Cross-Pollination
Cross-Pollination
Play Description
Also Known As/Similar To
Embedding, Benchmarking, Site Visits, Go See
Pattern Group(s)
Transformation
Challenge Categories
Sharing Knowledge, Sharing Expertise, Setting Expectations, Increasing Confidence
Definition
In gardening, cross-pollination spreads pollen from one flower to another one, increasing the diversity of the plant species while triggering the growth of fruit.
For scaling patterns, the “Cross-Pollination” pattern exposes existing teams to the work of agile teams so they can see agile in action, better understanding how agile is applied in a true work environment. In doing so, this increases confidence and effectiveness in the use of agile practices.
Cross-pollination helps teams that are ‘stuck in a rut.’
Cross-pollination can take many forms, including:
- Site visits or field trips, where one agile team visits another, learns about how they operate and observes for a day or less.
- Embedding, where members of an agile team spend a week or more sitting alongside an agile team observing, and sometimes participating in their work.
- Benchmarking, where one team collects quantitative and qualitative data to understand where are the areas of success for an agile team.
In Frameworks
The Cross-Pollination pattern is supported and encouraged in several agile frameworks. Scrum@Scale promotes the use of Communities of Practice (CoPs) (Registered Scrum@Scale Practitioner Training), where practitioners from different teams come together to share knowledge, challenges, and best practices. This aligns with cross-pollination as team members can observe and learn from each other in these settings.
LeSS (Large Scale Scrum) also supports cross-pollination through its emphasis on cross-functional teams and rotating team members to different roles or teams to spread knowledge and skills (Communities, Go See).
In the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), cross-pollination is facilitated somewhat during PI (Program Increment) Planning, when team members circulate during team breakouts . These frameworks recognize that exposing team members to different working methods and environments enhances their understanding and application of agile practices, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
None of the above-listed frameworks, however, explicitly encourage visiting and observing an existing team for a day or more to learn how their team operates. Note that the gains from cross-pollination are most often achieved through extended observation.
How to Use
- Identify Opportunities for Cross-Pollination: Select mature or struggling teams that could benefit from exposure to different agile practices or environments.
- Plan Visits or Embedding: Arrange site visits or embedding experiences where team members observe or participate in the hosting team’s activities.
- Facilitate Knowledge Sharing: Encourage discussions and Q&A sessions during visits to clarify practices and share insights.
- Follow-Up and Reflect: Conduct a debrief session post-activity to discuss learnings and potential applications in the visiting team’s context.
- Document and Share Learnings: Share and capture key insights and good practices observed during the cross-pollination activities and add these to a backlog for future implementation.
Use When…
The “Cross-Pollination” pattern is best used when:
- Skepticism threatens success. Often, a team, department or division new to agile utters the words, “Sounds great, but this won’t work for us.” The best way to dispel this myth is to have these individuals see agile in action, allow them to ask questions, and to imagine themselves acting and behaving like the people being observed.
- Team or department progress is stalled. In some cases, a team or department has made good progress with agile but has not made any progress recently. (In English, this is sometimes called “stuck in a rut”). One great way to help a team generate new ideas for improvement is cross-pollination, because the “stuck” team has a chance to see another team practicing agile in new and different ways.
- Struggling to understand practical agile. Sometimes, agile is taught to teams in a way that is much too theoretical. As a result, new teams struggle to understand how to “do” agile. One great way to move beyond the theoretical and to the practical by using the “Cross-pollination” pattern.
Do Not use this pattern when:
- Teams Have Deeply Ingrained Practices or Cultures: Cross-pollination may not be effective if teams have deeply ingrained practices or cultural norms that resist change. In such cases, observing other teams may not lead to meaningful adoption of new practices, as there may be a lack of willingness to alter existing methods.
- Resource Constraints Limit Participation: If the organization or teams are under significant resource constraints, such as time or budget limitations, cross-pollination activities may not be feasible. These activities require time away from regular work and potential travel expenses, which may not be justifiable in resource-strapped situations.
- There Is No Buy-In from Leadership or Key Stakeholders: For cross-pollination to be successful, there needs to be support from leadership and key stakeholders. If there is no buy-in or if the initiative is seen as a distraction, it may not be prioritized, and the potential benefits may not be realized. In such cases, it may be better to focus on other methods of improving agile adoption and understanding.
Advantages
Cross-pollination has multiple advantages, including:
- Low cost. Typically, a one-day site visit to another team or department in the same organization is almost zero. Similarly, a same-city visit to another organization is relatively low cost to arrange, as well.
- Very persuasive. Because teams new to agile go and see for themselves, the realism of the experience tends to be very persuasive.
- See good and the not-so-good. Visiting teams see the good and the not-so-good when they observe agile in the field. This makes it possible for them to see that others still have room to improve, but it also makes it easier to identify those same challenges when they occur in their home environment.
- Bridges hypothetical and actual. By using cross-pollination to see agile used in a work environment, rather than hearing about it, bridges the gap between hypothetical and actual for many people new to agile.
Disadvantages
There are some disadvantages to attempting the “Cross-pollination” pattern:
- Difficult to find cross-pollinator. Sometimes, it is difficult to find a team, department or organization will to permit outsiders to observe them. It often takes more than two weeks to coordinate an activity like this, so try to avoid attempting cross-pollination in a single Sprint.
- Exposure often time-limited. Because there are costs and time commitments for the hosting team or organization, site visits and embedding are often time-constrained. This may limit the amount of useful knowledge gathered through cross-pollination.
- Significant gains unlikely. Though cross-pollination is very good and helping teams new to agile conclude “they can do it, too”, cross-pollination rarely results in enough new knowledge to make significant gains alone. As a result, it usually needs to be followed up by other patterns in order to achieve the best results.
Additional Notes
Cross-pollination is similar to "GOOB", or "Get Out of the Building" from Design Thinking. And, it is similar to "Gemba" - (go to) the real place in Lean.
Sources:
1. Registered Scrum@Scale Practitioner Training (2024). Communities of Practice (p. 89).
2. Communities. (n.d.). Large Scale Scrum (LeSS). https://less.works/less/structure/communities
3. Go See. (n.d.). Large Scale Scrum (LeSS). https://less.works/less/management/go-see
4. PI Planning. SAFe Framework - Scaled Agile, Inc. (2024). Scaled Agile Framework. https://scaledagileframework.com/pi-planning/