Introducing SAFe® 5

Editor's Notes

• #3: Trainer Guidance: Welcome to the software age—an interconnected, real-time world in which every industry is dependent on technology and every organization (at least in part) is a software company. To remain competitive, enterprises need to digitally transform their operations, business solutions, and customer experience. The larger challenge in many enterprises’ is that their current business models, organizational hierarchy, and technology infrastructure can’t keep pace with the rapid change required. Our discussion today is about competing in the age of software. The creator of the Framework have been inspired by some new works in the field including Mik Kersten's new book Project to Product and John Kotter’s new book XLR8 (phonetic ‘accelerate’). Studying technological trends, Kersten concludes that those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the 21st century. That's a bold statement. But when you look at the combined revenue of Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, you’ll see that the economics of the world have changed, dramatically. If the Global 2000 doesn't get to the same level of competence that these unicorns have achieved, the balance of power will be eventually end up in the hands of these few companies and that’s not a healthy thing.
• #4: Trainer Guidance:In Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital, Carlota Perez plots the evolution of society, business, and financial capital based on technological revolutions that have occurred over the last few hundred years. She opines that these disruptive trends happen every generation or so. These include technology trends such as the ‘age of steel and heavy engineering,’ ‘age of oil and mass production,’ and others. She concludes that these technology revolutions radically alter society, first via a mass movement in financial (investment) capital, which then results in new production capital (goods and services).Massive societal change, disruption, and a new economic order sets in. These are truly ‘world-shaking’ disruptions that occur with three distinct phases: Installation Period – New technology and financial capital combine to create a ‘Cambrian explosion’ (a geological term for a relatively short time over which a large diversity of life-forms appeared) of new entrants. Turning Point – Existing businesses either master the new technology or decline and become relics of the last age. Deployment Period – Production capital of the new technological giants starts to take over.
• #6: Trainer Guidance:So the questions arises as to where are we now? The data above would indicate that we are at, or past, the turning point. It ‘s astounding to witness that it seems to be easier for a digital company, like Tesla, to bring a software-based vehicle to market faster than all the might, money and accumulated knowledge of all car makers over the last 20 years. And look at Apple, now the largest watchmaker in the world by revenue. And the Apple Watch was only introduced in 2015!This means we are in the midst of a technological revolution that creates an existential crisis for some of the worlds largest and most valuable enterprises in insurance, trading, finance and banking, manufacturing, medical technology, aviation, automotive, consumer products, and the list goes on. It seems like every business MUST be a software business now.
• #7: Trainer Guidance:In his analysis of this work and in his book, Project to Product, Kersten notes that with respect to production capital “The productivity of software delivery at enterprise organizations falls woefully behind that of the tech giants, and the digital transformations that should be turning the tide are failing to deliver business results.” This means that many large and successful enterprises today face an existential crisis, the distinctive competencies and massive tangible assets that got them there—distribution, real estate, manufacturing, retail, local banking centers, insurance agents—will not be adequate to assure survival in the digital age. But these leaders get it, so why is it so difficult to transform?
• #8: Trainer Guidance:In his new book, Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World, renowned author and Harvard researcher John Kotter (author of the breakthrough text Leading Change) notes that the culture and management paradigms associated with the past technological revolutions have built a legacy of inflexible hierarchies that are unable to adapt to modern challenges. The question is how do we make that transition?
• #9: Trainer Guidance:In Accelerate, Kotter illustrates that successful enterprises don’t start as large and cumbersome. Rather, they typically began as a fast-moving, adaptive network of motivated individuals aligned to a common vision and focused on the needs of their customers. Roles and reporting relationships are fluid, and people collaborate organically to identify customer needs, explore potential solutions, and deliver value in any way they can. In other words, it’s an adaptive ‘entrepreneurial network’ of people working towards a shared, customer-centric purpose
• #10: Trainer Guidance:As the enterprise succeeds, it naturally wants to expand on its success and grow. This means that individual responsibilities must become clearer to ensure that critical tasks are carried out. To add expertise, specialists are hired. Departments are created. Policies and procedures are established to ensure legality and compliance and to drive repeatable, cost-efficient operations. The business starts to organize by function. Silos begin to form. Meanwhile, operating in parallel, the network continues to seek new opportunities to deliver value.
• #11: Trainer Guidance:To achieve increasing economies of scale, the hierarchy continues to grow. And grow. However, by assuming the practices and responsibilities incumbent on large businesses, it begins to conflict with the entrepreneurial network. With the authority of current revenue and profitability needs behind it, the hierarchical organization collides with the faster-moving, more adaptive network. The result? The network gets crushed in the process. Customer centricity is one of the casualties.
• #12: Trainer Guidance: So, what’s to be done? Kotter notes that the solution is not to trash what we know and start over. But instead to re-introduce a second operating system We still need the hierarchy system that drives the current revenue model, provides the efficiency and stability, keeps the heat, power, and lights on, and sells and maintains their products and services. But we need a second system that adds the Agility back. One that focuses on providing the customer with new solutions that address emerging opportunities and problems. One that is nimble, adaptable, and vale stream based.
• #13: Trainer Guidance:The organizational hierarchies that we’ve built over the last fifty years have done a great job of providing time-tested structures, practices, and policies. They support the recruiting, retention, and growth of thousands of employees across the globe. Simply put, they are still needed. But the question becomes, how to organize and reintroduce the entrepreneurial network? In addressing the dilemma, Kotter points out, “The solution is not to trash what we know and start over but instead to reintroduce a second system.” This model, which Kotter calls a ‘dual operating system’, restores the speed and innovation of the entrepreneurial network while leveraging the benefits and stability of the hierarchical system.
• #14: Trainer Guidance: So how do we create such a dual operating system? By organizing the second operating system around value streams instead of departments, SAFe offers a way for enterprises to focus on customers, products, innovation, and growth. Moreover, this operating system is flexible. It is built on time tested Lean, Agile, and SAFe practices, and it can organize and quickly reorganize without completely disrupting the existing hierarchy. That’s what Business Agility demands.
• #17: Trainer Guidance:Many companies in traditional industries are becoming software companies. Banks, insurance companies, automotive, and more, all are affected by software in fundamental ways. Most capital investments include a technology component, regardless of company size or industry. Achieving a state of business agility means all aspects of the business—including marketing—is involved in delivering high-quality, innovative solutions to the market faster than the competition. The business can only go as fast as its slowest part. In short, what we are talking about is a mindset shift.
• #18: Trainer Guidance: While the benefits are clear, before an enterprise can gain SAFe’s substantial business benefits, it must transform itself into a Lean enterprise.  This transformation requires developing new ‘enterprise competencies’ that enable a new style of leadership, new ways of thinking and working, and a culture focused on value delivery and continuous improvement.
• #20: Trainer Guidance: The Scaled Agile Framework applies the power of Agile, along with the contemporary knowledge found in systems thinking and Lean product development to help businesses address the significant challenges of developing and delivering enterprise-class technology-based solutions with high quality and fast time-to-market. It is an online, freely-revealed knowledge base of proven success patterns for achieving business agility.
• #21: Trainer Guidance: The practices of SAFe are freely available of the framework website. These have been proven to work in an integrated fashion in many organizations.
• #22: Trainer Guidance: By adopting SAFe—and applying its well-described set of values, principles, and practices—the enterprise can address these questions and realize greater business and individual benefits. Now in its sixth major revision, SAFe 5.0 is enabling business agility and improving business outcomes for organizations of all sizes across the world. SAFe has produced dramatic improvements in time to market, employee engagement, higher quality, higher customer satisfaction, and overall improved economic outcomes. It also helps create cultures that are more productive, rewarding, and fun. The figure on this slide highlights these benefits.
• #23: Trainer Guidance: These numbers and results come from the companies themselves, both private and public enterprises. We don’t influence them. We simply gather the data from the enterprises and publish them. Go to the website and you’ll see over 40 documented customer stories on SAFe right now. scaledagileframework.com/customer-stories
• #25: Trainer Guidance: To achieve Business Agility, the organization requires a significant degree of expertise across seven core competencies. While each competency can deliverer value independently, they are also interdependent in that true Business Agility can be present only when the enterprise achieves a meaningful state of mastery of all competencies.
• #27: Trainer Guidance: The Lean-Agile Leadership competency describes how Lean-Agile Leaders drive and sustain organizational change and operational excellence by empowering individuals and teams to reach their highest potential. Leading by Example – Leaders gain earned authority by modelling the desired behaviors for others to follow, inspiring them to incorporate the leader’s example into their development journey. Mindset and Principles – By embedding the Lean-Agile way of working in their beliefs, decisions, responses, and actions, leaders model the expected norm throughout the organization. Leading Change – Leaders lead (rather than support) the transformation by creating the environment, preparing the people, and providing the necessary resources to realize the desired outcomes.
• #29: Trainer Guidance: The Team and Technical Agility competency describes the critical skills and Lean-Agile principles and practices that high-performing Agile teams and Teams of Agile teams use to create high-quality solutions for their customers. Agile Teams – High-performing, cross-functional teams anchor the competency by applying effective Agile principles and practices. Team of Agile Teams – Agile teams operate within the context of a SAFe Agile Release Train (ART), a long-lived, team of Agile teams that provides a shared vision and direction and is ultimately responsible for delivering solution outcomes. Built-in Quality – All Agile teams apply defined Agile practices to create high-quality, well-designed solutions that support current and future business needs.
• #31: Trainer Guidance: Agile Product Delivery is a customer-centric approach to defining, building, and releasing a continuous flow of valuable products and services to customers and users. Customer Centricity and Design Thinking – Customer centricity puts the customer at the center of every decision and uses design thinking to ensure the solution is desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable. Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand – Developing on cadence helps manage the variability inherent in product development. Decoupling the release of value from that cadence ensures customers can get what they need when they need it. DevOps and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline – DevOps and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline creates the foundation that enables enterprises to release value, in whole or in part, at any time it’s needed.
• #33: Trainer Guidance: The Enterprise Solution Delivery competency describes how to apply Lean-Agile principles and practices to the specification, development, deployment, operation, and evolution of the world’s largest and most sophisticated software applications, networks, and cyber-physical systems. Lean System and Solution Engineering applies Lean-Agile practices to align and coordinate all the activities necessary to specify, architect, design, implement, test, deploy, evolve, and ultimately decommission these systems. Coordinating Trains and Suppliers coordinates and aligns the extended set of value streams to a shared business and technology mission. It uses the coordinated Vision, Backlogs, and Roadmaps with common Program Increments (PI) and synchronization points. Continually Evolve Live Systems ensures both the development pipeline and the large systems themselves support continuous delivery of value, both during and after, release into the field.
• #35: Trainer Guidance: The Lean Portfolio Management competency aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking approaches to strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and governance. Strategy and Investment Funding ensures that the entire portfolio is aligned and funded to create and maintain the solutions needed to meet business targets. It requires the cooperation of Business Owners, portfolio stakeholders, technologists, and Enterprise Architects. Agile Portfolio Operations coordinates and supports decentralized program execution, enabling operational excellence. It requires the cooperation of the Agile Program Management Office/Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (APMO/LACE) and Communities of Practice (CoPs) for Release Train Engineers (RTEs) and Scrum Masters. Lean Governance manages spending, audit and compliance, forecasting expenses, and measurement. It requires the engagement of the Agile PMO/LACE, Business Owners, and Enterprise Architects.
• #37: Trainer Guidance: The Organizational Agility competency describes how Lean-thinking people and Agile teams optimize their business processes, evolve strategy with clear and decisive new commitments, and quickly adapt the organization as needed to capitalize on new opportunities. Lean-Thinking People and Agile Teams – This state occurs when everyone involved in solution delivery is trained in Lean and Agile methods and embraces and embodies the values, principles, and practices. Lean Business Operations – Teams apply Lean principles to understand, map, and continuously improve the business processes that support the business’s products and services. Strategy Agility – This state occurs when the enterprise shows the ability and adaptability needed to sense the market and quickly change strategy when necessary continuously.
• #38: Trainer Guidance: Organizations today face an onslaught of forces that create both uncertainty and opportunity. The pace of technology innovation is beyond exponential. Startup companies challenge the status quo by transforming, disrupting, and in some cases eliminating entire markets. Juggernaut companies like Amazon and Google are entering entirely new markets such as banking and healthcare. At any moment, political, economic, and environmental turmoil threaten to change the rules. Expectations from new generations of workers, customers, and society as a whole challenges companies to think and act beyond balance sheets and quarterly earnings reports. Due to all of these factors and more, one thing is certain: organizations in the digital age must be able to adapt rapidly and continuously or face decline—and ultimately extinction.What’s the solution? In order to thrive in the current climate, organizations must evolve into adaptive engines of change, powered by a culture of fast and effective learning at all levels.
• #39: Trainer Guidance: The Continuous Learning Culture competency describes a set of values and practices that encourage individuals—and the enterprise as a whole—to continually increase knowledge, competence, performance, and innovation. This is achieved by becoming a learning organization, committing to relentless improvement, and promoting a culture of innovation. Learning Organization – Employees at every level are learning and growing so that the organization can transform and adapt to an ever-changing world. Innovation Culture – Employees are encouraged and empowered to explore and implement creative ideas that enable future value delivery. Relentless Improvement – Every part of the enterprise focuses on continuously improving its solutions, products, and processes.
• #41: Trainer Guidance: Achieving business agility and the benefits of Lean-Agile development at scale is not a trivial effort, so SAFe is not a trivial framework. Before realizing SAFe’s rewards, organizations must embrace a Lean-Agile Mindset as well as understand and apply Lean-Agile principles. They must identify Value Streams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs), implement a Lean-Agile portfolio, build quality in, and establish the mechanisms for continuous value delivery and DevOps. And, of course, the culture must evolve as well. Based on proven organizational change management strategies, the SAFe Implementation Roadmap graphic and article series describes the steps or “critical moves” an enterprise can take to implement SAFe in an orderly, reliable, and successful fashion.
• #42: Trainer Guidance: The SAFe business agility assessment provided on the SAFe website helps enterprises understand where they are on their journey, identify next steps, and remember to celebrate successes along the way. Periodically applying the assessment, contemplating the results, and following the recommendations will help ensure the best possible business outcomes. Download the SAFe Business Agility Self-Assessment from the Measure & Grow article at scaledagileframework.com.
• #43: SAFe supports the full range of development environments with four out-of-the-box configurations. The Essential SAFe configuration is the basic building block for all SAFe configurations and is the simplest starting point for implementation. It provides the Lean-Agile leadership competency, the team and technical Agility competency, and the Agile product delivery competency. The Large Solution SAFe configuration introduces the enterprise solution delivery competency, which supports those building the largest and most complex solutions that require multiple Agile release trains and suppliers, but do not require portfolio-level considerations. The Portfolio SAFe configuration provides the lean portfolio management competency, which aligns portfolio execution to enterprise strategy. It organizes development around the flow of value through one or more value streams. The Full SAFe configuration includes all seven core competencies of the Lean enterprise. It is the most comprehensive version of the Framework and supports enterprises that build and maintain a portfolio of large and complex solutions.
• #44: Scaled Agile’s role-based curriculum helps enterprises unlock business results with SAFe. Each course is designed to help individuals maximize the value of their role within a SAFe organization, and help them advance throughout their career as they practice, consult, or train others in SAFe. The result is higher-quality implementations, and greater stability for the organization.