#113 – Motivation for Descaling

Many organizations have started to look into when and how to descale, which we applaud, as it’ll lead to a more effective value delivery from independent Scrum Teams—as intended in Scrum. The question is what Management’s motivation is for descaling, as it’ll steer the scope of the descaling process, itself. 

For instance, if the motivation is driven by a wish to reduce the current level of overhead by removing some of the scaled roles/accountabilities, you might miss the vital discussions on why your dependencies exist. Conversely, if you build up end-to-end competencies across your teams so they can work independently, you might miss out on talks on whether some of the scaled artifacts or events do give you a level of alignment across teams.

In any case, always consider continuously whether your current level of scaling gives you more benefits than costs and always strive towards doing what you can in order to descale, as working in a scaled setup with dependencies across teams can often inhibit value delivery lead time and agility (i.e., adaptability).