This talk discusses how to achieve multiple team collaboration in large scale software development. Self-organization is a key concept for all Lean-Agile methods. However, as projects expand across the enterprise and, more specifically, cut across multiple teams, teams clearly can’t just organize in any way they want to. A blend of top-down direction with bottom-up self organization is needed. Lean provides the insights necessary for teams to self-organize within the context of the value stream within which the teams work. A top-down perspective, created by driving from business value, can provide insights on how teams must organize and work together.
This talk presents some case studies where the principles of Lean-Flow provide the guidance for multiple teams to self-organize as a bigger team. This guidance includes how providing work to the teams can effectively lower the coordination necessary. This determination of work to be done typically must be decided not by the teams themselves but by proxies for the business stakeholders.
Essentially, quick delivery at scale often requires decisions about what the teams are to work on before the work hits the teams themselves. These decisions provide the context within which the teams then self-organize to implement the value to be delivered.
