Scrum in Mid-Sized Companies: What Is Left After the First Year

After the first year, what remains of Scrum in a mid-sized company is whatever has changed decisions: a product owner with real authority, a Product Goal and an Increment that customers use. The rituals themselves can carry on without achieving anything. Whether Scrum works shows in the quality of decisions on sequence, scope and goal, and less in the number of meetings.

This article helps the managing director and divisional heads review a year of Scrum soberly. It describes what Scrum is meant for according to the Scrum Guide and what it is not meant for, offers a four-level maturity model and sets out the questions that decide whether the introduction is continued, corrected or ended.

What is Scrum for, and what is it not for?

Scrum is a framework for complex work where goal and solution path are only partly known at the outset, and the Scrum Guide describes it as a lightweight framework that helps teams and organisations create value through adaptive solutions. The 2020 version, written by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, grounds Scrum in empiricism: decisions rest on observation and experience, and the three principles of the method are transparency, inspection and adaptation. A Scrum Team consists of a Product Owner, a Scrum Master and the Developers, and typically has ten people or fewer. It works in Sprints of one month at most and delivers a usable Increment in every Sprint.

Scrum suits work with uncertain requirements and with customer feedback during development, such as new products, software, digital services or internal change programmes with an open outcome. For work with a steady inflow of small, independent requests, such as fault repair or enquiry handling, the rhythm of fixed Sprints fits less well, because requests cannot wait until the next Sprint. For initiatives with a fixed result, a known path and stable requirements, such as relocating a site, classical project planning achieves the same with less effort. Executives gain clarity if they decide before the introduction which work Scrum is to steer.

What is left after the first year? Four maturity levels

After the first year, Scrum can be placed on four maturity levels that build on one another. The model serves as an audit grid for management. It assigns each level the visible features by which management recognises it.

The step from level 1 to level 2 decides the most. The Scrum Guide makes the Product Owner accountable for the value of the product and requires the organisation to respect that person's decisions. A product owner whose order of priorities is changed weekly by the divisional head cannot be accountable for the value of the product. The role therefore needs decision rights over scope and sequence. The article on time to market shows how much depends on this: time in organisations is lost mainly at waiting points, and a product owner who can decide removes the most important one.

How do you introduce Scrum in a mid-sized company?

You introduce Scrum in a mid-sized company in five steps, beginning with the decision about which work it will steer. The approach based on the 2020 Scrum Guide looks like this:

1. Choose the work: one product or initiative with an open outcome and an accessible customer, rather than the whole department at once.
2. Fill the roles: a product owner with time and decision authority, a Scrum Master who supports the team and the organisation in using Scrum, and Developers who together bring all the skills needed for a finished Increment.
3. Set the goals: a Product Goal for the product, a Sprint Goal for each Sprint and a Definition of Done that applies to everyone.
4. Start the rhythm: Sprints of two to four weeks, with planning, a daily check-in of 15 minutes at most, a review with users and a retrospective.
5. Steer the effects: after three Sprints, management evaluates whether decisions and delivery have changed.

The greatest gap threatens in the second step. If a company fills the product owner role with the head of department on top of their existing duties, the role lacks time, and a product owner without capacity decides too late. A delivery role that links product owner and team and handles the coordination with senior management prevents such bottlenecks.

Which questions should management ask after a year?

After a year, management asks six questions, and each can be answered with evidence. Anyone who answers two or more of them with no corrects the introduction before the second year begins.

The fourth question shows most clearly whether Scrum has arrived in the organisation. According to the Scrum Guide, the retrospective is meant to find ways of increasing quality and effectiveness. If the measures concern only the team itself, such as the length of meetings, the real obstacles remain untouched: approvals, interfaces and changes of priority from management. Only leadership can clear such obstacles.

When is it worth continuing, changing or ending Scrum?

Scrum is worth continuing if five or six of the questions are answered with yes and lead time has fallen. A change is indicated if three or four are answered with yes, above all when the product owner works without decision authority or the Increment does not reach the customer: then the role is given authority, or the cut of the product is changed. Ending the introduction should be considered if fewer than three are answered with yes, or if the work turns out to be flow work with a steady inflow that a Kanban approach would serve better. This decision is made with metrics on lead time and on use of the Increment.

Scrum in a mid-sized company with Niehues Consulting

Niehues Consulting is a consultancy for AI management and organisation design from a delivery perspective, based in Düsseldorf. Founder Marin Niehues builds organisations that deliver, in projects ranging from VC-funded scale-ups to DAX 40 corporations and in more than 20 countries across six continents. In the delivery management field he takes on assignments as delivery manager, project manager or product owner and shapes the organisation design in which teams deliver.

The approach follows the Niehues Delivery Model. Three checks matter for a year of Scrum: Who decides, who delivers, who uses? Which roles, decision paths and interfaces does operations need? Which metric shows after 90 days that the solution is landing? They expose the weak points that sit at maturity levels 1 and 2. Scope and terms of an engagement are discussed in the free initial consultation, which you can arrange via the contact form.