The Scrum of Scrums or SoS is often used during a SAFe Program Increment (PI) planning event to good effect. It can help bring Scrum Masters out of the weeds of discussion and help them to see the bigger picture. It can help a Release Train Engineer (RTE) to keep everyone on track and ensure they are ready for the draft plan review or final plan review. It’s a good forum to focus attention on something that is being missed.
It is however, an interruption to the flow, so use it wisely…
- How often will you have them, is hourly too frequently? The size and maturity of your train will have an impact here.
- What questions will you ask? Avoid asking too many questions or questions you already know the answer to.
- Park any discussion for a meet-after or to be taken back into the room for planning.
- Who needs to be there? It can be tempting to swell the list of participants to get everyone aligned but this tends to draw out proceedings, is it better to just have Scrum Masters there? Do you need a separate Product Owner (PO) Sync?
Overall are you inspecting and adapting both during PI planning and from one event to the next?
