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VECTOR
vs Scrum / The cost of scaling process

Scrum scales by adding people to manage people. VECTOR scales by adding a page.

Scrum for one team is light. Scrum for twenty teams has acquired a scaling framework, Release Train Engineers, Agile coaches, Six Sigma belts, a PMO and a tooling team — an organisation whose product is the process. VECTOR adds four artifacts and no roles, at any team count.

01 / Scale it yourself

Pick a team count and the add-ons your Scrum has accumulated.

12 teams · 96 people
110203040

Drag it. Watch the left column grow a headcount of its own. The right column adds a few hours of writing and a fifteen-minute review per team.

What your Scrum has grown, over time

Scrum + the add-ons

People whose job is the process
18
  • Scrum Masters6
  • Release Train Engineers2
  • ART-level roles (architect, product mgmt)4
  • Agile coaches3
  • PMO / delivery managers2
  • Tooling administrators1
Certifications to hold
16
Of everyone’s time
19%
Ceremony hours per 2 weeks
1,424
Process cost per year
$5.5M

VECTOR

no new roles
People whose job is the process
0

Outcome owners are the team leads you already have. The artifacts do the coordinating.

Certifications to hold
0
Of everyone’s time
1.1%
Ceremony hours per 2 weeks
84
Process cost per year
$164k

At 12 teams, the Scrum stack needs 18 full-time people whose job is the process, holding 16 certifications, and burns 1,424 hours of ceremony every 2 weeks — about 19% of everyone’s time. VECTOR asks for no new roles, no certifications, and 84 hours — 1.1% — most of it writing things down that were going to need writing anyway. Roughly $5.3M a year in the difference, on these assumptions.

02 / How the stack accumulates

Nobody chooses the army. It arrives one reasonable hire at a time.

Each layer is a sensible fix for the problem the previous layer created. None of them changes the question the board answers, which is still “how much moved?” rather than “did anything change for the customer?”

  1. Year 1

    Scrum

    Two-week sprints, a Scrum Master, five ceremonies. It works for one team.

  2. Year 2

    + Scaling framework

    Six teams now. A Release Train, an RTE, two days of PI planning every quarter for everyone.

  3. Year 3

    + Agile coaches

    Ceremonies drift. Coaches are hired to keep the framework healthy.

  4. Year 4

    + PMO & process excellence

    Leadership can’t see outcomes in velocity charts. A PMO builds roll-ups; Six Sigma belts measure the process.

  5. Year 5

    + Tooling estate

    Custom Jira schemes, plugins, an administrator. The process now has a headcount, a budget and a training calendar.

  6. VECTOR

    Same four artifacts at team one and team forty.

    More teams means more Outcome Briefs and more arrows on the map. It does not mean a new layer of people to interpret them. Executives read confidence; teams read dependencies; nobody reads a burndown.

03 / Where the work goes

Every role in the stack has a job. Here is who — or what — does it under VECTOR.

In the Scrum stackUnder VECTORHow
Scrum MasterNobody. The artifacts carry it.Impediments are dependencies on the map; the cadence is the Proof Window; the retro is three written questions.
Product OwnerThe outcome owner you already have.Same person, one page instead of a backlog to groom: problem, outcome, metrics, dependencies.
Release Train EngineerThe dependency map.Cross-team coordination is a drawn arrow with a status, not a role with a calendar.
Agile coachThe guide and the playground.The framework is learnable in fifteen minutes. There is nothing to coach people through repeatedly.
Six Sigma beltThe Proof Window record.Every window ends with a hypothesis, evidence and a re-score. Process improvement is a by-product, not a department.
PMO / delivery managerThe executive view.Confidence, trend and open dependencies per outcome — the status report writes itself, live.
PI planning (all hands, 2 days)Outcome Briefs, written once.Teams read each other's briefs and declare dependencies. No room booking for two hundred people.
CertificationsNone.There is no VECTOR certification, and there won't be. Read the framework; run a window.

This is not an argument against the people. Scrum Masters, coaches and PMO analysts are usually the most outcome-minded people in the building, which is why the framework keeps needing them. VECTOR gives that instinct to the artifacts so those people can own outcomes instead of ceremonies.

04 / In fairness

What Scrum gets right, and what VECTOR keeps.

Short cycles, a cross-functional team, a visible board, regular reflection — those are good ideas and VECTOR keeps every one of them. The sprint survives as the Proof Window; the board survives untouched. What goes is the machinery built to run the machinery. You do not have to leave Scrum to get this: the bolt-on page shows the same board before and after.

The cheapest way to test this is one team, one Proof Window, zero hires.

Open the playgroundSee it on your board