Navigating the landscape of organizational frameworks requires a thoughtful approach, blending analytical rigor with practical experimentation. The allure of frameworks like Scrum, SAFe, LeSS, and other lies in their promise to usher in agility and a new culture within organizations. But Frameworks can achieve a lot more than agility. In a good and a bad way. Their successful implementation demands more than just blind adherence to principles or an uncritical adoption driven by trends.

Kazunori Yamasaki is a ScrumMaster like in the book. Wearing a bag on this belt filled with markers and Post-its, he is always ready to jump in as facilitator when his teams need navigation to conquer complex challenges. And the teams at Groove X in Tokyo have many of these to overcome these days. Their first product, the robot Lovot, is close to final mass production, and most probably, while you are reading this, you can already buy it.

In the first two parts we looked at the story of two companies to see how the Scrum Master and Product Owner provide leadership. These roles are integrated in a leadership system that develops over time. This story continues in this instalment, which is dedicated to the team – the most important role with leadership responsibilities.

Part 1 of this series used two example companies to show how Product Owners lead. The Product Owner is part of an agile leadership system (or management system) that needs to be developed for every organisation. Scrum provides a framework for this leadership system.

This part continues the story of both companies and illustrates how the Scrum Master leads.

The Scrum roles are prototypes for agile leadership and agile management. The Agile Manifesto was formulated in 2001 with contributions from the two authors of the first Scrum publication. Scrum is a framework used to optimise an organisation to become more agile. In addition to a basic understanding of the artefacts and processes required, the framework also divides leadership duties into three roles. Scrum also follows a lean approach based on the idea that less is more. The framework thus only prescribes rules that are absolutely necessary.

The benefit of this is that each organisation can develop a suitable leadership system tailored to its needs within the triangle of Scrum roles. On the downside, it does make the concept of agile leadership somewhat less accessible and means it is often interpreted in very different ways.

To help clarify matters, in this article – the first of four – I will answer the question How does the Product Owner lead? using two companies as examples.

• A young, fast-growing company with an initial 20 employees.
• A medium-sized company that has grown to 450 employees over the course of two decades.

You have given everything. You have shown in countless meetings, conversations and intranet articles why it makes sense for an organisation to become agile, what being agile means, why defined process protocols don't make sense in a complex context. You have assisted agile teams to formulate a challenging Definition of Done, and helped alleged Product Owners, to contribute as requirements specialists on a team. You insisted that the management take Lean thinking to their heart, you have put a lot of effort into our change, transition or transformation team. Finally everybody agreed that organisations need to become agile nowadays. There even was a big talk by your management with images of oil tankers and speed boats.

And now that: External consultants convinced your management that SAFe - Scaled Agile Framework - is exactly the right solution for your company.