Towards a governance framework for chains of Scrum teams

Context: Large companies operating in the information intensive industries increasingly adopt Agile/Scrum to swiftly change IT functionality because of rapid changing business demands. IT functionality in large enterprises however is typically delivered by a portfolio of interdependent software applications involving a chain of Scrum teams. Usually, each application from the portfolio is allocated to a single Scrum team, which necessitates collaboration between the Scrum teams to jointly deliver functionality. Objective: Identify the collaboration related issues in chains of Scrum teams. Method: We used a qualitative approach with transcripted interviews from three case studies that were coded and analyzed to identify the issues. Results: We identified six issues in chains of codependent Scrum teams; coordination, prioritization, alignment, automation, predictability and visibility. The synthesis of these issues with existing theory resulted in nine propositions. These nine propositions have been combined into a conceptual model. Conclusion: We propose this conceptual model as a starting point for a governance framework to manage chains of Scrum teams that addresses the identified issues.