When Scrum gets big—dysfunction or constraint?

While I still prefer an Agile method such as Scrum over a traditional methodology for large projects/programs, the fact of the matter is that any effort that has 20 or more people poses a significant communications challenge. In a program with 35 Scrum teams, all of which will use Scrum the same way, a program of this size of, say, 300 people, takes a tremendous amount of coordination, communication, and organization among teams and stakeholders.

As I mentioned in a previous chapter, I once worked with a company that was creating a new gadget. The program plan called for roughly 35 teams whose focus ran the gamut from firmware, software and tablet apps, integration with conferencing systems, and so on. It was a huge initiative and unfortunately ended up not being very successful in the consumer market.

I was one of the Agile mentors for the program and was limited to 10-15 hours per week to help guide the program. I worked with the ScrumMasters...