As new high-priority features surface on a large program it can be tempting to give in to demands from stakeholders to assemble a team of the best people from the existing Scrum teams to build those features. Typically someone will suggest plucking the best people from the various Scrum teams and forming a task force. If anyone tries to talk you into doing this, don’t let them. In agile, restructuring the teams should be done sparingly and carefully. It takes a team of people several sprints (and sometimes months) to learn to work together effectively. Reorganized teams also represent change and the range of human factors that come with change. Large scale agile is about bringing the work to the teams, not assembling groups of people for each package of work that needs to be completed.

Another consideration when someone suggests putting together a task force is that it needs a Product Owner, Scrum Master and the various cross-functional roles such as BAs, QA, etc. to be covered. Gutting existing teams to staff these roles leaves the other teams in disarray. And, of course, we would never even consider sharing people across teams, would we?

The next time someone proposes a task force, take a look at how this work can be done by the teams already in place. Chances are pretty good that the work will be completed faster and better by the established teams.