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Join the 2017 LeSS Conference in London to find more discussions like this.

Large Scale Scrum (LeSS).  It is the framework for scaling agile development, done by multiple teams, as they work on same product and work for a single Product Owner.   In order to be effective, LeSS requires organizational descaling that means simplification/flattening of organizational design.

What is Organizational Design?  To understand it better, let’s look for analogy in construction industry.  What is required to erect a building? In our analogy, we shall stay simple: bricks (foundation block) and cement (connective material that holds bricks together).

Imagine two buildings: Building A and Building B.

Building A uses brick as its main foundation block.  In fact, when looking at the building’s facade, the most prevalent object, caught by a naked eye, is a brick.  Bricks are positioned next to one another, with just enough cement in-between to glue them strongly together. There is no excess of cement anywhere: the connection layer is very thin/lean.

Architectural design of building A is simple and flexible: the structure is flat (one-story high) and it sits on strong foundation, also made of brick.   Because of its design, architectural adjustments are possible in various sections of the building, independently, with little additional labor.  Due to such modular structure, the building can be expanded laterally, just by adding more bricks to the wall.  Of course, due to its flat structure, the building is also very stable and can withstand a strong wind, flood or an earthquake: practically nothing can be shaken off or washed off the building.

When waste is produced inside the building, it becomes noticeable immediately. Waste disposal is also very simple: it does not require complex chutes or automated waste ‘packaging’ systems.  Waste removal can be mostly done manually, by building residents.  Any necessary supplies (e.g. food, water, furniture, other materials) can be easily delivered to any building area, without the need of advanced technology or mechanics.

Finally, building inspection and maintenance is a very easy process, because of flat structural design: foundation, walls and floor assessment – all can be performed with a naked eye; corrections can be done timely and efficiently.

This is what building A looks like:

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Introduction

The first LeSS conference started with assumptions, questions and unknowns.

One assumption was that most people come to conferences wanting to be entertained through interesting and inspiring speeches with other interesting people. As fun as that may be, the actual benefit to the conference attendee seems minimal. At best, they walk away inspired, a couple of new thoughts & contacts. What we wanted, was a deeper learning experience through interactions over traditional speeches. The idea of teams became a central theme of the conference. This raised a number questions.

Can a team of five full-time consultants who have never organized a conference before…organize a conference using Slack? Can we create a conference optimized for learning rather than simply entertainment? Would conference attendees be willing to participate in tactile exercises rather than simply listening to interesting speeches? Would (given the opportunity to opt-out) attendees create teams designed to encourage learning through dialogue? How do you even form teams of 170 people that have never met each other?

The only way to answer these questions was through experimentation; specifically a field experiment:

Field experiments are so named to distinguish them from laboratory experiments, which enforce scientific control by testing a hypothesis in the artificial and highly controlled setting of a laboratory. Often used in the social sciences, and especially in economic analyses of education and health interventions, field experiments have the advantage that outcomes are observed in a natural setting rather than in a contrived laboratory environment. For this reason, field experiments are sometimes seen as having higher external validity than laboratory experiments. However, like natural experiments, field experiments suffer from the possibility of contamination: experimental conditions can be controlled with more precision and certainty in the lab. Yet some phenomena (e.g., voter turnout in an election) cannot be easily studied in a laboratory -Wikipediea

The experiment

The hypothesis

Having conference attendees self-organize into teams will:

1. Increases the chances that you will try team self-design in their own company
2. Accelerate learning through dialogue and creating a product
3. Longer lasting relationships after the conference
4. More fun

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Designing the LeSS Conference

The first ever LeSS conference was held in Amsterdam on August 30 and 31. An amazing 186 participants from Australia, Japan, the USA, Finland, Singapore, Switzerland and many more joined us for 2 days of sharing, learning and self-management.

We, the organisers, did not want it to be a commercial conference, in the sense that there would be booths and sponsors influencing the speaker list and so on. We wanted it to be about practitioners sharing real world insights about LeSS adoption. And about letting the world know that there is a way to Scale Scrum and keep its values. We also wanted people to experience LeSS in person.

Achieving system optimisation goals in LeSS

Reflections from a team manager after visiting the “Large Scale Scrum Conference 2016”