Using Scrum…but with a Blended Backlog

I just finished watching Ken Schwaber’s video on ScrumBut and we have no excuse…
<We use Scrum, but><we have these unique circumstances><so we have had to modify Scrum so it works here>

Everything we’ve read about scrum centers around one team working on one product at a time. That’s not us. We’re small but very busy team working on up to 15 projects at a time. While we respect and admire the scrum purists, we had to come up with our own flavor of scrum. Here’s how we go about it:

Every client has a Product Backlog.

These Product Backlogs are created and groomed regularly by their Product Owners ( an Account Manger will often serve as a Product Owner).

At our sprint planning meeting, the Team estimates user story points (using planning poker cards) for the stories on each of the product backlogs. The Team then pulls user stories from the product backlogs to make one sprint backlog. If we know that our average velocity for a two week sprint is 100, we’ll pull over a total of 100 user story points from the various product backlogs.
 

We run two week sprints from our blended sprint backlog. Our sprint review and retrospectives are internal with only the ScrumMaster, Team and Product Owners attending. We usually schedule separate meetings to demonstrate the deliverables to the clients. During the sprint, the Product Owners keep their product backlogs groomed and ready to go for the next sprint planning meeting.

<It may not be textbook scrum, but> <it works for us.>

I'd love to hear how other agencies are using scrum as a framework to manage multiple projects.