Namrata Hinduja Geneva, Switzerland (Swiss): Agile Pods vs. Scrum Teams – What’s the Difference?
Hi everyone,
I'm Namrata Hinduja Geneva, Swiss and My company is moving toward a Pod-based structure, and I’m trying to better understand how Agile Pods differ from traditional Scrum Teams.
Does anyone have insights or experiences that can help clarify the key differences between the two?
Thanks in advance!
Namrata Hinduja Geneva, Switzerland
Neither the Agile Manifesto nor frameworks, such as Scrum, XP, or Spotify, mentions the term 'pod' that I am aware of. My understanding is that tech companies adopted the term to describe modular, autonomous Agile teams with dedicated resources.
A Scrum Team (defined by the Scrum Guide) is a cross-functional, self-managing team consisting of three accountabilities: Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers.
One possible difference is that a Pod might leverage Agile principles and values, but it does not necessarily use Scrum.
Does anyone have insights or experiences that can help clarify the key differences between the two?
Think in terms of commitments and accountabilities. These are clearly defined in Scrum. If your company is not communicating the reason for change in such terms, find out why.
I did a quick Google search for "agile pods". What I found is somewhat scary. It says that they are cross functional teams of individuals that follow the "Scrum methodology" but is different.
First, since they follow something that does not exist (the Scrum methodology), I'm pretty sure that none of the frequent contributors will be impressed. Second, "but is different" makes them sound a lot like ScrumBut.
Some of the differences I found were that "run Sprints" but not just one at a time. "However, it runs multiple sprints simultaneously, unlike SCRUM, which has four consecutive sprints."
At that point I stopped reading. It is just another attempt to do something Agile (notice the capital A noting that it is an noun which is used to indicate something that someone/some organization is attempting to sell you so that they can make money from it). In this attempt, they use many of the terms from the Scrum framework but do not use them as they are defined in the Scrum Guide.
Does anyone have insights or experiences that can help clarify the key differences between the two?
I suggest you talk to people from the consulting team that is being brought in to lead your conversion to Agile Pods and have them explain it to you. Because I found multiple sources in my Google Search and everyone one of them explained things differently.
My 2c: Team is clearly defined in Agile and especially Scrum contexts, while pod seems more of an organisational design term, something HR might like. Often pod is used interchangeably with team in loose conversation, but without a strong definition. Saying that, I tend to associate pods with scaled environments (like SAFe), where the focus is on autonomous and cross-functional "units" aligned around products or value streams. Since it’s not well defined, especially if outside a framework (like SAFe), the term pod can mean anything from a Scrum team to a cross-departmental working group. My thoughts from here align with @Danial’s.