Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)
Origin
LeSS emerged from the work of Craig Larman and Bas Vodde:
“Since 2005, we’ve worked with clients to apply the LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) framework for scaling Scrum, lean and agile development to big product groups. We share that experience and knowledge through LeSS so that you too can succeed when scaling.”
Learning It
Our recommended way of learning about LeSS is through…
- [Book] Large-Scale Scrum: More with LeSS - Larman, Vodde
- Less.works website
LeSS Spine
From the perspective of prospective users of Large-Scale Scrum…
Need (Where might it be used?)
LeSS is a set of rules combined with guides for applying Scrum in a multi-team context. It is not a framework that applies Scrum at team level and then adds additional scaling processes, instead it is Scrum scaled on all the levels.
Rather than having Scrum as a building block for a scaled framework, LeSS looks at Scrum and for each element ask “Why is it there?” followed by “If we have more than one team, how can we achieve the same purpose on a larger scale?”
Source: Large-Scale Scrum is Scrum
Values (What does it optimise for?)
Since LeSS is Scrum scaled, it builds on the Scrum Values.
Other than that, the focus for LeSS was on keeping it simple, avoiding adding additional roles, artifacts of processes that should be empirically managed by the product group.
The other significant optimisation was for scaling up instead of tailoring down. Rather than defining a universal, overarching framework and then contextually tailoring it down, LeSS is kept to a minimum and the concept of “Less Huge” is introduced for very large product groups (± more than 8 teams).
Principles (What is it based on?)
See LeSS Principles.
Practices (What does it suggest you do?)
Tools (What does it suggest you use?)
LeSS does not explicitly recommend any Tools