Scaled agile framework SAFe®: In a nutshell

Agility & New Work is on everyone’s lips. Almost everyone is familiar with the Scrum framework and…

“As Scrum is to the agile team, SAFe® is to the agile enterprise.”

Dean Leffingwell

You know them: There are companies like Apple or Google that understand their work particularly well (at least according to their reputation). Others, on the other hand, achieve less with the same prerequisites (products, resources,…). What’s the reason?

One factor is certainly the agile way of working - not only at the team level, but also at the company level.

SAFe® Scaled Agile - why scale?

A single team often cannot solve the customer’s wishes and problems alone - at least not that quickly. And that’s where the SAFe® Scaled Agile Framework comes into play. It scales agile methods for many teams.

The goal of SAFe® is ultimately not just to make a team agile. No, SAFe® should make an entire company agile - also called “business agility.” 

SAFe® is therefore a very specific system that dictates how you - from team to management level - need to organize yourself to be agile.

With SAFe, this can of course be done outside of the IT department as well ( more about Agile outside of IT ).

Scaled agile framework SAFe®: 7 focus areas

There are seven areas that the Scaled agile framework SAFe® focuses on:

1. Team and technical agility: team roles and responsibilities are very well aligned.
2. Agile product delivery: the goal is to deliver the best and most innovative product to the customer at all times.
3. Enterprise solution delivery: You don’t just create innovative products, you design a solution for every problem your customers have.
4. Lean Portfolio Management: The “portfolio” of projects is strategically planned - with close and short feedback cycles between planning and implementation.
5. Organizational agility: working on the business processes and on the teams themselves with a focus on adaptability, competitiveness, and transparency.
6. Continuous learning culture: embedded in the Scaled agile framework SAFe® and in the meetings that accompany it, the goal is to continuously learn at every level of the organization.
7. Lean Agile Leadership: leadership should empower and serve people (Servant Leadership) and underpin the strengths of individuals. Working at eye level vs. hierarchies.

In SAFe®, several agile teams work together to form the so-called Agile Release Train (ART). The role of “Release Train Engineer” accompanies all teams and processes in its release train, similar to a Scrum Master. As a rule, around 52 - 125 people work together in an Agile Release Train, subordinated in teams. 

Team level

Each team delivers customer value in small steps every sprint (typically a period of two weeks) - also called value. Together, all teams of the Agile Release Train deliver the so-called Product Increment (PI) at the end of 5 sprints or iterations (often a quarter) - i.e. ideally a product feature that can be used by the customer.

Company level

If a company has a few hundred employees, they would be divided into several agile release trains. The Scaled agile framework SAFe® is therefore a suitable solution for corporations or larger companies. The simple difference to Scrum is the number of employees involved. 

Management level

The vision and the product backlog are specified by management in the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe®. With the help of e.g. Methods such as Design Thinking and Customer Centricity solve problems and challenges of customers also at the management level - at least if you apply “Full SAFe®”. 

By the way, you can find out more about the structure and organization or configuration of SAFe® and what levels there are in the framework depending on the size of the company best agile metric in this - the 4 levels of SAFe®. 

This 5 minute explainer video here gives another nice overview of the Scaled agile framework SAFe®.

What is SAFe® agile framework: Other scaling frameworks

Based on our customer interactions with agile companies, we can say that the Scaled agile framework SAFe® is probably the most widely used framework for scaling agile methods. 

Nevertheless, there are also some fault-finders of the framework. For more info, check out this article (with a provocative headline): “Beware SAFe® - an Unholy Incarnation of Darkness”. 

By the way, a quick note in the context of agile transformation: Do you want to make sure that you are currently setting the right priorities in your agile transformation? 

Then do our maturity check for your agile transformation - it only takes 3 minutes. You even get a benchmark based on the over three hundred other participants. See button 🙂

By the way, other frameworks for scaling agile methods throughout the enterprise are LeSS (Large Scale Scrum), Scrum @ Scale and Nexus. You can find out more on each of these under the links. 

Beware of this when implementing scaled agile frameworks

In our experience, the different frameworks have both their advantages and disadvantages. If you’re thinking about adopting one of the frameworks to scale agile, here’s what you should keep in mind:

1. In the very first step, we advise an analysis of the overall situation in your company to understand exactly why (and if) you want to introduce scaled agile methods in the first place. Where is the pain or the core reason for the change? This serves as the foundation for…
2. The preparation of the management team - it must be 100% behind the change. As a rule, every agile change stands or falls with management.
3. The following applies to the selection of the framework: In the best case, you either choose the framework that best solves your own problems. Or - according to the agile philosophy - you pick the aspects from the various frameworks that you consider most useful and iterate continuously or continuously try out different forms of them. 
4. It is recommended to let experienced and qualified consultants accompany this change.

By the way, in this context it is also relevant how many Agile Coaches you actually have to hire for the transformation - and how much budget that actually needs (more on this in “ How many agile coaches do I need ”).

What is Scaled agile framework SAFe®: Conclusion 

Hopefully the article gave you a brief overview of the Scaled Agile Framework. If you would like to learn more about the work of a SAFe Product Owner, please take a look right here stop by our blog article on the topic.

By the way, if you are still looking for a suitable retro board, our article can help you with the topic: Comparing the 6 best retrospective boards

The author: Christine Graf – Agile Coach & Scrum Master at “be agile” (change-agile.org)