The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a set of organization and workflow patterns intended to guide enterprises in scaling lean and agile practices. It is one of the leading frameworks for scaling Agile and has been adopted by many large organizations around the world. It provides a knowledge base of proven, integrated principles and practices to support enterprise agility.
SAFe promotes alignment, collaboration, and delivery across large numbers of agile teams. It was developed by and for practitioners, by leveraging three primary bodies of knowledge: agile software development, lean product development, and systems thinking.
Definition of SAFe
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a freely available online knowledge base that allows you to apply lean-agile practices at the enterprise level. It provides comprehensive guidance for work at the Portfolio, Large Solution, Program, and Team levels. SAFe was first introduced in 2011 by Dean Leffingwell as a public model for applying Lean and Agile practices at enterprise scale.
SAFe is designed to help businesses continuously and more efficiently deliver value on a regular and predictable schedule. It provides a structure for organizations to scale Agile and Lean principles and methods. The framework promotes alignment, collaboration, and delivery across multiple agile teams.
Components of SAFe
SAFe is made up of a number of components that work together to align the organization and its teams around the common goal of delivering quality solutions to the customer. These components include: Agile Teams, Agile Release Trains (ARTs), Solution Trains, and the Portfolio.
Agile Teams are cross-functional groups of 5-11 individuals who define, build, test, and deliver an increment of value in a short time box. Agile Release Trains (ARTs) are teams of Agile Teams, which align teams to a common business and technology mission. Solution Trains coordinate the efforts of multiple ARTs and suppliers to deliver more complex solutions. The Portfolio is the highest level of concern within SAFe. It provides the basic budgeting and governance mechanisms to ensure the enterprise's investment in solutions delivers the expected business benefits.
Principles of SAFe
SAFe is based on ten fundamental principles that derive from existing lean and agile principles. These principles include: Take an economic view, Apply systems thinking, Assume variability; preserve options, Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles, Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems, Visualize and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths, Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning, Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers, Decentralize decision-making, and Organize around value.
These principles provide a foundation for the roles, practices, and activities of SAFe. They guide the behaviors necessary to achieve the benefits of SAFe and ensure sustainable success. They are the true north for designing and implementing a lean, agile, and scalable enterprise.
SAFe and DevOps
DevOps is a set of practices that combines software development (Dev) and IT operations (Ops). It aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality. DevOps is complementary with Agile software development; several DevOps aspects came from Agile methodology.
In the context of SAFe, DevOps is a mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices. It provides communication, integration, automation, and close cooperation among all the people needed to plan, develop, test, deploy, release, and maintain a Solution. SAFe enterprises implement DevOps to break down silos and empower each Agile team and ART to continuously deliver new features to their end users.
Continuous Delivery Pipeline
The Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP) represents the workflows, activities, and automation needed to provide a continuous release of value to the end user. The pipeline consists of four aspects: Continuous Exploration (CE), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), and Release on Demand.
Continuous Exploration is the process of constantly exploring market and customer needs, and defining a Vision, Roadmap, and set of Features that address those needs. Continuous Integration is the process of taking features from the Program Backlog and developing, testing, integrating, and validating them in a staging environment. Continuous Deployment is the process of deploying updates to staging environments and the user acceptance testing (UAT) environment. Release on Demand is the process of deploying updates to production and releasing them to customers.
DevOps Culture
A DevOps culture fosters a high-trust environment, one where people feel safe to experiment, make mistakes, learn, and innovate. It's about breaking down silos and promoting collaborative work across all parts of the organization. In a SAFe context, this means fostering a culture of shared responsibility for delivering value to the end user.
DevOps culture in SAFe is about more than just tools and processes. It's about people and the way they work together. It's about creating a culture where everyone from development, operations, security, and business teams work together to deliver value to the end user. This requires a shift in mindset, where everyone in the organization understands their role in delivering value and is empowered to do their best work.
Benefits of Implementing SAFe
Implementing SAFe brings about a transformation in the way an organization works. It helps organizations deliver higher quality products faster, increases employee engagement and productivity, and leads to higher customer satisfaction.
By aligning the organization around a common goal, SAFe helps to break down silos and promote collaboration across all parts of the organization. This leads to faster decision-making, more efficient workflows, and a more responsive organization. Furthermore, by focusing on delivering value to the end user, organizations can ensure they are always working on the most important features and improvements.
Increased Productivity
One of the key benefits of implementing SAFe is increased productivity. By aligning teams around a common mission, reducing waste, and promoting efficient workflows, SAFe helps organizations deliver more value in less time.
SAFe promotes a culture of continuous improvement, where teams are constantly looking for ways to work better and deliver more value. This leads to increased productivity as teams become more efficient and effective in their work.
Improved Quality
SAFe also leads to improved quality. By promoting practices such as continuous integration, automated testing, and continuous delivery, SAFe helps organizations deliver higher quality products and services.
Furthermore, by fostering a culture of shared responsibility for quality, SAFe ensures that everyone in the organization is invested in delivering the best possible product. This leads to fewer defects, less rework, and a better product overall.
Conclusion
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a proven, codified, and publicly-facing knowledge base that is used to successfully scale Lean-Agile development in the larger software enterprise. SAFe is the world’s leading framework for scaling Agile across the enterprise. Used by hundreds of the world’s largest organizations, SAFe sustains and drives faster time-to-market, dramatic increases in productivity and quality, and improvement in employee engagement.
DevOps is a mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices. It provides communication, integration, automation, and close cooperation among all the people needed to plan, develop, test, deploy, release, and maintain a Solution. SAFe enterprises implement DevOps to break down silos and empower each Agile team and ART to continuously deliver new features to their end users.