3. Overview
SAFe 5 includes an overview tab. This graphic provides a simplified view of SAFe’s Seven Core
Competencies of the Lean Enterprise and their twenty-one dimensions that enable business agility. The
focal point for all the competencies is the customer. Lean-Agile Leadership is the foundation. Measure and
Grow at the top right is a reminder of periodic assessments needed to track the organization’s progress
towards the principles and practices that enable business agility. This overview is a useful tool for providing
an initial orientation to SAFe, introducing the business agility assessment, and framing executive briefings.
4. Team and Technical Agility
The Team and Technical Agility competency describe 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. It consists of three dimensions
5. Agile Product Delivery
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. There are three
dimensions to Agile Product Delivery.
6. Enterprise Solution Delivery
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. It consists of three dimensions.
7. Lean Portfolio Management
The Lean Portfolio Management competency aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and
systems thinking. It accomplishes this through three collaborations for strategy and investment
funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance.
8. Organizational Agility
Even with the competencies above, the enterprises must be able to change quickly to respond to the
challenges and opportunities that today’s rapidly evolving markets present. This requires more flexibility and
adaptability than the hierarchical operating system is likely to be able to muster. Again, we turn to the
second operating system for help. SAFe helps businesses address these challenges with Organizational Agility,
which is expressed in three dimensions
9. Continuous Learning Culture
To address the demand for continuous learning, growth of its people, and improvement in processes,
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. It is expressed in three dimensions.
10. Lean-Agile Leadership
Finally, we recognize that an organization’s managers, executives, and other leaders provide the foundation
ultimately responsible for the adoption and success of Lean-Agile development and mastery of the
competencies that lead to Business Agility. Leaders, therefore, must internalize and model leaner ways of
thinking and operating so that team members will learn from their example, coaching, and encouragement. By
helping leaders develop along three dimensions, organizations can establish the core competency of Lean-Agile
Leadership.
