Find Out About the Features of the SAFe Framework
Framework Breakdown
Date of creation | 2011 |
Popularity | By far the most popular framework (35% in 2021) |
Documentation | Very detailed and therefore reassuring for large companies |
Training | 13 types of certification courses |
Selection criteria | Number of teams: 5 to 12 Level of agile capability and experience of the teams: HIGH Level of dependencies: HIGH Planning horizon: 1 increment (5 Sprints) |
Application scope | It is the right framework for tackling a complex environment and transforming an entire company |
SAFe adds a layer of methodology called Program over the top of your agile teams. It is in this layer that each role, event, and Scrum artifact finds their equivalent at scale.
Agile Roles at Scale
Release Train Engineer
Your Release Train Engineer (RTE) could be thought of as a more scaled Scrum Master, responsible for securing the methodological and organizational alignment of your teams.
The RTE facilitates your Program level events and ensures that the train runs smoothly.
Product Management
Your Product Management comprises one or more people and a “Scaled” Product Owner responsible for the business/functional alignment of your teams.
The Scaled PO is customer-focused and leads the strategic vision for the business area, with functional advances being their priority.
System Architect
They lead the architectural principles and technical progress.
System Team
A special kind of agile team, it supports all of the other teams and is dedicated to automating the entire integration and deployment chain. The team is also in charge of the testing strategy and the associated equipment.
Their goal is to ensure that your teams can devote all of their energy and attention to value production in their business area without being hampered by manual tasks or issues relating to environments.
Agile events at scale
The planning horizon recommended by SAFe is an increment made up of five iterations of two weeks, so 10 weeks in total. This is shown visually in the illustration below:
Let's look more closely at the different events.
Scrum of Scrums
Each week, your Release Train Engineer gathers representatives from each team, usually the Scrum Masters, together to:
Share how the teams are progressing in a transparent fashion.
Coordinate dependencies between your teams.
Remove obstacles and monitor risks.
Align the different teams on agile practices.
PO Sync
Each week, your Product Management gathers the Product Owners to:
Share teams' progress in relation to the business area objectives.
Ensure that the solution has functional coherence.
Perform functional arbitrage.
Give visibility on the functionalities planned for the next increment.
System Demo
The System Demo is the opportunity for your teams to showcase an integrated solution in order to gather feedback from the business areas and then adapt it accordingly. It takes place at the end of each iteration. The System Demo for iteration five is the chance to gather a broader panel of members from the business side to show them the product of the work undertaken during the entire increment.
Inspect and Adapt Event
The increment ends with an Inspect and Adapt event organized by your Release Train Engineer, where everybody is invited to identify things that went well and any problems that may have arisen during the increment and to improve collectively for the next increment.
Innovation and Planning
Iteration five, called Innovation and Planning, is a special iteration for which no work should be planned. It allows your teams to:
Week 1 |
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Week 2 |
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Program Increment Planning (PI Planning)
SAFe includes a model agenda for your Program Increment Planning. You can change the timings and the duration of the slots; but it is essential that the different stages and the order of these stages are not modified.
😱 This is getting a bit hard to follow...
Don't panic! Let me explain it all in detail. 😉
The first half-day is devoted entirely to aligning your teams:
The business context is presented by your sponsor and the business area objectives are presented by your Product Management so as to align your teams from a business/functional perspective.
The architecture and the principles are presented by your System Architect in order to align your teams from a technical point of view.
Context planning allows your Release Train Engineer to remind everyone of the objectives for these two days and align your teams in terms of methodology.
The second and third half-days are team breakouts, which means people will be working in teams to:
Plan iterations.
Meet the other teams to manage dependencies.
Exchange with Product Management to ensure the need is properly understood.
Exchange with the System Architect on technical matters.
A managerial review between two team breakouts allows decisions to be taken and any necessary adjustments to be made.
The last half-day is used to validate all of the work done:
A presentation by each team on their planning schedule.
Overall management of risks to identify leaders who will establish action plans to minimize the risks.
A confidence vote, where everybody gives a score from 0 to 5 to measure whether the collective commitment is attainable. If the average score following the vote is below 3, an additional team breakout is held to revise plans and thus secure a collective commitment.
An end of event retrospective in order to improve the next Program Increment Planning.
During the team breakouts, your teams will jointly construct:
A single Program Board that displays the functionalities that your teams plan to complete in each iteration, as well as the dependencies between the functionalities.
One Team Board per team that shows the work that is planned, and the risks identified for each of your teams in each of the iterations.
Example of a Program Board co-constructed during the team breakouts.
Advantages
The power of Program Increment Planning fosters lively discussions.
A planning horizon of one increment, which enables good management of cross-team dependencies.
A System Team, there to support the other teams, is responsible for automating integration and continuous deployment.
SAFe offers a methodological framework for delivering solutions that require several trains.
SAFe also offers agile and lean management of the company portfolio.
Points of Caution
Scaling up all of the concepts in Scrum carries with it significant implementation costs. This framework should therefore be reserved only for the scopes that really need it.
SAFe is a complex framework that requires tailored training programs before being launched.
A sponsor is important for assembling a train with all of the staff needed to enable value to be delivered to customers entirely autonomously.
A planning horizon of 10 weeks may be a barrier for a scope that needs to pivot more frequently.
The time devoted to innovation in Sprint five often means that previous iterations are brought to an end.
The Product Owners may feel a loss of responsibility in the transition to SAFe because they must shift their focus from the customer to the team.
Over to You!
Develop Your System
After four months of agility at scale with the LeSS framework, the UX-Booking teams have noticed that they have a lot of dependencies with the Fidelio teams. All of these teams have therefore decided to come together under a unified system comprising six teams in total.
What framework will you recommend for this system and why?
Organize the Program Increment Planning
The first Program Increment Planning session has been planned, but the Release Train Engineer hasn't yet been recruited! While you wait for the person to be hired, responsibility for organizing this major event now falls to you.
Define the list of actions that have to be performed in preparation for the event.
Tweak Your System
A year later, your system’s budget is cut considerably. There are just three teams left, with a medium level of dependence. Despite everything, you decide not to change the framework.
Which component of SAFe may it no longer be sensible to apply?
Answer Sheet
You can consult the answer sheet to check your work.
Let's Recap!
SAFe introduces the notion of a train to define a system made up of between 50 and 125 people, or 5 to 12 agile teams. A train can deliver value to its customers autonomously.
The planning horizon recommended by SAFe is an increment of 10 weeks.
Every time an increment begins, a Program Increment Planning constitutes the core event of the framework because it gathers together all members of the train for two days.
From a methodological point of view, SAFe scales up all of the elements in Scrum, which leads to a high cost of implementation.
You have now mastered three very different frameworks that will enable you to address the diversity in your scopes. All that remains is for you to bolster the spirit of fellowship between your teams using practices taken from the Spotify model.
