The scaled agile framework (SAFe) helps larger organizations manage the challenges they face when practicing agile. The scaled agile framework was first introduced in 2011 by software industry guru Dean Leffingwell in his book Agile Software Requirements. The framework details a set of workflow patterns for implementing agile practices at an enterprise scale. This is achieved by guiding roles and responsibilities, planning and managing work, and establishing certain values that large organizations must uphold.
One of the key strengths of the scaled agile framework is its ability to promote the alignment and successful collaboration of multiple agile teams.
It is not a single methodology. Instead, it provides a broad knowledge base of proven best practices.
Some core values and principles of the scaled agile framework
Values
Alignment
SAFe requires that all employees understand the goals of the business and collectively move toward achieving them.
Importantly, the flow of information runs upward and downward in a timely manner.
This is in stark contrast to the traditional top-down or hierarchical approach.
Built-in quality
All teams operating under SAFe principles must never sacrifice quality for agility.
Practices that increase quality output should be incorporated into five key dimensions: flow, architecture and design quality, code quality, system quality, and release quality.
Program execution
Teams must be able to routinely execute high-quality programs that are aligned with company values.
Principles
Apply systems thinking
Large solutions invariably have many interconnected parts in vast organizations.
Here, solutions are defined as products, services, or systems delivered to an internal or external customer.
Team members should understand how their role fits into the bigger picture.
This can be achieved by considering three key areas: the solution itself, value streams, and the enterprise building the system.
Take an economic view
Everyone must understand the economic impact of project delays and act accordingly.
Operating within lead budgets and developing an understanding of economic trade-offs are a good place to start.
Limit work in progress (WIP) and manage queue lengths
Reducing work in process gives key stakeholders a more holistic understanding of project development.
Here, achieving flow through maximizing throughput is the priority.
This entails limiting the prevalence of overlapping work and the amount of work tackled at a given time.
Work should also be carried out in smaller batch sizes and be less complex.
Scaled Agile vs. Agile
Agile started as a lightweight development method compared to heavyweight software development, which is the core paradigm of the previous decades of software development. By 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was born as a set of principles that defined the new paradigm for software development as a continuous iteration. This would also influence the way of doing business.
As the name might suggest, the main difference between agile and scaled agile is in the ability of each discipline to work with smaller (agile) or larger enterprise teams (scaled agile).
Indeed, the main goal of scaled agile is to make the agile methodology viable at an enterprise level, thus focusing on some of the key values that matter the most at that level.
At an enterprise level, indeed, things like alignment, quality, and scaled execution matter the most.
Therefore, those values need to be balanced out with fast iterative product development loops.
Whereas in the agile methodology, instead, what matters the most is the ability of the small and lean team to ship fast and iterate even faster.
With very short development cycles that move along a continuous loop of building, launching, measuring, and learning.
Strengths and weaknesses of the scaled agile framework
Strengths
The most obvious strength of the scaled agile framework is that it allows large businesses to have the best of both worlds.
In other words, they can tap into the power of agile and efficient software development while still maintaining centralized, enterprise-level decision making.
The framework also delivers benefits in project alignment.
Alignment can sometimes waver in agile environments when developers lose sight of broader company objectives.
Centralized decision making again comes to the fore by ensuring that strategic objectives remain a key focus during product development.
Weaknesses
Perhaps ironically, SAFe tends to add layers of oversight and administration that many large organizations are trying to negate.
With administrative roles assigned for multiple projects, some argue that developers have little of the freedom or flexibility that characterizes agile environments.
The “bigger picture” thinking of SAFe also leads to longer planning cycles and fixed roles within development cycles.
Again, this contravenes agile development principles around delivering short sprints to bring products to market quickly.
Broadscale thinking also hinders the creation of continuous loops that are important in ensuring quality at every step of the process.
Scaled Agile Framework vs. Scrum
Scrum is a methodology co-created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland for effective team collaboration on complex products. Scrum was primarily thought for software development projects to deliver new software capability every 2-4 weeks. It is a sub-group of agile also used in project management to improve startups’ productivity.
Whereas Scaled Agile focuses on large organizations, to align large teams with launching products at scale.
Scrum focuses on an iterative approach for smaller teams to work more effectively to speed up execution.
Thus, a scrum might be more suited for smaller startups.
Scaled Agile might be more useful for large workforces and complex teams to collaborate effectively at scale.
Is Kanban Scaled Agile?
Kanban is a lean manufacturing framework first developed by Toyota in the late 1940s. The Kanban framework is a means of visualizing work as it moves through identifying potential bottlenecks. It does that through a process called just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing to optimize engineering processes, speed up manufacturing products, and improve the go-to-market strategy.
Kanban is an excellent tool for recording project management tasks related to software development.
Thus, Kanban might be one of the tools used within the Scaled Agile methodology.
Key takeaways
The scaled agile framework was developed to help large organizations bring better products to market in a timely fashion.
The scaled agile framework is based on several values and principles that help project teams in large or complex workforces collaborate effectively.
The scaled agile framework gives large organizations greater access to agile project development while maintaining centralized decision making. However, the effectiveness of this decision making when paired with agile principles is questionable.
AIOps is the application of artificial intelligence to IT operations. It has become particularly useful for modern IT management in hybridized, distributed, and dynamic environments. AIOps has become a key operational component of modern digital-based organizations, built around software and algorithms.
Agile started as a lightweight development method compared to heavyweight software development, which is the core paradigm of the previous decades of software development. By 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was born as a set of principles that defined the new paradigm for software development as a continuous iteration. This would also influence the way of doing business.
Agile Program Management is a means of managing, planning, and coordinating interrelated work in such a way that value delivery is emphasized for all key stakeholders. Agile Program Management (AgilePgM) is a disciplined yet flexible agile approach to managing transformational change within an organization.
Agile project management (APM) is a strategy that breaks large projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. In the APM methodology, each project is completed in small sections – often referred to as iterations. Each iteration is completed according to its project life cycle, beginning with the initial design and progressing to testing and then quality assurance.
Agile Modeling (AM) is a methodology for modeling and documenting software-based systems. Agile Modeling is critical to the rapid and continuous delivery of software. It is a collection of values, principles, and practices that guide effective, lightweight software modeling.
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Business modelinnovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers.
A consumer brand company like Procter & Gamble (P&G) defines “Constructive Disruption” as: a willingness to change, adapt, and create new trends and technologies that will shape our industry for the future. According to P&G, it moves around four pillars: lean innovation, brand building, supply chain, and digitalization & data analytics.
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As the name suggests, TDD is a test-driven technique for delivering high-quality software rapidly and sustainably. It is an iterative approach based on the idea that a failing test should be written before any code for a feature or function is written. Test-Driven Development (TDD) is an approach to software development that relies on very short development cycles.
Timeboxing is a simple yet powerful time-management technique for improving productivity. Timeboxing describes the process of proactively scheduling a block of time to spend on a task in the future. It was first described by author James Martin in a book about agile software development.
Scrum is a methodology co-created by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland for effective team collaboration on complex products. Scrum was primarily thought for software development projects to deliver new software capability every 2-4 weeks. It is a sub-group of agile also used in project management to improve startups’ productivity.
Scrumban is a project management framework that is a hybrid of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban is a popular approach to helping businesses focus on the right strategic tasks while simultaneously strengthening their processes.
Scrum anti-patterns describe any attractive, easy-to-implement solution that ultimately makes a problem worse. Therefore, these are the practice not to follow to prevent issues from emerging. Some classic examples of scrum anti-patterns comprise absent product owners, pre-assigned tickets (making individuals work in isolation), and discounting retrospectives (where review meetings are not useful to really make improvements).
Scrum at Scale (Scrum@Scale) is a framework that Scrum teams use to address complex problems and deliver high-value products. Scrum at Scale was created through a joint venture between the Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. The joint venture was overseen by Jeff Sutherland, a co-creator of Scrum and one of the principal authors of the Agile Manifesto.
Stretch objectives describe any task an agile team plans to complete without expressly committing to do so. Teams incorporate stretch objectives during a Sprint or Program Increment (PI) as part of Scaled Agile. They are used when the agile team is unsure of its capacity to attain an objective. Therefore, stretch objectives are instead outcomes that, while extremely desirable, are not the difference between the success or failure of each sprint.
The waterfall model was first described by Herbert D. Benington in 1956 during a presentation about the software used in radar imaging during the Cold War. Since there were no knowledge-based, creative software development strategies at the time, the waterfall method became standard practice. The waterfall model is a linear and sequential project management framework.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
