Communications at Program Level
The focus for a program is the coordinated management of product releases through oversight of a series of projects. The Scrum roles for program management are:-
- The Program Product Owner who coordinates the various projects by communicating with the respective Chief Product Owners and product owners, with the aid of the Program Product Backlog. He also has a major role in the planning of product releases for the program.
- The Program Scrum Master who validates that Scrum practice is being observed by all the teams and projects, coaching and advising the Scrum Masters and teams where required. He is the conduit through which issues across projects and obstacles to projects are addressed.
Communications at Portfolio Level
The focus for a portfolio is the management of change and business value at enterprise and strategic level.
Again, similar roles have been defined for portfolio management.
- The Portfolio Product Owner has the enterprise product responsibility via the Portfolio Product Backlog. Coordination of all levels of product development rest on his shoulders.
- The Portfolio Scrum Master has the position of Scrum master at the highest level and is also tasked with the overall management of risk and change requests.
A status meeting at portfolio level can also be called. It is known as the “Scrum of Scrum of Scrums”(SoSoS).
Coordinating Large-Scale Initiatives using a Communications Plan
The Communications Plan is essential for managing at scale. For anyone familiar with traditional project management, such as PMBOK or Prince2, this is an old friend, and the Scrum Plan follows the same broad precepts of who, what and when.
Who is affected
- Who should be included in the communication, such as stakeholders, Scrum Masters or Scrum teams.
- Who calls for the meeting and produces the outputs.
- This will generally be a Scrum Master at the appropriate level
What are the inputs, activity and outputs
- What is the purpose of the communication, e.g. to discuss which products will be included in the next release, What risks need to be addressed, what are the latest priorities at portfolio level.
- Description of Communication/ channel. For instance, is it a meeting, a survey, an email?
- What is needed for the meeting, such as the Scrum Backlog status, and the list of dependencies
- What outputs will result following the communication being addressed.
When will it occur?
- How frequently?
- When is the next meeting scheduled?
- What is the response time, e.g. 48 hours.
There are many examples for what a communication plan template should contain, especially on project-management related websites. If your company practises communications planning already under other circumstances, use the format everyone is familiar with.
Although use of a communications plan is described in connection with large projects and large-scale Scrum organization, there is no restriction on having a communication plan even at the simplest Scrum team level. As more and more teams are included, it becomes a critical tool for aligning product visions, change requests and prioritization of Backlog content. Especially at portfolio level, where enterprise-wide communication is essential, while planning how and when to communicate is a must.
Recommended Further Reading
The following materials may assist you in order to get the most out of this course: