LEARN How to SCALE with Nexus in 9 mins (SIMPLE STEP BY STEP GUIDE)

Summary

This video is part of a series on scaling Scrum and introduces Nexus, a framework developed by Ken Schwaber. Nexus builds on Scrum to manage dependencies across multiple Scrum teams (3-9) working on a single product with a shared product owner and backlog. It introduces the Nexus Integration Team, responsible for ensuring a combined increment is produced each Sprint. Nexus extends Scrum by adding accountabilities, events, and artifacts, focusing on managing cross-team dependencies and promoting transparency. The video outlines key roles, events, and strategies to optimize collaboration in large-scale Scrum projects.

Takeaways

• 🔍 Nexus is a framework developed by Ken Schwaber that builds upon Scrum to help manage scaled product delivery, focusing on minimizing and managing dependencies while promoting Scrum values.
• 👥 A Nexus consists of three to nine Scrum teams working on a single product, with one product owner and a single product backlog for all teams.
• 🎯 Nexus introduces an additional role, the Nexus Integration Team, which ensures that an integrated increment of work from all Scrum teams is produced at least once per Sprint.
• 🛠 The Nexus Integration Team includes a product owner, a Scrum Master, and appropriate members from different Scrum teams who have the necessary skills to help resolve issues and manage dependencies.
• 📅 Nexus extends Scrum in three main ways: accountabilities, events, and artifacts, while maintaining the core principles and practices of Scrum.
• 🔄 Nexus introduces a cross-team refinement event, where all Scrum teams work together on a single product backlog to minimize and eliminate dependencies.
• 🗓 The Nexus Daily Scrum focuses on identifying integration issues and inspecting progress toward the Nexus Sprint goal, while individual teams continue to have their own daily Scrum meetings.
• 🛑 The Nexus Integration Team takes priority over individual Scrum teams when there are cross-team issues that need to be resolved, ensuring that dependencies don't hinder the integrated increment.
• 📊 A single Sprint Review is conducted for the entire Nexus, presenting the integrated increment to stakeholders to gain feedback and improve the product backlog.
• 🔍 Transparency is crucial in Nexus, with a focus on maintaining clear and consistent artifacts like the product backlog and sprint backlog to manage dependencies and ensure effective collaboration.

Q & A

What is Nexus, and how does it relate to Scrum?

Nexus is a framework developed by Ken Schwaber that enhances Scrum by providing tools to manage dependencies and promote empiricism. It focuses on coordinating multiple Scrum teams (three to nine) working on a single product.

How does Nexus handle dependencies between teams?

Nexus gives tools to minimize and manage dependencies between teams, ensuring that all teams work towards a single product goal while maintaining transparency and the core Scrum values.

What is the Nexus Integration Team, and what is its role?

The Nexus Integration Team is responsible for ensuring that the combined work of all Scrum teams in the Nexus results in an integrated increment at least once per Sprint. It includes a product owner, scrum master, and members from various Scrum teams with the necessary skills.

How does the role of the product owner differ in Nexus compared to Scrum?

In Nexus, the product owner still manages the product backlog and maximizes the product's value. However, they are responsible for coordinating work across multiple teams, ensuring dependencies are managed, and maintaining a single product backlog for the entire Nexus.

What additional role does the Nexus framework introduce beyond traditional Scrum roles?

Nexus introduces the Nexus Integration Team, which is accountable for delivering an integrated increment. This role is in addition to the traditional Scrum roles of product owner, scrum master, and developers.

How are events handled differently in Nexus compared to Scrum?

Nexus builds upon Scrum events with added layers to handle integration issues across multiple teams. For example, Nexus has a cross-team refinement event and a Nexus Sprint retrospective, where representatives from different teams address inter-team collaboration and dependencies.

What is the purpose of the Nexus Sprint Planning event?

In Nexus Sprint Planning, representatives from different Scrum teams collaborate to plan the upcoming Sprint. They define a Sprint goal for the Nexus and individual Sprint backlogs for each Scrum team, ensuring alignment across teams.

How does the daily scrum function in Nexus?

Each Scrum team conducts its own daily scrum to inspect progress towards their Sprint goal. Representatives from these teams then participate in the Nexus daily scrum to address integration issues and ensure progress toward the Nexus Sprint goal.

What is the focus of the Nexus Sprint Review?

The Nexus Sprint Review involves presenting a single integrated increment to stakeholders for feedback. This event ensures that all teams contribute to a unified product, and stakeholders provide insights to enhance the product backlog.

How does Nexus promote transparency and collaboration across teams?

Nexus enhances transparency by maintaining a single product backlog for all teams, holding shared events like cross-team refinement, and conducting Nexus-level retrospectives. This approach helps teams identify and address dependencies and integration challenges early.

Outlines

00:00

📈 Nexus: Scaling Scrum for Product Delivery

This paragraph introduces Nexus, a framework developed by Ken Schwaber to build upon and enhance Scrum for managing scaled product delivery. Nexus focuses on minimizing and managing dependencies between teams while promoting the core values of Scrum. It is designed for groups of 3-9 Scrum teams working on a single product with a unified backlog, product owner, and goal. Nexus extends Scrum in three main areas: accountabilities, events, and artifacts, enabling teams to better manage cross-team dependencies and deliver integrated increments of the product every sprint.

05:01

🛠 Nexus Accountabilities and the Integration Team

In Nexus, accountability mirrors that of Scrum, with product owners, Scrum masters, and developers working together. However, Nexus introduces an additional role, the Nexus Integration Team, which ensures that a fully integrated product increment is produced every sprint. This team includes representatives from different Scrum teams who prioritize resolving cross-team dependencies over their individual team’s work. The Nexus Integration Team collaborates to maintain the integrity of the integrated increment, ensuring that dependencies are addressed and that teams work towards a single, cohesive goal.

Keywords

💡Nexus

Nexus is a framework developed by Ken Schwaber, one of the creators of Scrum, designed for managing scaled product delivery across multiple Scrum teams. It builds on Scrum and enhances it where needed, particularly in managing team dependencies. In the video, Nexus is described as a key tool for minimizing and managing dependencies while maintaining Scrum's principles of empiricism and transparency.

💡Scrum

Scrum is an agile framework for managing complex projects, especially in software development, based on iterative progress through regular feedback cycles (Sprints). The video positions Nexus as an extension of Scrum, maintaining Scrum's core accountabilities, events, and artifacts, while addressing challenges that arise when multiple Scrum teams work together on a single product.

💡Dependencies

Dependencies refer to the relationships between teams or tasks that can impact the ability to complete work. Nexus provides tools to manage and reduce dependencies between Scrum teams, ensuring smoother integration of work. In the video, managing inter-team dependencies is a primary focus, with the Nexus framework designed to resolve these issues efficiently.

💡Nexus Integration Team

The Nexus Integration Team is an additional role introduced in the Nexus framework. It consists of members from various Scrum teams and is responsible for ensuring that the work of all teams is integrated into a single, coherent product increment. This team also manages the resolution of inter-team dependencies and oversees the production of the integrated increment at the end of each Sprint.

💡Single Product Backlog

The Single Product Backlog is a core element of the Nexus framework, containing all the work items for the product. Managed by the Product Owner, it ensures that all Scrum teams within the Nexus are working from the same prioritized list of tasks. This ensures alignment and helps manage dependencies across teams, as mentioned in the video.

💡Cross-team Refinement

Cross-team Refinement is an event in the Nexus framework where members from different Scrum teams collaborate to refine product backlog items, ensuring that dependencies are reduced or eliminated. The video highlights how this event helps teams prepare for Sprint Planning and contributes to a smoother Sprint execution by addressing integration challenges early.

💡Integrated Increment

An Integrated Increment is the combined result of work done by all Scrum teams in the Nexus, which must be produced at least once per Sprint. The Nexus framework emphasizes the importance of delivering this increment to ensure that all teams' work is aligned and ready for release. The Nexus Integration Team is responsible for overseeing this process, ensuring a unified output.

💡Sprint Retrospective

A Sprint Retrospective is an event in Scrum where the team reflects on the past Sprint and identifies ways to improve. In Nexus, each Scrum team conducts its own retrospective, and representatives then participate in a Nexus-level retrospective to discuss cross-team improvements, particularly focusing on collaboration and dependency issues.

💡Sprint Goal

A Sprint Goal is the target set for each Sprint, defining what the team aims to achieve by the end of the iteration. In Nexus, each Scrum team has its own Sprint Goal, but there is also a Nexus-level Sprint Goal that aligns all teams toward a common objective. The video explains how this multi-layered approach to goal setting helps maintain focus across teams.

💡Empiricism

Empiricism is the principle that knowledge comes from experience and making decisions based on what is known. In both Scrum and Nexus, empiricism is a foundational value, as teams regularly inspect and adapt their work based on real-world results. The video emphasizes how Nexus upholds Scrum's empirical process while enhancing the ability to manage dependencies across teams.

Highlights

Nexus is a framework for developing and sustaining scaled product delivery, building upon Scrum and enhancing it where necessary.

A key focus of Nexus is minimizing and managing dependencies across teams while promoting empiricism and Scrum values.

Nexus consists of 3-9 Scrum teams working on a single product, with a single product owner and a single backlog.

The Nexus integration team is responsible for ensuring a combined, integrated increment is produced at least once per Sprint.

The Nexus integration team includes a product owner, Scrum master, and appropriate members from various Scrum teams.

If inter-team issues arise, resolving those issues becomes the top priority for the Nexus integration team.

Nexus introduces new accountabilities, including the Nexus integration team, to manage integration across teams.

Nexus extends Scrum events such as Sprint planning and refinement to ensure cross-team coordination and integration.

Cross-team refinement is introduced to reduce or eliminate dependencies between teams.

The Nexus daily Scrum focuses on identifying integration issues and inspecting progress toward the Nexus Sprint goal.

Nexus uses a single integrated Sprint review to gather feedback from stakeholders on the combined work of all Scrum teams.

Nexus emphasizes transparency through its artifacts, including a single product backlog and a Nexus Sprint backlog.

The product owner in Nexus manages a single product backlog across all Scrum teams, focusing on minimizing dependencies.

Nexus seeks to deliver a potentially shippable integrated increment every Sprint by combining the work of all Scrum teams.

The Nexus framework extends Scrum by adding structure and processes to handle inter-team dependencies, while staying true to Scrum's core principles.

Transcripts

another installment on my scaling scrum series  and today we're going to talk about Nexus from  

one of the creators of scrum Ken Schwaber in simple  terms Nexus is a framework for developing and  

sustaining skilled product delivery it builds upon  scrum enhances scrum only where required whatever key  

things that Nexus does very well is giving us the  tools to help us minimize and manage dependencies  

while still promoting empiricism and the values  of scrum values now one of the key concepts of  

the Nexus framework or even the core concept of  the Nexus framework is a Nexus which is a group  

of scrum teams three to nine scrum teams working  on a single product very important single product  

single product owner and single backlog for  product owner basically manages the single  

backlog with all the scrum teams take work from  again Nexus very easy to understand if and only if  

you understand the scrum framework because  it's basically enhances the scrum framework where

required to help us manage these dependencies  across team dependencies Nexus extends scrum in  

three ways accountabilities events and artifacts  let's start with accountabilities the simplest one  

so in Nexus we just talked about that a Nexus  is a group of scrum teams that work towards a  

single product goal and into this group of scrum  teams where accountability same thing as the scrum 

framework what are the accountabilities of a  scrum framework if you read the scrum guide 2020  

they are free accountabilities product owner scrum  master and the developers same thing in Nexus but  

there's an additional role the Nexus integration  team which is accountable for ensuring that it  

done integrated increment the combined work of  a Nexus is produced at least once per Sprint  

remember the scrum framework a single scrum team  working on a shippable increment every single  

Sprint we need to build this potentially shippable  increment of a product in the Nexus framework the  

Nexus integration team is responsible to build  this combined combined increment a combined work  

of other scrum teams in the Nexus needs to be  released at least once per Sprint the Nexus  

integration team includes a product owner a scrum  master and appropriate members of different scrum  

teams in the Nexus appropriate members simply  means members who have the skills the knowledge  

for competencies to help the Nexus resolve issues  that they will face at any time now the 

product owner in the Nexus is responsible for same as scrum product backlog management maximizing the  

value of the product of the Nexus what the Nexus  is working on what the Nexus is integrating and  

all the scrum teams are working on maximizing  this value managing the single product backlog  

next the scrum master in the Nexus integration  team is accountable for ensuring that the whole  

Nexus understands the Nexus framework and use put  it in practice the Nexus framework the Scrum Master

in the Nexus integration team can be one of  the scrum masters of the scrum teams in the Nexus  

now very important for product owner was scrum  master or all the other members of the Nexus from  

different scrum teams who have a competencies  knowledge to help the Nexus solve problems all  

these members of a Nexus integration team have to  work for the Nexus integration team in Prior with  

the compared to their scrum teams if there's an  issue that needs to be fixed because dependencies  

an issue between different teams we are unable  right now to build this integrated increment  

with Sprint we need to stop what we're doing  in different scrum teams and go help the Nexus  

integration team that's our number one priority  because the Nexus framework feels that the number  

one priority of a Nexus should be  resolving inter teams issues in interdependency  

issues we are done with accountabilities next  is the Nexus events very similar to the scrum  

framework guided the duration of all these events  is Guided by the length of a corresponding event  

in the scrum guide starting with a Sprint the  strength same thing as in the scrum framework  

but this time instead of building this potential  recipient increment of a product we are building  

and a single integrated increment next for  refinement we do cross refinement yeah everyone  

everyone in the Nexus working a single product backlog we  refine together remember in the scrum framework  

refinement it's not an event no it's an activity  but in the Nexus framework refinement is an event  

with a duration it should be ongoing and it help  us remain goal of this event is to help us reduce  

or completely eliminate gross Team dependencies  all the scrum teams in the Nexus can still do  

their own refinement to gather information and  get things ready so that they can go to his cross  

steam refinement so that we can finalize what we  will work on in the next Sprint from this single  

product backlog and we can't plan what we'll do in  the next Sprint without Sprint planning so in the  

cross team refinement event we got items ready now  the whole team or representative from different  

scrum teams in the Nexus will meet in the Sprint  planning event to plan the next Sprint the goal  

the outcome of this event for Sprint planning  is a sprint goal for the Nexus but also for the  

different scrum teams involved a Sprint backlog  for the Nexus but also a different Sprint backlog  

for all the scrum teams involved next is the daily  scrum which is used to identify integration issues  

and also inspect progress towards the Nexus sprint  goal where all the scrum teams are doing the daily  

scrums and the daily scrum you know the goal  of the daily scrum for the scrum framework is to  

inspect progress towards the sprint goal what  can we do to get closer to a sprint goal all  

scrum teams are doing the daily scrum when they  take information and representative from each one  

of these scrum teams we go back to the Nexus daily scrum  where we talk about integration issues  

if any we are still inspecting progress but we  are inspecting progress now of the Nexus Sprint  

goal so same principle but different sprint  goals different levels of sprint goal and the  

Sprint retrospective is very similar also all the  different scrum teams will do their own Sprint  

retrospective following the scrum framework and  then we take relevant information relevant because  

information that impacts different teams  integrated information representative from  

different scrum teams take this information and we  do a final big Nexus Sprint retrospective where we  

talk about how to improve collaboration between  different teams dependency issues integration  

issues and the final event the Sprint review a  single Sprint review it doesn't make any sense  

to the difference between reviews for each one  of the scrum team in the Nexus no we are building  

a single integrated increment a single Sprint  review all the stakeholders are invited and the  

same principle we are trying to get feedback on  this increment we are trying to get information  

so that we can modify enhance the product backlog  if required it's all about transparency Clarity  

getting feedback from the stakeholders and talking  about transparency one of the key things that we  

need to do in the Nexus framework to maximize  transparency artifacts we already talked about  

accountabilities and the events now it's time for  the artifacts which maximize transparency the  

first artifact is the product backlog remember  a single product backlog managed to be managed  

by the product owner for product backlog contains  same as scrum product backlog items which are used  

to maximize value improve this product across  the Nexus because remember many different scrum  

teams work in a single product backlog so we are  building a single integrated increment each  

and every Sprint and the product owner maintains  this product backlog with single product backlog  

for product owners big priorities to ensure but  dependencies especially across team dependencies  

are identified early or reduced or completely  eliminated early next is the sprint backlog  

very similar to the scrum framework the sprint backlog is a combination of a Sprint goal and  

different product backlog items that will do  in this Sprint each one of these scrum teams  

have their own Sprint backlog and the Nexus its  own Sprint backlog and the commitment of the sprint  

backlock is the Sprint goal which the Nexus has  and all the different scrum teams have their own  

sprint goal and at the end of the day we are trying  to build together this potentially shippable  

increment but not only increment integrated  increment a combination of all the work of  

all the different scrum teams in the Nexus this  integrated increment every single Sprint at least  

once a sprint we want to put something release it  to action deployed to production and put it to the  

market with integrated effort work a combination  of all the different scrum teams put it to the  

market and also presented in the Sprint review to  get feedback from stakeholders which brings me to  

my next point if you want more tips insights  on agile scrum personal growth click on the  

video that stands out the most on the screen  right now and I'll see you in a few seconds