How can leadership support agile scaling frameworks?

1 Embrace the agile values and principles

Leadership plays a key role in setting the vision, direction, and values of the organization. To support agile scaling frameworks, leaders need to embrace the agile values and principles, such as customer focus, collaboration, feedback, transparency, and continuous improvement. They need to model these values and principles in their own behaviors and decisions, and communicate them clearly and consistently to the rest of the organization. They also need to create a safe and trusting space for teams to experiment, learn, and innovate.

2 Empower and enable teams

Leadership also plays a key role in empowering and enabling teams to deliver value to customers and stakeholders. To support agile scaling frameworks, leaders need to delegate authority and decision-making to teams, and provide them with the necessary resources, tools, and support. They need to respect the autonomy and self-organization of teams, and avoid micromanaging or imposing top-down directives. They also need to encourage cross-functional collaboration and coordination among teams, and remove any impediments or dependencies that hinder their performance.

5 Choose and adapt the right framework

Leadership also plays a key role in choosing and adapting the right framework for scaling agile in their organization. To support agile scaling frameworks, leaders need to assess the current state and the desired state of their organization, and identify the gaps and challenges that they need to address. They need to evaluate the different options and alternatives for scaling agile, such as SAFe, LeSS, Scrum@Scale, or Nexus, and select the one that best fits their context and needs. They also need to adapt and customize the framework as needed, and iterate and refine it over time.