Just when companies seems to be warming up to agile, here comes SCALED agile. But how is SAFe really different than agile? Does using the SAFe framework undermine the scrum teams? Isn’t SAFe just a glorified version of waterfall that companies adopt when they can’t handle “real” agile? I decided the best solution was to go through the training and spend some time practicing it in the field. What I found was that SAFe leverages the best of Lean, Kanban, and scrum. SAFe is intended for large, enterprise customers delivering extremely complex and interdependent systems, but that doesn’t mean it offers nothing to smaller teams. Since becoming a Safe program consultant, I have coached a number of my smaller customers on improving their software development and delivery processes leveraging techniques from SAFe. In this interactive session, I plan to quickly walk through the tenets of SAFe, share some of my learnings with you, and help you to understand when and how SAFe can benefit your team!

1. St Louis DevUp 2016

2. Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

3. There are lots of agile frameworks, I do not know which one is best and I had to
start SOMEWHERE? Tell me more!
I already use the SAFe framework, and am interested in hearing another
perspective 
My team has grown too big and we are struggling with scaling our scrum efforts!!
I’ve seen the SAFe diagram and it looks (scary |overwhelming | complex) and I
need the crib notes
SAFe seems like a bad idea, but I am open to hearing some alternative ideas about
how to apply it
I already hate SAFe and am hoping to heckle you the entire talk

6. Library of Congress

8. Problems
discovered too
late
No way to
improve
systematically
Hard to
manage
distributed
teams
Late
Delivery!
Too little
visibility
Too early
commitment to a
design that
didn’t work
Poor
morale

Massive
growth in
complexity
Phase gate
SDLC isn't
helping reduce
risk
Under-estimated
dependencies
And our retrospectives read like this

11. LEADERSHIP
Respectfor
peopleandculture
Flow
Innovation
Relentless
improvement
VALUE
House of Lean
Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
Agile Manifesto
Value in the sustainably
shortest lead time
That is, while there is value in the items on the
right, we value the items on the left more.
We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it
and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

12. 4 444 :
Documents Documents Unverified System System

13. Early delivery provides fast value with fast feedback
Time
ValueDelivery
Fast feedback

16. Scrum Team 1
Scrum Team 2
Scrum Team 3
Scrum Team 4
DevOps Team
Scrum Team 5
Scrum Team 6

17. Scrum Team 1
Scrum Team 2
Scrum Team 3
Scrum Team 4

26. THE
LEVELS

30. THE
PEOPLE

35. 35
“A system is a network of interdependent components
that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the
system.
A system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is
no system.”
—W. Edwards Deming

36. THE
BACKLOGS

38. THE
CADENCE

40. Deliver on Demand
Major
Release Customer
Upgrade
Customer
Preview
Major
Release New
Feature
Develop on Cadence
PSI PSI PSI PSI PSI

41. THE
QUALITY

43. RELENTLESS
IMPROVEMENT

47. Fear? Uncertainty? Doubt?
Maybe they haven’t ever really looked at SAFe beyond the “Big
Picture”
I honestly don’t know. But keep an open mind and check it out.
And in the end, maybe it just really isn’t right for your team…

49. Do you have a single product worked on by many teams?
Do you have a single team working on many products at the
same time?
Do you deliver many products that are worked on by many
teams?
Do you have one product worked on by a single team?

50. Focus on having a single product owner, not a product owner per
team
Minimize sources of work, if possible use one consolidated
portfolio backlog
Consolidate onto a minimum set of ALM/DevOps tools
Encourage and continually support EFFECTIVE and CONSTANT
communication
Make sure progress across teams is transparent and easily
discoverable

51. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize
Context switching to work on multiple products should NOT be
tolerated
Keep sprints short to allow for fast pivoting and integration of
learnings
Scrum may not be the only solution, be creative!
Extreme focus on quality – crap doesn’t scale!

52. First off  OH MY!!
Second off, this is where SAFe strategies shine
Leverage techniques already discussed
Bring the work to the team, always!
All teams must already be operating as highly effective agile
teams before you bring in SAFe strategies!!

53. Move along… SAFe is probably not for you
Embrace lean principals
Keep focusing on continuous improvement

55. ©2008-2014 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved.
A proven, publicly-facing framework for applying Lean and Agile practices at enterprise scale
ScaledAgileFramework.com
Synchronizes
alignment,
collaboration and
delivery for large
numbers of teams
CORE VALUES
1. Program Execution
2. Alignment
3. Code Quality
4. Transparency
55

57. SAFe Guidance: http://www.scaledagileframework.com/guidance/
Principals of Product Development Flow:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1935401009
Lean Change Management by Jason Little: www.amazon.com/Lean-
Change-Managment-Innovative-Organizational/dp/0990466507/

58. Email: Angela@PolarisSolutions.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andugan
Slideshare.NET: http://www.slideshare.net/angelabinkowski
Twitter: @OakParkGirl, @ChicagoALM, @TeamPolaris
Blog - http://www.tfswhisperer.com/
Chicago Visual Studio ALM User Group - http://www.chicagoalmug.org/
Polaris Solutions website - http://www.polarissolutions.com/
Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl