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How Net Health Used Team Self-Selection to Reorganize Their Scaling Initiative

May 15, 2018

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Net Health first adopted Scrum in 2014 to help them deliver two large software development projects. They found success using Scrum and over time established five Scrum Teams. However, scaling provided new challenges, because the teams operated in vacuums resulting in infrequent integration and little communication. 

Net Health needed a way to scale the meaningful conversations they were having in individual Scrum Teams to cross-team discussions. They decided to move from a number of unassociated Scrum Teams to a collection of Scrum Teams within a single Nexus. As Scrum and agile practitioners, they believed self-organization and bottom-up intelligence gave them the greatest chance to successfully deliver on Net Health’s business objectives. 

In this session, Valerie Pearce, Senior Software Architect and Nic Easton, Nexus Scrum Master and Software Engineer III from Net Health, and Patricia Kong, Scrum.org Product Owner of Enterprise Solutions, walk through how Net Health scaled Scrum by implementing the Nexus framework in their product development organization. They go through how Net Health used a team self-selection exercise to organize their Nexus, and how that exercise helped them progress in their agile journey, while having fun in the process - by keeping to indispensable tenets of Scrum, self-organization, and bottom-up intelligence. 

Speakers

Patricia Kong is the Product Owner of the Scrum.org enterprise solutions program which includes the Nexus Framework, Evidence-Based Management, Scrum Studio and Scrum Development Kit. She also created and launched the Scrum.org Partners in Principle Program. Patricia is a people advocate and fascinated by organizational behaviors and misbehaviors. She emerged through the financial services industry and has led product development, product management, and marketing for several early stage companies in the US and Europe. At Forrester Research, Patricia worked with their largest clients focusing on business development and delivery engagements. Patricia lived in France and now lives in her hometown of Boston. Patricia is fluent in four languages.

Nic Easton is the Nexus Scrum Master at Net Health in Pittsburgh, Pa. He has served as the Agile Coach for Net Health’s scaled Scrum implementation by launching communities of practice, coaching fellow team scrum masters, and introducing Evidence Based Management. Nic started at Net Health as a software engineer more than five years ago.

Valerie Pearce is on a mission to become as t-shaped as possible.  While she currently fills the role of Senior Software Architect at Net Health in Pittsburgh, PA, she spent the majority of 2016 and 2017 leading the company's scaled professional Scrum transformation, implementing Scrum.org's Nexus Framework across a 50+ person product development organization, as Nexus Scrum Master.  She has previously held positions of Scrum Master, Director of Software Engineering, and Founder.  Valerie believes the Scrum Values are the tools to make the Agile Manifesto real.


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