Looking at Program Management with Scrum – beyond team planning {draw:frame} At SolutionsIQ, Scrum has been introduced to many sizes of organizations that were new to Agile practices and hadthe desire to start well. In large enterprises, the team practices of Scrum are not enough to ensure that multiple teams working on multiple initiatives are effective in meeting the overall needs of the business. These companies know they need to manage differently using Scrum but would like to keep their existing program management structure in place. Mike Cohn, in his book called Agile Estimating and Planning, describes what these organizations must do to effectively plan in the diagram “The Planning Onion”. Teams focus on the planning that occurs at the daily, iteration, and release levels. Other areas of the company must focus on the outer layers of the onion – strategy, portfolio and product. Program management needs to look at the portfolio of strategic initiatives and work with the Scrum Product Owners to determine how these will be implemented as work items in the appropriate Product Backlog. The delivery teams will then determine how to pull work out of these backlogs to meet the goals of each iteration and release. Progress will be tracked at the daily, iteration and release levels for all teams. Program management will then use this information to help coordinate efforts across the teams, and determine how to embrace changes and maximize value in the portfolio over time. SolutionsIQ's two-day Agile Program Management with Scrum training provides the learning and experience required to apply program management effectively in your organization.