In this IEEE Software article [1], we draw on 15 years of research collaboration experience with global companies. We have witnessed these organizations go through all parts of adopting frameworks from the first tentative steps on their agile journey, through to the selecting, implementing, and sustaining of a large-scale agile frame-work, combination of frameworks, or their own custom-built framework.

Based on 13 agile transformation cases over 15 years, this article identifies nine challenges associated with implementing SAFe, Scrum-at-Scale, Spotify, LeSS, Nexus, and other mixed or customized large-scale agile frameworks. These challenges should be considered by organizations aspiring to pursue a large-scale agile strategy. Specifically, we identified nine of the most impactful challenges and a set of recommendations to mitigate each. To summarize, we categorized the challenges as follows: (i) defining concepts and terms; (ii) comparing and contrasting frameworks; (iii) readiness and appetite for change; (iv) balancing organizational structure and frameworks; (v) top-down versus bottom-up implementation; (vi) overemphasis on 100% frame-work adherence over value; (vii) lack of evidence-based use; (viii) maintaining devel-oper autonomy; (ix) misalignment between customer processes and frameworks.

The contribution of this research offers guidance to organizations considering, planning, or in the midst of an agile transformation to use our study to identify and pre-empt challenges they may be particularly susceptible to. Such an exercise can be in-sightful, given that many problems are subtle and can exist ‘under the radar’. This research also identified opportunities for further research across the nine core challenges and recommendations reported in this study.