PO,1 SM, 1 product backlog for both.

I think that maybe using Nexus (or other big process like SAFe) would be overkill.

The project would start in a few month.



But we need to coordinate. I would want to make a meeting with before beginning with both dev team to see what kind of ideas are coming from them,

because it would be more rewarding and encourage ownership.

But I'd like to have ideas, or different opinions before to have suggestions, or see wrong pattern before, if possible.



What would you do ? 

A release train with some daily meeting ? a kind of Scrum of Scrum with representatives of both teams to coordinate ?  





 

Ian Mitchell
02:15 pm October 1, 2019

My advice, with two teams, is to try to avoid any additional process of any kind. Two teams ought to be able to agree which events they will share and which they will not.

In my experience, it is reasonable for two teams to share all events apart from Daily Scrums which they can hold independently. It isn't a perfect model, because there is appreciable networking overhead when the members of two teams have to collaborate with each other informally. However, it is still less than the overhead of implementing a scaling mechanism or framework, which typically only pays for itself with 3 teams or more. 

Daniel Wilhite
05:06 pm October 1, 2019

I'm with @Ian Mitchell on this.  Don't introduce more complexities than necessary.  What is the harm in having both teams work together on refinement? Why can't they start making plans on which team would be best positioned to take on stories that are at the top of the Product Backlog during refinement? Why couldn't both teams participate in Sprint Planning and share information with each other about their plans for achieving their Sprint Goals? If both teams are working on the same product, you could make a point that Team A is a stakeholder in the work that Team B is doing. Daily Scrums are for a single team but there is nothing that stops Team A from recognizing an impediment that could potentially impact Team B and then taking it upon themselves to discuss it between the teams. 

Managing 2 teams working together really shouldn't be a challenge if the teams respect each other, the work that is being done and understand the full value being delivered for the product. Just facilitate the talking. Communication is key to any activity that involves more than 1 individual. 

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