2. Challenges for scaling with scrum in an
enterprise
Coordination Among teams
Colocation
Large Product backlog
Product Integration
Architecture Development
Code Quality
3. Some Scaling Practices
Release Planning
Scrum of Scrums
Meta Scrum
Communities of Practice
Product Backlog Refinement
Combined Retrospectives
Integrated Sprint Planning
5. What is it ?
A proven publically available framework for applying Agile Practices at
Enterprise Scale
6. Few things to understand SAFe
The Scaled Agile Framework®, or SAFe®, provides a recipe for adopting Agile
at enterprise scale. It is illustrated in the big picture.
As Scrum is to the Agile team, SAFe is to the Agile enterprise.
SAFe tackles the tough issues – architecture, integration, funding, governance
and roles at scale. It is field-tested and enterprise-friendly.
There are three levels in SAFe:
* Team
* Program
* Portfolio
7. The Management Challenge
It is not enough that management
commit themselves to quality and
productivity, they must know what it
is they must do.
Such a responsibility cannot be
delegated.
—W. Edwards Deming
“…and if you can’t come, send no one”
—Vignette from Out of the Crisis, Deming,1986
8. What it is they must do
Embrace Lean-Agile Values
Apply Lean-Agile Principles
Implement Lean-Agile Practices
Lead the Implementation
10. Value in the Shortest Sustainable
Lead Time
There is only one boss. The
customer. And he can fire
everybody in the company.
—Sam Walton
‣ Achieve the sustainably shortest
lead time with
‣ Best quality and value to
people and society
‣ High morale, safety,
customer delight
LEADERSHIP
Respectfor
peopleandculture
Flow
Innovation
Relentless
improvement
VALUE
14. SAFe is an online, freely revealed
knowledge base of
proven success patterns
for implementing Lean-Agile development
at enterprise scale.
14
15. Nothing Beats an Agile Team
▸ Cross-functional Agile Teams deliver working software every
two weeks
▸ Scrum roles and project management practices, XP-inspired
technical practices; Kanban for flow
ScrumXP Kanban
16. Except a Team of Agile Teams▸ Cross-functional teams-of-agile-teams deliver working system
increments every two weeks
▸ Operate with common Vision, architecture and UX guidance
▸ Collaborate, align, and adapt with face-to-face planning and
retrospectives
17. Executing Strategy in an Agile Portfolio
▸ Organize Agile Release Trains around Value Streams
▸ Centralize strategy; decentralize execution
▸ Empower decision makers with Lean-Agile budgeting
▸ Provide portfolio visibility and WIP limits
▸ Leverage objective metrics for governance and improvement
18. That Delivers Business Results
Happier, more
motivated
employees
20–50%
increase in
productivity
30–75%
faster time
to market
50%+
defect
reduction
See ScaledAgileFramework.com/case-studies
20. Leadership
People are already doing
their best; the problems are
with the system.
Only management can
change the system.
—W. Edwards Deming
‣ Lead the change
‣ Know the way; emphasize
life-long learning
‣ Develop people
‣ Inspire and align with mission;
minimize constraints
‣ Decentralize decision-making
‣ Unlock the intrinsic motivation of
knowledge workers
Respectfor
peopleandculture
Flow
Innovation
Relentless
improvement
VALUE
LEADERSHIP
There are two helpful images for Lean thinking
House of Lean. A classic representation that has been around for years. It describes principles that are essential for Lean thinking. This “house” is updated with current thinking.
Lean Grid. This four-quadrant grid helps organize the elements of lean into types.
The two work together.
Our mission is to help s/w dependent enterprises achieve better outcomes, increased employee engagement, and improved economics through Lean-Agile principles and practices based on the Scaled Agile Framework.
OVERVIEW: In this slide, you can explain that, at first glance, the Framework may appear complicated. However, you can provide assurance that you will take them through it in a logical manner.
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
This is what is referred to as the “SAFe Big Picture”. At first, it may look complicated, but as we will see, it is actually a very straight-forward and logical representation.
We will see that roles, artifacts, and activities are clearly defined based on proven principles and practices.
Decomposing the SAFe Big Picture into it’s constituent parts, we’ll discover that it’s a simple, powerful and easily understood framework for managing complex software and systems development.
OVERVIEW: Consider starting first with Lean-Agile Leaders. From there, you can tailor the discussion based on your audience. For example, if you’re speaking to an executive audience not familiar with Agile, you may want to continue with Program Portfolio Management and work your way down. If your audience is familiar with Agile, you could start with the teams and work your way up.
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
You’ll see Lean-Agile Leaders next to the House of Lean. These are not specific people filling a specific role. Rather, they represents the leadership required across the organization, as guided by the House of Lean, to support a Lean-Agile enterprise.
Let’s now move to the Team level where we have small cross-functional teams that are empowered to make localized decisions to get work done. Each team has a Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developers, Testers, and other needed team roles.
The System Team supports the Agile teams by building and maintaining tools for continuous integration, automated testing, and other infrastructure to support development and quality. They also conduct the testing which cannot be done by the individual teams.
Business Owners set priorities and negotiate trade-offs.
A User Experience engineer and a System Architect at the Program level provide guidance for the teams.
The Release Train Engineer facilitates the activities of the Agile Release Train, much like the Scrum Master facilitates the activities of the team.
Moving up to the Portfolio level, we have the Program Portfolio Management team responsible for strategy and investment funding, program execution, and governance. They have the highest level fiduciary responsibility in the Framework.
An Enterprise Architect provides strategy and architectural guidance for the portfolio.
Are there any other roles of interest I didn’t mention?
OVERVIEW: Here, you can introduce the Enterprise Backlog Model consisting of the Portfolio, Program, Team, and Sprint backlogs. You can also elaborate on the artifacts and roles which influence the creation and prioritization of the backlog items, such as Strategic Themes, the Program Vision, and Program Roadmap.
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
There are three levels of backlogs which comprise the Enterprise Backlog Model: the Portfolio Backlog which contains Epics, the Program Backlog which contains Features, and the Team Backlog which contains Stories
The backlog items that the teams work on align the enterprise strategy and the program vision.
Epics are identified, either business or architectural, and are progressively elaborated as they flow through the Portfolio Kanban System. The Kanban System makes the strategic business initiatives visible and brings a structured analysis process driven by economics.
Epics are broken down into Features. Prioritization is guided by the Program Vision and Roadmap. We’ll take about prioritization later.
Features are then broken down into Stories which are executed by the Agile teams.
However, this isn’t a strict hierarchy. A Feature may emerge within the context of the Program and not have a parent Epic. Likewise, a Story may emerge within the content of the Team.
OVERVIEW: Here, you can discuss the Sprint at the Team Level and the Program Increment, or PI, and Program Level
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
At the Team Level, the teams work in two week increments called Sprints. They begin each Sprint with detailed planning and end with a demo and a retrospective
At the Program Level, the teams on the Agile Release Train works in 8 – 12 week increments, called Programs Increments, or PIs. A PI, begins with a higher level planning event, called Release Planning, and ends with a demo and retrospective known as “Inspect and Adapt.”
The teams on the Agile Release Train develop on cadence, but can release on demand based on business needs.
Are there any other questions about cadence and synchronization for alignment?
OVERVIEW: Here, you can explain code quality in the level of detail required by your audience:
The practices (Agile Architecture, continuous integration, and test-first development)
Architecture as a first-class citizen, with architecture at the highest level in the form of Architectural Epics
Demonstrations of tested code at the Team and Program Levels (Team Demo, System Demo, and PI Demo)
Key roles (the Enterprise Architect and System Architect, as well as Release Management, DevOps, and the System Team)
The construction of the Architectural Runway by teams under the guidance of the System Architect
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
Ron Jeffries, one of the original signatories of the Agile Manifesto has this to say about what he’s learned over the years: “looking back over all of my successful (and not so successful) projects, I’d apply XP (Extreme Programming) techniques to all of them, if I had them to do over”. That’s a strong statement but an important one.
However, Extreme Programming isn’t that extreme. It has influenced the code quality practices emphasized in the Framework.
SAFe focuses on three Code Quality practices: Agile Architecture, continuous integration, and test-first development.
Agile Architecture brings together architectural guidance provided by the Enterprise and System Architects which is then validated by the teams with short feedback loops as they build the Architectural Runway. Architectural Runway is the code needed to support near-term functionality.
We rely heavily on continuous integration. This gives the teams fast feedback if code is broken, as well as reduces risk when code is integrated.
Teams use test-first approaches, such as test-driven development, acceptance test-driven development, and automated testing, to test early and often.
These techniques help us “build the right software” while “building it right,” advocated by Andrew Dassing.
Do you have any further questions about code quality in SAFe?
OVERVIEW: Here, you can reference the House of Lean’s pillar of relentless improvement and explain how the Framework supports it.
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
One of the pillars of the House of Lean is relentless improvement. An enterprise is never agile; it is always becoming more agile.
There are multiple events which serve as forcing functions for relentless improvement. Each cross-functional team conducts a retrospective at the end of every sprint. In this retrospective, the team reflects on the good and the bad and collaborates on ways to improve.
Collectively, the entire Agile Release Train has a retrospective at the end of every Program Increment called the Inspect and Adapt Workshop. During this workshop, root cause analysis is used to identify Program Level problems and ways to improve.
Though everyone is responsible for relentless improvement, there are several key roles: the Release Train Engineer and the Business Owners. The Release Train Engineer facilitates the processes. The Business Owners and other Lean-Agile Leaders remove impediments which the teams themselves cannot remove.
During the Innovation and Planning (IP) sprint, teams may have continuing education opportunities and “hackathons” where new approaches, tools, techniques, and prototypes are explored and demonstrated.
Fact-based metrics are used as feedback loops to measure the rapid progress towards working, high quality software which satisfies the needs of the business.
OVERVIEW: Here, you may or may not go into detail based on your audience. At the Portfolio Level, you might describe Strategic Themes, the Portfolio Kanban System, and Lean-Agile budgeting. At the Program Level, you might discuss the guidance provided by the Program Vision, Roadmap, and WSJF in prioritizing the Program Backlog. You can also explain how PI Objectives are used to measure value delivery. Finally, you might mention how releasing on demand is driven by business needs and should be done frequently.
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
The connection between the enterprise business strategy and the Portfolio is through Strategic Themes. This brief list guides budgeting and prioritization, and facilitates decision-making.
Epics are progressively analyzed as they move through the Portfolio Kanban System to determine the most important initiatives to do at that given point in time, knowing market conditions may change. It also assures capacity matching.
Budgets are also allocated to Agile Release Trains in order to decentralize decisions which can be made quickly and efficiently at the Program Level. Would you like to hear more about Lean-Agile Budgeting?
Sequencing of Epics and Features is driven by a Lean approach called Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) which looks at the cost of delaying one item in order to do another. It looks at both the cost of delay and the effort to complete it. Would you like to hear more about WSJF?
The business value delivered at the end of each Program Increment is assessed by the Business Owners to measure planned vs. actual. The business is responsible for prioritizing and the teams are responsible for delivering.
Finally, the business determines when a working increment of software needs to be released, rather than the more rigid waterfall approach of delivering everything at the end.
OVERVIEW: You can use this slide to bring thing “full circle” and summarize what your audience has learned. You can also pause here to take questions, or use the final slide which simply says “Questions?”
SAMPLE SPEAKER NOTES:
We’re back where we started.
We saw that roles, artifacts, and activities are clearly defined based on proven principles and practices.
After decomposing the SAFe Big Picture into it’s constituent parts, I hope we’ve learned that it’s a simple, powerful and easily understood framework for managing complex software and systems development.