In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, agility is not just a buzzword; it’s a necessity. As enterprises strive to remain competitive and innovate faster, they seek methodologies that enable them to scale Agile practices across their organizations seamlessly. One such framework that has gained immense popularity in recent years is the Scaled Agile Framework, or SAFe. In this blog post, we’ll delve into what SAFe is, its key components, and how it offers a structured approach for scaling agile throughout your organization.
Every business is a software business now.
– Dean Leffingwell, Creator of SAFe
Achieving a state of Business Agility means
that the entire organization—not just
development—is engaged in continually and
proactively delivering innovative business
solutions faster than the competition.
💡 What is the Scaled Agile Framework? – General Overview
SAFe, short for Scaled Agile Framework, is a comprehensive and scalable framework designed to help organizations implement Agile effectively. The framework is a body of knowledge providing guidance on various aspects including roles, responsibilities, effective work planning and mapping of Value Streams for reaching customer-centricity. In addition, SAFe offers flexibility with four configurations tailored to different scale levels: Essential SAFe, Large Solution SAFe, Portfolio SAFe, Full SAFe. The best part? SAFe’s entire knowledge base, including success patterns, is available for free, making it accessible to all. It’s no wonder that SAFe remains one of the most popular Agile frameworks globally.
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) – General Overview
- Offers a comprehensive framework for scaling Agile practices
- Suitable for organizations of any size and complexity
- Integrates Lean, Agile and DevOps principles and practices
- Creates Customer-Centricity through alignment with Value Streams
- Provides clear roles, responsibilities and events on different levels: Team Level, ART Level, Solution Level, Portfolio Level
- Offers 4 configurations for different levels of Scale: Essential SAFe, Large Solution SAFe, Portfolio SAFe, Full SAFe
Source Image: SAFe 6.0 (scaledagileframework.com)
🕵🏻♀️ SAFe Roles
⏳ SAFe Events
📋 SAFe Principles
SAFe principles are intended to influence the decisions-making of not just leaders and managers, but of everyone in the organization. They aim to instill a shift from traditional waterfall behaviours to a Lean-Agile thinking.
- Take an Economic View: SAFe emphasizes the importance of understanding the economic impact of decisions made within the organization. By considering both short-term and long-term costs and benefits, businesses can make informed choices that maximize value.
- Apply Systems Thinking: This principle encourages organizations to view their processes and structures as interconnected systems. By understanding how different components interact, businesses can optimize their workflows and identify areas for improvement.
- Assume Variability; Preserve Options: SAFe acknowledges the inherent variability in software development and encourages organizations to maintain flexibility by preserving multiple options. This allows teams to adapt to changing requirements and market conditions more effectively.
- Build Incrementally with Fast, Integrated Learning Cycles: Rather than attempting to deliver large, monolithic solutions, SAFe advocates for incremental delivery with fast feedback loops. This approach enables teams to validate assumptions early, learn from their experiences, and course-correct as needed.
- Base Milestones on Objective Evaluation of Working Systems: SAFe recommends setting milestones based on tangible outcomes rather than arbitrary deadlines. By evaluating working systems objectively, organizations can ensure that progress is measured accurately and that value is delivered consistently.
- Visualize and Limit WIP, Reduce Batch Sizes, and Manage Queue Lengths: This principle emphasizes the importance of visualizing work, limiting work in progress (WIP), reducing batch sizes, and managing queue lengths to optimize flow. By minimizing bottlenecks and reducing multitasking, organizations can improve productivity and throughput.
- Apply Cadence, Synchronize with Cross-Domain Planning: SAFe promotes the use of cadence—the regular, predictable rhythm of work—to synchronize activities across teams and domains. By aligning schedules and coordinating planning efforts, organizations can enhance collaboration and reduce dependencies.
- Unlock the Intrinsic Motivation of Knowledge Workers: Recognizing that knowledge workers are driven by intrinsic motivations such as autonomy, mastery, and purpose, SAFe encourages organizations to create an environment that fosters creativity, innovation, and personal growth.
- Decentralize Decision-Making: SAFe advocates for decentralizing decision-making to empower teams and individuals closest to the work. By distributing authority and responsibility, organizations can increase agility, responsiveness, and adaptability.
- Organize Around Value: Finally, SAFe emphasizes the importance of organizing around value—the ultimate measure of success for any business. By aligning teams and resources around delivering value to customers, organizations can ensure that their efforts are focused on what matters most.
These 10 SAFe principles have been driving organizational success across industries and governments worldwide.
🔎 How to implement SAFe?
SAFe provides a proven implementation roadmap that contains critical moves on how to successfully introduce SAFe within your organization. The goal is to establish the foundations as early as possible, which includes defining a Case for Change, training Change Agents and Leaders, and providing basic training for a common SAFe language and knowledge.
The SAFe Implementation Roadmap recommends these following steps:
- Reaching the Tipping Point
- Train Lean-Agile Change Agents
- Create a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence
- Train Executives, Managers, and Leaders
- Lead in the Digital Age
- Organize Around Value
- Create the Implementation Plan
- Prepare for ART Launch
- Train Teams and Launch ART
- Coach ART Execution
- Launch More ARTs and Value Streams
- Enhance the Portfolio
- Accelerate
Source: Implementation Roadmap – Scaled Agile Framework
Before getting startet with the Implementation Roadmap it is essential to have executive-level sponsorship as well as a strong purpose for change. Then conducting these steps with care is crucial to archieve the organizational change that you want to archieve for your organization.
🚀 SAFe Certifications
SAFe Certifications are valuable to demonstrate that you possess the skills and knowledge needed to work with the SAFe Framework. There are various SAFe certifications available based on roles and skill levels:
- Leading SAFe®
- Impelemting SAFe®
- SAFe® Product Owner/Product Manager
- SAFe® Scrum Master
- SAFe® Lean Portfolio Management
- SAFe® for Teams
- SAFe® Release Train Engineer
- SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master
- SAFe® DevOps Practioner
- SAFe® for Architects
- SAFe® Agile Product Management
- SAFe® for Government
- SAFe® Agile Software Engineering
👨🏼🎓 Discover more about each certification and find out which one is for you in this article: Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Certifications – Become an Agile Expert.
