Scrum@Scale Case Study

Summary

Synchronizing the work of Auditing Teams who are often spread across different divisions or offices of an organization, and often across different geographic locations, has presented a consistent challenge in the execution of auditing activities carried out globally.

Competing against Global IT Leaders on a bid to develop a robust auditing platform that would alleviate these challenges and assist auditors worldwide in reducing the manual effort required to synchronize their work, this Big 4 Accounting Firm used Scrum to create proof of concept that won them the bid. The power of Scrum was evident and the company decided the auditing platform was an ideal pilot project for their Scrum@Scale implementation.

Lead by Scrum@Scale Trainer Arijit Sarbagna, the initiative was scaled from 3 to 20 teams across three geographies over the course of a year, resulting in an on-time, zero-defect product release.

Model-Driven Scaling

The project began with three small cross-functional development teams centered around a “Programme Core Committee (PCC)” team, which functioned as an Executive Action Team (EAT). This Scrum of Scrums structure acted as a scalable reference model. Within six months, the reference model was replicated across two other geographies with 8 teams comprising the Scrum of Scrum of Scrums and the Product Owner team scaling to form an Executive MetaScrum. Although the agreement was to release annually, the teams were able to deliver an early version of the product after only six months which enabled them to ensure alignment with the vision and to assist user familiarity through actual usage.

By the end of 12 months, 20 teams spanning three geographies across the US and India were coordinated with Scrum@Scale and the auditing platform was released with zero critical defects.

Scaling Beyond Project Boundaries

As the Agile delivery continued, the merits of this new way of working had spread to other parts of the organization. One of the immediate outcomes was a change in the standard quality control process, which previously took place at the end of a project development cycle and now became part of the development process. The simplicity of Scrum@Scale allowed the organization to organically increase agility in a way that has proven sustainable for the organization.