facilitate-scrum-of-scrums

name	facilitate-scrum-of-scrums
description	Facilitate a scrum of scrums — a 15-30 minute cross-team coordination meeting with one representative per team covering what each team did, what is next, and cross-team blockers. Includes the theatre-vs-real check (representatives who cannot speak for their team make the meeting theatre). Use for multi-team delivery coordination and surfacing cross-team dependencies.
argument-hint	[programme or set of teams being coordinated]
user-invocable	true
allowed-tools	Read, Write, Edit, Glob, Grep

Facilitate a scrum of scrums

Facilitate the scrum of scrums for $ARGUMENTS. A scrum of scrums is a lightweight cross-team coordination meeting — 15 to 30 minutes, one representative per team, run after each team's own stand-up. The delivery-manager facilitates. Its purpose is to surface and route cross-team blockers and dependencies, not to re-run each team's stand-up. It draws on and updates the dependency map (write-dependency-map).

The risk is that the scrum of scrums becomes its own ceremony, disconnected from actual team work. If the representatives cannot speak for their teams, the meeting is theatre — Step 4 checks for this directly.

Step 1: Confirm the representatives

Each team sends one representative who can speak for the team — commit to dependencies, report real status, and carry actions back. Confirm before the meeting that each team is represented by someone with that authority. A representative who has to "check with the team" on everything turns the meeting into a relay, not coordination.

Step 2: Run the three questions per team

For each team, the representative answers three questions — kept tight:

1. What did the team complete since last time that affects other teams?
2. What is the team doing next that other teams need to know about?
3. What cross-team blockers or dependencies need attention?

Keep the focus cross-team. Work that affects only the team itself belongs in that team's own stand-up, not here. Cut anything that is not cross-team.

Step 3: Capture and route cross-team blockers

Every cross-team blocker raised is captured and routed:

| Blocker | Raised by | Owning team | Status | Action | Owner | By when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| API v2 migration slipping | Payments-dependent team | Payments | At risk | Broker a revised date | [name] | 2026-06-16 |

Route each blocker to an owner and a date. A blocker raised and not routed is a blocker the meeting failed to manage. Update the dependency map with anything new or changed.

Step 4: Run the theatre-vs-real check

After the meeting, check it was real coordination, not theatre. Signs of theatre:

Sign	What it means
Representatives could not commit on behalf of their team	The wrong people are in the room
The same blockers recur every meeting with no movement	The meeting surfaces but does not route
Nothing was decided or routed — only reported	This is a status read-out, not coordination
Teams treat it as a meeting to survive, not use	The meeting has lost its purpose

If two or more signs are present, the scrum of scrums is theatre. Fix the format: get the right representatives, tighten to cross-team only, and make routing the point. A theatre meeting is worse than no meeting — it consumes time from every team and creates the appearance of coordination without the substance.

Rules

• One representative per team, and they must be able to speak for the team. A relay is not coordination.
• Keep it cross-team. Single-team work belongs in the team's own stand-up. Cut it ruthlessly.
• Every blocker is routed to an owner and a date, then reflected in the dependency map. Surfacing without routing is half a job.
• 15-30 minutes. If it runs longer, it has drifted into re-running each team's stand-up.
• Run the theatre check every time. The scrum of scrums decays into theatre by default — the check is what keeps it real.
• The delivery-manager facilitates but does not solve each team's problems in the room. Route the blocker; the owning team does the work.

Output Format

## Scrum of Scrums: [programme] — [date]

### Per-team update
| Team | Completed (cross-team) | Next (cross-team) | Blockers raised |
|---|---|---|---|

### Cross-team blockers routed
| Blocker | Owning team | Status | Action | Owner | By when |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|

### Theatre-vs-real check
| Sign | Present? |
|---|---|
| Representatives could not commit | Yes / No |
| Recurring blockers, no movement | Yes / No |
| Report-only, nothing routed | Yes / No |

Verdict: [Real coordination / At risk of theatre / Theatre — fix the format]

### Dependency map updated: [yes / no]

Related skills

• /delivery-manager:write-dependency-map — the scrum of scrums reads from and writes back to the dependency map. Blockers routed in the meeting update the map; at-risk dependencies in the map set the agenda.
• /delivery-manager:review-raid-log — cross-team blockers that cannot be resolved at team level escalate into the programme RAID. The scrum of scrums is where they surface.