Less vs sa fe agile dc 2017 - clear systems

Editor's Notes

• #2: This is a 10 minute talk, like “speed dating” applied to conference presentations - so I will go through the slide rapidly, especially the principles mapping that just sets the stage, and everyone should have this material as handouts to follow along, and take with you. The purpose is to provide an objective, behind the curtain/next level down look at LeSS vs SAFe, one step below the generalities. Not in terms of better or worse, but simply same/different. See what’s there, and although I’ll make a summary observation, it’s for you to align the relative importance to you of the facts I’ll present.
• #3: So just from the definitions we start to see a key difference. LeSS is Scrum, explicitly. SAFe draws on Agile but provides explicit patterns for doing it at the enterprise level.
• #4: At a quick summary look, LeSS is about de-scaling the organization so that you have an environment as devoid as possible of hand-offs and sub-optimizations, and can implement large Scrum efforts. SAFe defines an explicit structural framework to enable scaling and asserts the need for doing so to address issues of architecture and execution at scale.
• #5: When you pop the hood on each, where are the specific similarities and differences. Let’s start at the bottom with the core principles each asserts. This is useful.
• #6: Here they are. Let’s see how they compare…
• #7: Still keeping our analysis at a macro level, these map closely. Both reference queuing theory and systems thinking. LeSS discussion of Continuous Improvement Toward Perfection and SAFe explanation of Building incrementally both speak to continually improving the product through iteration. The LeSS empirical process control principle embraces not just the product, but everything (process, etc.). SAFe’s principle about basing milestones on objective evaluation (empirical) is primarily applied to product, but SAFe does speak to process improvement elsewhere.
• #8: Though they state dedication to Lean thinking in somewhat different terms, both express it as a fundamental element of their approaches
• #9: Both LeSS and SAFe align with transparency, assuming variability and preserving options, customer centricity and decentralizing decision making, but vary on which they express as principles. Having it stated as a principle doesn’t necessarily mean greater emphasis. For example, although SAFe makes decentralizing decision making a core principle, this is actually even more evident in LeSS in terms of comparative practices, as we’ll see. SAFe states Transparency as one of four core values, even more fundamental than the 9 SAFe principles
• #10: So the majority of their core principles are pretty similar. At a further level of generalize, they both assert the importance applying Lean Principles and Systems Thinking. And both pledge allegiance to the Agile Manifesto. This manifests in, at a very macro level, the basic constructs of backlogs, Product Owners (and Scrum Masters), sprints and cadence, and regular reviews and reflection being incorporated by both LeSS and SAFe. So where do the differences come from? They start to appear when we look at the remaining principles we haven’t mapped yet, and how these practices are implemented based on them.
• #11: These remaining principles are where we begin to see the major differences in approach between LeSS and SAFe start to surface. LeSS is Scrum. Period. Scaling Scrum. It calls explicitly for flattening, or “de-scaling the organizational hierarchy, few roles, artifacts and process. And scaling Scrum as Scrum, without getting into additives. It is silent on management structure outside the Product Owner and Scrum Master. (Product Area Owners do show up in LeSS Huge). The Whole Product Focus points to one backlog, one Product Owner, one sprint, one product. SAFe’s insistence on cross-functional, empowered teams, and organizing around Product value streams could be said to imply organizational redesign as a Critical Success Factor. But in emphasizing the need for management leadership and strategy, it does add most fundamentally the program layer, itself structured to operate on lean and agile principles, but another layer of roles and process in any case. And it provides a layer for synchronizing across product domains. In emphasizing taking an Economic View as a core principle, SAFe previews the inclusion of guidance on budgeting and prioritization processes, e.g.. Weighted-Shortest-Job-First, at various levels - areas LeSS does dictate guidance for in its framework.
• #12: More is revealed when we look just one level deeper at LeSS and SAFe training and literature. LeSS couldn’t be clearer about its focus on radically de-scaling the organization and minimalist emphasis, letting teams and organization innovate within basic rules and guidance. Reference Barry Boehm’s principle that you build methodology up to suit your purposes, you don’t tailor down. Moreover, LeSS deprecates the whole concept of “managing dependencies” through another layer of coordination, saying there are no dependencies, only opportunities for shared work. As Ran Nyman puts it, the coordination cost is transformed into investment in learning by teams handling their own coordination. SAFe on the other hand is built on the assumption that Agile practices require additional structure and active management direction and leadership to make it work, but added structure that is, at each level, also implemented based on Lean and Agile principles In doing so, it extends into guidance on budgeting and approach to prioritization – the Economic View principle – leveraging Reinersten’s weighted-shortest-job-first in particular. It’s not that LeSS says management buy-in and vision is not key, it’s that SAFe places explicit emphasis on management in the SAFe implementation roadmap it recommends, and the specific roles at each level.
• #13: How does all this ultimately shake-out in in terms of practice? We’ve already touched on a few of the structural points, but here are some key specifics: SAFe has a Product Owner per team, a Product Management at the next level up. LeSS has ONE Product Owner for up to 8 teams. SAFe has a Release Train Engineer and System Architecture/Engineering at the explicit program level above the teams. LeSS has none of that. Above 8 teams, LeSS introduces groups of teams and Product Area Owners for each group, but still only one Product Owner over the whole product. In SAFe, the pattern of Release Train Engineer, Product Management, and Architecture/Engineering roles scale up to Solutions and then to the Enterprise Portfolio, with analogous repetition of these roles (more or less) with similar names.
• #14: Let’s look at the last point first. LeSS’s flat Product Owner structure is supported by each team empowered to engage directly with the customer to work out details. The Product Owner is above this. In SAFe there is the traditional team Product Owner role for each team. In SAFe much of the emphasis is around Program Increment planning. According to Scaled Agile, there’s nothing magical about SAFe, unless its PI planning. This is a central collaboration and forward planning event. In LeSS there is only the sprint. All teams get together for sprint review first half, then individual teams the second half. In LeSS Huge, where there are multiple Product Areas for the Product Area Owners collaborate regularly but how that is done is left up to them. In LeSS there is literally one Product Backlog, and specific discussion on how this accomplished, in order to avoid possible sub-optimization. SAFe doesn’t get into the mechanics of how each level of Backlog is managed, but has a holistic flow defined of what level of detail is achieved at each level.
• #15: SAFe accounts for incremental development of an architectural runway using architecture enablers defined by an architect role. In LeSS multi-team design workshops and communities are the mechanism – and sometimes “traveler” team members with special skills they gradually train out In both SAFe and LeSS there are no projects. In LeSS there are Products. The Product scope grows as the Definition of Done is perfected to encompass the entire value stream,. SAFe provides sizing levels – Release Trains, Solutions, and Value Streams. The SAFe framework includes process guidance for backlog prioritization and budgeting. LeSS does not speak to this, in line with its minimalist approach.
• #16: We could summarize this way: LeSS focuses on organizational simplification, a minimalist approach to Agile rules, based on Scrum and a whole product focus For SAFe Agile at scale is enabled by a scaling structure, each layer of which is designed to operated on Lean/Agile principles. The Both identify the need for system change. SAFe dwells more on the responsibility of Management to lead this change Distilling all of this down to a final observation that I believe it is accurate to say that LeSS asserts organizational simplification as key to achieving the perfect learning organization (not sub-optimized) that can pivot easily. SAFe asserts the need and value of a higher level structure for enabling dynamic coordination and necessary whole product guidance; the Program Layer and PI Planning are central pieces. There you have it. A next level down comparison of actual elements asserted by LeSS and SAFe. Plenty specific data to debate over!