Other Scaling Approaches (Nexus, Disciplined Agile)

While SAFe and LeSS are prominent Agile scaling frameworks, they are not the only options available to organizations seeking to coordinate the work of multiple teams.

There are other approaches, such as Nexus and Disciplined Agile (DA), that offer alternatives with different philosophies and levels of prescriptiveness.

Nexus provides a straightforward, lightweight extension of Scrum for multiple teams, while Disciplined Agile offers a more hybrid and adaptable toolkit, focused on guiding teams to choose their own Way of Working (WoW) according to their specific context.

Knowing these alternatives broadens the Agile Coach's perspective on the existing possibilities for scaling agility.

Brief Description of Nexus (Scrum at Scale by Scrum.org)

Nexus is the framework developed by Scrum.org specifically for scaling Scrum.

It is based directly on Scrum and is designed to coordinate the work of 3 to 9 Scrum teams collaborating to deliver an integrated Product Increment at the end of each Sprint.

It maintains the Scrum roles, events and artifacts, but adds a layer of coordination:

• Nexus Integration Team (Nexus Integration Team): composed of the Product Owner (who is responsible for the Nexus), a Scrum Master and members of the Nexus Integration Team. Their role is to ensure that the integrated incrementation is successful.
• Nexus Events: Events are added for cross-team coordination, such as Nexus Sprint Planning, Nexus Daily Scrum, Nexus Sprint Review and Nexus Retrospective, which complement the events of the individual Scrum teams.

Nexus seeks to scale Scrum while maintaining its essence and minimizing additional complexity, making it a relatively simple option for those already familiar with Scrum.

Brief Description of Disciplined Agile (DA / DAD) (PMI Hybrid Framework)

Disciplined Agile (DA), often referred to by its delivery component Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD), is a hybrid decision-making framework promoted by the Project Management Institute (PMI).

Rather than being a single prescriptive framework, DA acts as a toolkit that combines principles and practices from a variety of sources, including Agile, Kanban, Scrum, Lean, Extreme Programming (XP) and more.

Its core philosophy is to guide teams to Choose Your Way of Working (WoW) based on their specific context (team size, complexity, geographic distribution, etc.).

DA provides guidance on different process and practice options for different situations, allowing teams to adapt and evolve their approach as they learn and their needs change.

It is less of a framework and more of an adaptive, context-aware approach to agile delivery.

Summary

SAFe and LeSS are not the only options for scaling. There are other approaches such as Nexus and Disciplined Agile (DA) that offer different alternatives.

Nexus is Scrum.org's framework for scaling Scrum (3-9 teams). It adds a Nexus Integration Team and coordination events to manage dependencies.

PMI's Disciplined Agile (DA) is a hybrid toolkit. It guides teams to choose their own way of working (WoW) according to their context.