Scrum at Scale for Enterprise PMO Training Course

Course overview

Enterprise PMOs often face a difficult transition: individual Scrum teams may deliver effectively, yet priorities, dependencies, funding decisions and release commitments remain controlled through fragmented governance. The result is duplicated reporting, overloaded teams, slow escalation paths and portfolio decisions made too far from delivery evidence. This course addresses the practical challenge of applying Scrum at Scale to coordinate multiple Scrum teams while retaining Scrum’s empirical, team-led operating model. It is designed for professionals who need to connect portfolio governance, product strategy and delivery execution without introducing a heavy additional framework.

Participants learn the Scrum at Scale framework through its two operating cycles: the Scrum Master Cycle and the Product Owner Cycle. They examine the roles of the Executive Action Team, Executive MetaScrum Team, Scrum of Scrums and MetaScrum; establish cross-team backlog, dependency and impediment-management practices; and define decision rights for enterprise priorities. The course also covers scaled planning, backlog refinement, release forecasting, metrics and lightweight governance controls that a PMO can use to improve transparency without reverting to command-and-control status reporting.

Instruction combines facilitated teaching with an enterprise delivery case study, role-based simulations and working sessions using Jira, Confluence and visual collaboration boards. Participants build a Scrum at Scale operating design for a realistic multi-team initiative, including a team topology, Scrum of Scrums cadence, MetaScrum decision forum, escalation path, metric set and implementation roadmap. This tangible artefact can be adapted for a current portfolio, programme or product area after the course.

The course is particularly valuable for PMO leaders, programme managers, Agile leaders and product leaders working across several teams or business units. It supports organisations seeking an alternative to prescriptive scaling models and needing a clear way to align enterprise governance with Scrum delivery.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map an enterprise value stream into Scrum teams, shared products and coordination boundaries
• Design a Scrum of Scrums cadence for cross-team dependency, risk and impediment management
• Establish a MetaScrum forum with defined decision rights for priorities, funding and stakeholders
• Apply the Executive Action Team model to remove systemic organisational impediments
• Create a scaled product backlog structure linking strategic outcomes, product goals and team work
• Define empirical PMO metrics using throughput, cycle time, forecast reliability and outcome measures
• Configure a lightweight governance model that replaces stage-gate reporting with evidence-based reviews
• Produce a Scrum at Scale implementation roadmap for a multi-team portfolio or programme

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• PMO Directors and Heads of Portfolio — who must redesign governance for multiple Agile delivery teams
• Programme Managers — who coordinate cross-team commitments, dependencies and enterprise stakeholders
• Agile Transformation Leads — who need a practical scaling model beyond team-level Scrum adoption
• Enterprise Agile Coaches — who facilitate Scrum of Scrums and remove organisational impediments
• Product Portfolio Managers — who align investment priorities and product backlogs across teams
• Senior Scrum Masters — who are preparing to lead cross-team coordination and systemic improvement

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should understand the purpose of Scrum roles, events and artefacts, and have worked with or closely supported at least one Scrum team. Familiarity with product backlogs, Sprint Planning, reviews, retrospectives and basic Agile delivery metrics is assumed. Experience using Jira or a comparable work-management tool is helpful because exercises use backlog and dependency examples, but advanced administration is not required. No prior Scrum at Scale, SAFe, LeSS or formal PMO certification is required. Complete beginners to Agile should first attend a foundational Scrum course; this course focuses on applying Scrum principles across multiple teams and enterprise governance structures.

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor-led modules to establish Scrum at Scale concepts, followed by applied work on a running enterprise product case. Participants map teams and value streams, simulate Scrum of Scrums and MetaScrum conversations, analyse dependency and impediment data, and design governance measures in small groups. Jira backlog examples, Confluence decision records and Miro mapping templates are used to make the practices operational. On day five, each participant converts the case work into an application plan for a live organisational context, with peer and instructor challenge.

Course outline

Day 1: Scrum at Scale foundations and enterprise design

• Scrum at Scale purpose, principles and framework boundaries
• The Scrum Master Cycle and Product Owner Cycle
• Minimum Viable Bureaucracy as a governance design principle
• Enterprise value streams and product-oriented operating models
• Team topology, feature teams and component-team constraints
• Scaling Scrum compared with SAFe, LeSS and traditional programme governance
• PMO roles in enabling rather than directing Scrum delivery

Workshop: Participants map a multi-team enterprise value stream and identify the coordination problems that require Scrum at Scale practices.

Day 2: Cross-team delivery coordination

• Scrum of Scrums purpose, membership and facilitation
• Cross-team dependency identification and visualisation
• Impediment backlog creation and ownership
• Integrated Definition of Done and shared quality controls
• Cross-team Sprint alignment and planning horizons
• Release forecasting using empirical delivery data
• Executive Action Team responsibilities and escalation paths

Workshop: Participants run a Scrum of Scrums simulation and produce a dependency board, impediment backlog and escalation protocol.

Day 3: Product ownership, priorities and MetaScrum

• The Executive MetaScrum Team and enterprise product decisions
• Scaled Product Owner coordination and accountabilities
• Product backlog hierarchy from strategic outcome to team backlog item
• Product Goal alignment across multiple teams
• MetaScrum prioritisation using cost of delay and outcome evidence
• Stakeholder representation and decision-rights mapping
• Managing shared services, architecture and compliance work in product backlogs

Workshop: Participants facilitate a MetaScrum prioritisation workshop and produce a decision-rights map with an aligned portfolio backlog.

Day 4: PMO governance, metrics and organisational impediments

• Empirical governance versus stage-gate assurance
• Flow metrics: throughput, cycle time, work in progress and ageing
• Forecast reliability and release confidence measures
• Outcome measures, OKRs and product investment evidence
• Risk management through transparency, inspection and adaptation
• PMO dashboards in Jira and Confluence
• Systemic impediment analysis using cause-and-effect mapping

Workshop: Participants redesign a conventional programme status pack into an empirical PMO dashboard and systemic impediment action plan.

Day 5: Implementation planning and adoption

• Readiness assessment for a Scrum at Scale pilot
• Selecting a pilot value stream and defining success criteria
• Establishing Scrum of Scrums and MetaScrum cadences
• Role transition plans for PMO, programme and product leaders
• Change risks, stakeholder resistance and adoption interventions
• Thirty-sixty-ninety-day implementation roadmap
• Inspect-and-adapt mechanisms for scaling model improvement

Workshop: Participants produce and present a Scrum at Scale operating model and 90-day implementation roadmap for their own or the course case organisation.

Tools & standards covered

Scrum at Scale Guide, Atlassian Jira, Atlassian Confluence, Miro

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions