Agile best practice for product manager teams

The challenge when moving from a waterfall approach to agility is one of innovation, and being able to conceive of and run useful empirical experiments in no more than a month. Right now you are limited by the speed at which business can learn. Encourage people to self-organize to best support this...stepping back as a manager, while clearly establishing change as the most important thing in everyone's working day.

Any team that is working in an environment where there are frequent changes to complex problems are able to use the Scrum framework.  I have worked with teams that schedule and coordinate trade shows that used Scrum very effectively. I have a very good friend that has a private consulting company where she introduces agile concepts, including Scrum, to the people management industry.  I have also helped my wife introduce it into the medical laboratory setting.

I usually look at the need to react to change quickly and whether the problems being solved can be done incrementally. Are the problems being solved complex in nature and time dependent?  The beauty of the Scrum framework for me is that problems can be addressed incrementally and the solutions adapted as you go so that you get the solution you need when you need it instead of a solution you thought you needed 3 months ago. 

If you have Scrum teams in place in the organization that you consider to be successful, I'd suggest that you talk to the Scrum Masters on those teams and get them to help you determine the viability of spreading the Scrum framework.  They have better knowledge of your company and they have the knowledge of the Scrum framework. In the Scrum Guide this is listed when the responsibilities of the Scrum Master are provided.

The Scrum Master serves the organization in several ways, including:

• Leading, training, and coaching the organization in its Scrum adoption;
• Planning and advising Scrum implementations within the organization;
• Helping employees and stakeholders understand and enact an empirical approach for complex work; and,
• Removing barriers between stakeholders and Scrum Teams.

 ... can that team exist as a separate agile team or should I bring all the teams together into one large agile squad?

If you want to introduce Agile to the UX/Design/copy group, I see it that you have two options. Which option will depend if the people in the UX/Design/copy can work individually or if they need to be in a group/team working together by themselve  to design the system in a holistic manner. If they can design individually, embed a UX/Design/copy person into each Agile team. This way you keep and even extend the concept of cross functional Agile  teams. 

If the UX/Design/copy people need to work together, then put them in a separate Agile team(s). Agile allows teams to have a specific function or specialisation (component teams). It is adviced to use this option sparingly, and go for cross functional teams where possible, but it is not "illegal". Let this team then manage themselves as an Agile/Scrum team. 

However, in my opinion don't put everybody in one large Agile team. Agile teams have a size limitation where communication and collaboration breaks down if the team gets too large. With a big team, 10+, you won't have a proper Agile/Scum environment anymore. 

(Also see SAFe that allows the concept of a "architectural runway", basically a planning and design phase, that precedes in a likely waterfall approach, before the Agile teams pick up the work. This preceding planning/design phase creates a "runway" for the Agile teams to take off from. Sorry I did not create these naming concepts :-) )