What Is a Scrum of Scrums?
A Scrum of Scrums is a coordination meeting where representatives from multiple agile teams — often each team's Scrum Master or a designated representative — come together regularly to sync on cross-team dependencies, blockers, and progress toward a shared goal, extending the daily standup format to a multi-team scale.
Quick facts
- Scrum of Scrums typically follows a similar lightweight structure to a daily standup, but focused specifically on cross-team information.
- It's commonly used in scaled agile contexts, including within SAFe's Agile Release Train structure.
- This connects to What Is an Agile Release Train (ART) in SAFe, where this coordination pattern is commonly used.
Scrum of Scrums vs a standard daily standup
| Daily Standup | Scrum of Scrums | |
|---|---|---|
| Attendees | The full individual team | Representatives from multiple teams |
| Focus | This team's specific progress and blockers | Cross-team dependencies and blockers |
| Frequency | Daily | Often 2-3 times per week, sometimes daily depending on the ART's coordination needs |
| Scope | Single team | Multiple interdependent teams |
Why Scrum of Scrums exists
When multiple teams work on interdependent pieces of a shared, larger effort, a single team's daily standup doesn't surface information relevant to other teams — a blocker or dependency affecting Team A's ability to deliver might depend on Team B's progress, information that wouldn't naturally reach Team B without a dedicated cross-team coordination point. Scrum of Scrums fills this gap, providing a lightweight, regular forum specifically for surfacing and addressing cross-team information that no single team's own standup would capture.
How a typical Scrum of Scrums works
Similar in spirit to a standard daily standup, each team's representative typically shares: what their team has accomplished since the last sync that's relevant to other teams, what they're working on next that might affect others, and any blockers or dependencies involving other teams. The meeting stays focused specifically on cross-team information, with team-internal details left to each team's own standup — keeping the Scrum of Scrums efficient and genuinely useful rather than duplicating each team's individual coordination.
A worked example
Within a SAFe Agile Release Train with six teams, Scrum Masters from each team meet three times a week for a 15-minute Scrum of Scrums. During one session, the payments team's representative mentions they're blocked waiting on an API change from the platform team — information the platform team's representative wasn't previously aware was urgent for the payments team's current sprint. This surfaces the dependency early enough for the two teams to coordinate directly afterward, resolving what could have become a more disruptive, later-discovered blocker if it had only been visible within each team's own separate standup.
Common mistakes with Scrum of Scrums
- Letting the meeting drift into team-internal detail that doesn't actually matter to other teams, losing the meeting's specific cross-team focus and efficiency.
- Not having a clear representative attend consistently, losing continuity in tracking cross-team dependencies over time.
- Treating it as sufficient coordination on its own, without also addressing larger, systemic cross-team issues through broader events (like PI Planning in a SAFe context).
- Holding it too infrequently for the actual pace of cross-team dependency, missing timely coordination when dependencies are numerous or urgent.
FAQ
Who typically attends a Scrum of Scrums? Often each team's Scrum Master, though some organizations include a rotating team representative or a specific role designated to represent cross-team concerns.
How is Scrum of Scrums different from PI Planning in SAFe? PI Planning is a larger, less frequent event (once per Program Increment) focused on broader planning and priority alignment; Scrum of Scrums is a more frequent, lightweight ongoing sync focused specifically on day-to-day cross-team coordination during execution.
Is Scrum of Scrums specific to SAFe? No — while commonly used within SAFe's structure, the Scrum of Scrums pattern originated more broadly in scaled agile practice and can be used by any organization coordinating multiple interdependent Scrum teams, regardless of whether they formally use SAFe.
How long should a Scrum of Scrums meeting last? Similar to a standard standup, typically 15-30 minutes, kept focused and time-boxed specifically on cross-team information rather than becoming an extended discussion.