Leading Scrum·February 11, 2025·2 min read

Create An Agile Community of Practice In Your Organization

As Scrum Teams multiply across an organization, an Agile Community of Practice — generalizing specialists learning together — is the natural next step. Here's how to start one without a committee.

The Evolution of a Scrum Team to an Agile Organization

When Implementing Scrum in the real world, many organizations start with one or two Scrum Teams after some training and a new Scrum Master. If the pilot teams align and show real progress, a few more teams get created.

Or it’s a complete mess, Scrum gets “blamed,” and the organization goes back to whatever they were doing before. Adios agile.

Let’s assume it’s a success. Agile and Scrum start to “organically grow.” Skip the “magic happens here” part [in real life == the hard work] and jump to a present-day situation: the organization now has multiple Scrum Teams somehow working together.

Eventually someone gets the bright idea to create an “Agile Center of Excellence” or “Agile Community of Practice.”

Do We Call It A “Center Of Excellence” Or A “Community Of Practice”?

Call it what you want. People have dogmatic stances about the “right” name — good luck if that’s your fight, it’s not mine these days.

This group usually looks and feels like a bunch of generalizing specialists (see this excellent article from my colleague Scott Ambler) from multiple Scrum Teams who get together on a regular cadence geeking out on their true area of specialty.

Examples: Scrum Masters, Product Owners, or Developers from various Scrum Teams. In human terms: Project Managers, Product Managers, Business Analysts, Software Developers, Software Architects, Teachers, Students, Marketing Managers, Sales Managers, Instructional Designers — anyone on a Scrum Team delivering value to your organization.

People. Talking to other people about what matters to them.

Don’t Get Stuck On Perfection — Get Started

Really. Set up an environment (face-to-face or via Zoom or whatever you’re using) where the specialists from each team can get together and learn together. It’s that simple. This is part of the magic.

Who does this? You. Go for it. Get it started with one friend or colleague.

Want help? You can add me (Michael Vizdos) to your internal Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Discord server. Visit consulting.mvizdos.com now for a few different options for helping with your own internal Agile Community of Practice.

What’s the advantage? The generalizing specialists on each Scrum Team geek out, learn together, and then bring those techniques and best practices back to each of the individual Scrum Teams they’re working on. Let that sink in.

You don’t need something formal. You don’t need a committee to decide a formal committee who then decides [blah blah blah]. You don’t need permission to do this. Do it.

Start Today

If you’re in an organization that’s been Implementing Scrum for years, ask around — groups may have started and flamed out in the past. That’s a good reason to get restarted. With you leading it.

What Next?

Let me know your thoughts on this topic (or want some help creating and mentoring an Agile Community of Practice in your organization?).

Contact me (with feedback) or connect with me on LinkedIn to discuss this more together.

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