Courses This Nexus vs LeSS guide will help you understand how to scale Agile frameworks to orient towards the method that would be most suitable for your team and product development and delivery.
Agile methodologies have become the basis of modern software development in the current business era. Even though the Agile approach is most suitable for small teams, larger organizations are involved in large projects which have to be Agile to function across teams.
To address this demand Scaling Agile frameworks such as Nexus and Large Scale Scrum (LeSS) have emerged. These frameworks are built on Agile fundamentals so that several teams can coordinate their work with flexibility and velocity.
Introducing the Scaling Agile Frameworks
Why Choose Scale Agile?
While organizations expand their scope to deliver intricate projects, there exists a need to adopt the Agile Scaling Frameworks. Many organizations implement Agile principles successfully in small-scale teams. Traditional Agile Frameworks do not fully address the challenges in large-scale, cross-functional cumulative teams. For these companies, Scaled Agile Frameworks enable organisations to scale with ease, retain agility, and work within increasingly large project environments.
Nexus vs LeSS: An Overview
Nexus vs LeSS are the two primary options that organizations use to extend agility. Created by Ken Schwaber, the Nexus Scrum is an extension of Scrum for organizations that require between three and nine teams at once. It is about reducing coupling, coordination, and communication between work items and strictly integrating work.
LeSS, Large-Scale Scrum, is a bit different from the traditional Scrum framework. It attempts to scale it up to a level while retaining as much simplicity as possible. Being a framework for scale Agile across multiple teams, LeSS builds everyone’s shared focus on the centres of value with minimal addition of overhead.
These frameworks are perfect for organisations committed to Scrum but lack the proper means for efficient and orderly handling of large-scale and complex projects that engage multiple teams.
What are the benefits of Scaling Agile Frameworks?
Enhanced Coordination:
Scaled Agile Frameworks like Nexus or LeSS, introduce straightforward procedures for multi-integrated team functioning. They help in minimizing the cross-team conflict to achieve the overall unity of efforts towards a common goal.
Faster Product Delivery:
These frameworks make it possible to chop up teams to work concurrently on different parts of the project, to achieve small, incremental gains in a short period.
Improved Product Quality:
The scaled Agile framework ensures that each process used in a team contains fewer procedures than what it would contain if every team were to come up with its own procedures. At the same time, the teams can better manage interdependencies, and ensure high-quality work delivery.
Increased Transparency:
Scaled Agile Framework like Nexus or LeSS have cross-team communication patterns which makes it easier to keep an eye on the progress of the project and the problems that may be encountered.
Understanding Nexus Framework
What is Nexus?
Nexus is a Scaled Agile Framework developed by Scrum.org to support the application of Scrum at an organizational scale in situations where the project is large enough to span several teams. Derived from Ken Schwaber, the creator of Scrum, Nexus extends the principles of basic Scrum to help deal with extensive and extensive teams.
It is intended mainly for use with Agile Scaling Frameworks Compared and functions most effectively when between three and nine Scrum teams are working on the same product. It improves coordination, dependency management, and integration; renders organizations a way to work in harmony and prevents the mayhem that leads when several teams are isolated.
Basic Framework and Essential Components of Nexus
The few fundamental principles of Nexus are what makes the framework suitable for applying Scrum at scale across several teams. These principles include:
Team-based Approach: Nexus focuses on several Scrum teams that are ideally integrated to develop one product increment. They all function within a single environment, which not only reduces the seeming lack of cohesion but also minimizes dependencies.
Coordination and Integration: Nexus incorporates particular patterns to arrange work across the teams by addressing dependable work, facing cross-team issues, and synchronizing processes at usual time intervals.
Adaptation and Transparency: We also leverage ways to make it easy to track the status, challenges and interdependence among the different teams practised in Nexus so as to facilitate agility and make sure that every team member has a similar view of the project.
Nexus-Specific Roles
Nexus includes unique roles to facilitate integration and coordination:
Nexus Integration Team:
This team’s role is to coordinate dependent and interrelated elements of work within one or more Scrum teams. It consists of team members from each scrum team, a certified Scrum Master and the product owner who coordinates the process so that all the teams which are in the system result in a good product increment.
Nexus Scrum Master:
Smoothing this coordination is the role of the Scrum Master in Nexus who specialises in how the various teams interconnect and provide support to the Nexus Integration Team.
Nexus Product Owner:
The Nexus PO has an overall Product Backlog for all the Scrum teams and therefore, it controls prioritization and guides overall product goals.
Understanding LeSS Framework
What is LeSS?
LeSS – Large Scale Scrums is another Scaled Agile Framework developed by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde to introduce a further scale of Scrum. Thus, getting to know LeSS it is clear that it has many Scrum features, which are much simpler and more flexible to scale in different organizations and keep Agile principles.
Unlike Nexus, which brings just several invariable functions and formalizations, LeSS respects Scrum’s principles leaving nothing extra, keeping it simple. There are two variations of LeSS: LeSS for solving organizational problems for 2-8 development teams and LeSS Huge is designed for a big project that involves hundreds of people.
Basic Framework and Essential Components of LeSS
LeSS is built on a few key principles that define its structure and approach:
Minimalism: As it will be recalled, LeSS is strictly focused on the elemental level of Scrum with an aspiration to reduce the additional structure as much as possible. It brings only modifications that are necessary to allow growth without adding complexity.
Product-Centric Focus: LeSS is focused only on a single product; it is guided by a central set of Product Backlogs. This structure helps in minimizing complexity and at the same time keeps all teams in harmony.
Two Levels of Frameworks: The two frameworks that are LeSS and LeSS Huge are meant to be used at various scales. LeSS is designed with up to eight teams, whereas LeSS Huge is designed for large cross-functional or geographically dispersed project teams.
LeSS-Specific Roles
While LeSS maintains Scrum’s simplicity, it includes specific role adaptations to enable multi-team coordination:
Product Owner:
It is also defined in LeSS that there should be a Product Owner similar to Scrum but she or he is responsible for a single Product Backlog owned by all teams. This structure also ensures continuity in the product direction and minimizes a conflict of roles.
Scrum Master:
In comparison to other scrum environments, the scrum masters in LeSS associate with multiple teams, indeed, they can work in service to more than one team at a time. This approach enhances the backing of cross-team coordination and props up the Scrum principles without occupying superimposing roles.
Nexus vs LeSS: Scaled Agile Frameworks Compared
| Feature | Nexus | LeSS |
| Developed by | Scrum.org (Ken Schwaber) | Craig Larman and Bas Vodde |
| Primary Focus | Dependency management and integration | Simplicity and minimizing additional structure |
| Ideal Team Count | 3-9 teams | LeSS: 2-8 teams, LeSS Huge: Up to hundreds of people |
| Approach | Structured, with additional roles and events | Minimalist, focusing on Scrum basics without extra roles |
| Key roles | Nexus Integration Team, Nexus Scrum Master, Nexus Product Owner | Product Owner and Scrum Masters shared across teams |
| Product Backlog | Single Product Backlog for all teams | Single Product Backlog across all teams |
| Event | Nexus Sprint Planning, Nexus Daily Scrum, Nexus Sprint Review, Nexus Sprint Retrospective | Overall Sprint Planning, Overall Daily Scrum, Overall Sprint Review |
| Artefacts | Nexus Sprint Backlogs, integrated Product Increment | Combined Product Backlog, integrated Product Increment |
| Coordination focus | Strong emphasis on managing dependencies and integration | Emphasizes alignment through shared goals and simplicity |
| Complexity level | Higher structure, suited for complex, cross-functional projects | Simplified, for organizations that want to avoid excessive complexity |
| Use Case | Projects with complex dependencies and integration needs | Projects requiring scalability with minimal additional structure |
| Adaptability | More defined structure for handling integration challenges | Flexible, ideal for Agile teams with high Scrum proficiency |
Nexus vs LeSS: Which One Should You Choose?
When it comes to choosing between Scaled Agile Frameworks, Nexus vs LeSS is the most debatable topic among Agile professionals. While both frameworks work to support large organisations applying Agile across multiple teams, both these frameworks are different in terms of their application, advantages and limitations and the appropriate context of use. In this way, organizations can choose which framework is most appropriate given their organisational context.
When to Choose Nexus:
Nexus is best used when your teams are highly dependent on each other and when regular integration and coordination are required. It provides the specific events and roles, which are juxtaposed to the conceptual ones; for instance, while the general work model exposes the Nexus Integration Team as a means to address complex dependencies, it works extremely well at handling the tightly coupled workstreams.
When to Choose LeSS:
LeSS is more applicable where the teams are closely self-managing and there are not that many interdependencies issues to tackle. If an organization loves simplicity and is heavily invested in Scrum practices, then LeSS is ideal to continue with the agility of Agile while scaling.
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Conclusion
Nexus and LeSS present the two approaches on how to scale Agile for large-scale organizations. Each has its benefits and risks depending on the organizational structure of a company and the project requirements. Nexus is appropriate where there are many cross-team dependencies and a need for tight integration while LeSS is suitable where the organization has a suitable culture for self-organizing teams.
As with Scaled Agile Frameworks, the two frameworks expand Agile principles to multiple teams enabling businesses to achieve agility at scale. To increase agility for organizations, adopting the right frameworks can influence the performance of tasks in ways that create quality Agile projects.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q. What is the main difference between Nexus and LeSS?
Ans. The only standout difference is in their ability to scale and how they do it. Therefore Nexus concentrates on handling dependencies and interoperability by incorporating new roles and incidents. Whereas, LeSS maintains basic Scrum structures with slight additions. The first framework favours scaling than the second one though they are different in terms of complexity.
Q. Which framework is better for larger teams: Nexus or LeSS?
Ans. Where teams are significantly larger and operationally interdependent, Nexus can be a better fit as its structure has a more sophisticated pattern of coordination. LeSS can work seamlessly with large teams in particular without adding a new layer of complication when organizational simplification is the focus and teams are largely aligned with self-organizing teams.
Q. Can I combine Nexus and LeSS?
Ans. It is possible to borrow elements from both approaches, however, it is fatal to combine them since this would lead to the creation of contradictory structures. Companies should use the one that meets their project requirements and the extent of implementation of Scrum.
Q. How do Nexus and LeSS differ from traditional Scrum?
Ans. Nexus vs LeSS both frameworks extend Scrum to more than one team though they have extra roles, events, and artefacts for dealing with dependencies compared to Nexus which keeps most of its features simple by adding only slight complexity to the Scrum environment.
Q. Nexus vs LeSS: Which is easier to adopt?
Ans. It is easier in organizations that have experience with Scrum since then LeSS has minimum extra add-ons. Nexus might demand more time and exerted effort because of its added framework but one can get more advantages, particularly in complicated projects with much contention between them.
Bhavna is an Agile Coach and Consultant with over a decade of experience in advisory, corporate finance, IT assurance, and operations at Big 4 and within the industry in the UK and India. She has recently been the CEO of a start-up where she implemented agile practices within HR, Marketing, and Product teams.
She is also a SAFe® Practice Consultant (SPC) and authorized instructor for ICAgile Agility in HR (ICP-AHR), Agility in Marketing (ICP-MKG), and Business Agility Foundations (ICP – BAF) training courses. She provides training for agile transformation to corporate, public, and private batches, as well as consulting for enterprise agile transformation.
