Transitioning to Scaled Agile: Key steps for a successful implementation

 by Tobias Pfundt

1. Introduction to Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®)

Agile

Agile business management describes a concept and set of tools that focus on the incremental development and continuous adaptation of products, as opposed to the classic waterfall methodology. To do this cross functional, non-siloed teams are needed to develop, test, deploy and release in increments. The processes and ceremonies in Agile are structured and timeboxed to allow for an efficient flow of value. The benefits of this approach are a high adaptability to changing market conditions, increased customer satisfaction, faster time to market and a better risk mitigation. Scrum is one of the most common methodologies at team level and was born in the field of software development.

Product

Product orientation is a systematic approach focusing on the customer to achieve an agile mindset. Decisions are localized based on current data. The most important aspect of product orientation is the creation of value for the customer. The other upsides are increased quality, productivity, time to market as well as more engaged and autonomous team members. These principles are applied by many quality focused companies in the digital space, such as Netflix, Spotify, Tesla and many others.

SAFe®

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) scales agile practices across large organizations, incorporating principles like lean production and agile development at its core. SAFe® has been developed to scale across the entire organization allowing for the development of single products all the way through to massively complex solutions. The key to SAFe®’s success is the synchronization of agile teams to develop test and deliver increments on a common cadence. Multiple Scrum Teams (up to 125 members) form Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to produce value in a continuous delivery pipeline. SAFe® considers Design Thinking, customer centricity and Lean UX as fundamental elements for product development. Through SAFe® organizations can overcome the rigidity of hierarchical structures in order to create innovative and desired products. This improves collaboration throughout the organization and is a crucial step for a business to progress towards a digital mindset. SAFe® has gained popularity and is implemented in sectors like automotive, FinTech, technology and healthcare ¹.

2. Preparing for SAFe® implementation

Transitioning to SAFe® is a big organizational step and requires thorough preparation, a familiarity with Lean-Agile principles and a companywide commitment to the transformation.

Assessing the Organizational Readiness

To assess if the organization is ready for the transition to SAFe® it is important to thoroughly understand current organizational challenges and to identify how SAFe® is going to contribute to resolve them. One factor to consider is the Agile Maturity of the organization, which can be an indicator of how deep the organizational change will be, as a company already employing agile practices will require less foundational work to transition to SAFe®.

Agile Enablement Training for Management and Teams

As the management has a crucial role in enabling the change through managing the budgets, providing guidance and acting as a role model, they need to be trained from the start in the principles of Lean-Agile Leadership and Lean Portfolio Management. The teams need a basic understanding of Agile and SAFe® that is required for their work, therefore they must be trained on the foundational principles, the framework, the SAFe® specific roles and how they work the most effective in the new agile environment. After everyone is enabled it will still be important to continuously improve, therefore regular fresh ups and updates on new practices are a must for a successful SAFe® journey. 

Establishing a SAFe® Transformation Team

To guide the transformation from a methodical perspective the organization must determine a SAFe® transformation team or office, which should ideally consist of leaders, agile coaches and SAFe® SPCs. They will become the SAFe® knowledge hub of the organization and drive the transformation, while also removing potential impediments. The transformation team will create a roadmap for the SAFe® transformation including key deliverables, milestones, and necessary timelines.

3. Tools for Agile Implementation and Enablement

The tools recommended are not exclusive, but are suggested on the basis, that they are readily available in the majority of organizations.

Confluence

The use of Confluence in a SAFe® transformation can be advantageous, as it can serve as a centralized knowledge repository for the organization, where teams can share content and collaborate. As transparency is important in agile Confluence can be used for agile documentation practices and to allow all stakeholders to view progress and updates. The seamless integration into other tools like Jira is a big advantage of Confluence, as this allows for a well synchronized and transparent organization.

Jira

As Jira is specifically designed for agile project management and seamlessly integrates with confluence it is the easiest option when looking for a way to manage the projects and track progress. It allows Teams to work in Scrum and Kanban, providing transparency and real time collaboration. Jira offers important agile reporting features like burn-down charts, velocity charts and sprint reports. As Atlassian is focused on large enterprises and has a big user base it grants good scalability. Due to Atlassians market position there is a large market for additional plug ins and tools that can connect or integrate into Jira to tailor the experience to the needs of the organization.

SAFe® enabling tools for Jira

As Jira was initially developed for small agile teams and not large organizations working in a scaled agile way the default hierarchy that is employed in Jira might be confusing for users expecting to work in a scaled agile way, as the default Jira Hierarchy is Epic -> Issue -> Sub task. This can of course be adapted. SAFe® on the other hand operates with Epic -> Feature -> User Story -> Task as the hierarchy for product development. As Jira is not considering this, as well as not considering things like PIs and the PI Planning the utilization of software add ons and plug ins could prove crucial in having a smooth transition to SAFe®. Having an out of the box working solution tailored to SAFe® has the potential to drastically smoothen the implementation.

Agile Hive, a tool focused on developers, is directly integrated into Jira. It is SAFe® certified and enables PI Planning, ARTs, program-/solution increments, tracking and visualization of dependencies, reporting, a role-based access to the platform and the capability to scale.

Jira Align is an agile enabling tool that is connected to Jira. It is fully SAFe® and Scrum certified and offers a more Top-Down approach to scaling agile practices, focusing more on the high-level monitoring for management. It connects the strategy with the execution and allows to visualize and manage dependencies.

Whiteboards for Jira is a tool to visualize the project management and collaboration in Jira. It can be used to manage issues with digital whiteboards and a UI similar to Miro. The visualization of workflows and planning can be helpful for employees that need a visual workspace on the operational level.

4. Key Implementation Steps

After having ensured the organization is ready to transform and the right basis of tools for the specific case have been selected one of the most critical parts comes into action, the actual key steps for implementing SAFe® in the organization. The following steps would be recommended to keep in mind when implementing SAFe® in your organization.

Identifying the Value Streams and ARTs

First of all, what must be identified are the relevant value streams of the organization from requirement up to the delivery of the product. Depending on the complexity of the value stream the company may either need a single release train or an entire solution train infrastructure. It would be recommended to initially identify one single value stream and then increase as the agile maturity of the company improves. This also includes designing, testing and all other relevant steps in between. This is of high importance, as what should be achieved in SAFe® is to organize around value and create interdisciplinary teams, that are able to develop, test and deploy without any outside dependencies regarding capabilities. To depict the value streams visually is strongly recommended. After identifying the value streams and determining the Agile Teams the Agile Teams need tobe organized into Agile Release Trains (ARTs). The ART consists of 5-10 teams that all work towards a common goal together.

Setting up Roles, Meeting structures and Knowledge hub

To facilitate all the necessary SAFe® synchronizations and processes the transformation should determine, based on which SAFe® configuration the organization needs which roles are needed. After having determined the right people for those roles an initial meeting structure should be set up by the transformation team, that enables the necessary SAFe® syncs like PO and Scrum Master Sync, as well as any additional ones that might be needed for the organization. These will evolve further along the SAFe® journey, when enough input has been generated on how things could be further improved. Having an always available knowledge hub can offer great benefits to the members and reduce the workload of the transformation team, therefore developing something like a transformation handbook or an equivalent in Confluence is worth considering.

Planning and Executing the first PI

It takes at least 3 months before the first PI to prepare everything. This is important to consider when setting a timeline. After having set up the foundational structures the organization should determine their PI duration, increment duration and sprint duration. To start into the first PI the PI planning, the most important SAFe® event must be held, where all members of the organization come together resolve dependencies and plan the upcoming PI. To initiate and successfully execute this event, a number of things need to be prepared. First the business priorities and scope of the PI must be clear before the PI planning. Second the PM must have a vision briefing for the PI including the 10 most important features of the ART backlog. Third, on the architectural side the architecture and systems must be clear and a briefing with the Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs), architecture and necessary features and enablers must be prepared. Lastly the RTE has to make sure that everything regarding event logistics, technology needed for the event and communication is prepared for a successful PI Planning.

Establishing a Lean Agile Center of excellence in the organization

To continue guiding the organization even after the transformation as a driver of cultural change, knowledge hub and guidance provider a Lean Agile Center of excellence should be established. This can be formed out of the transformation or its members, when the transformation team is no longer needed. The members should be evangelists for SAFe® and coach the organization to get even better along the way.

5. Common Challenges and Solutions

As implementing new things in large organizations is never plug and play it is no different when implementing a complex new framework like SAFe®. Therefore, here are some tips on how to potentially deal with some of the challenges that may arise.

Dealing with resistance to change

Resistance to change is one of the most important challenges to overcome and it is important to understand that the root cause is not necessarily disliking of SAFe® but rather the fear of something new and unknown and moving out of the comfort zone. Therefore, inclusivity in the change is important, as everyone must be involved and be able to voice their opinions, so that their concerns can be understood and addressed accordingly. Everyone should understand the benefits in the organization that SAFe® will bring, from efficiency up to quality, hence they should be communicated to all members of the organization. The leadership as a role model in the organization must also support and push the transition to SAFe®, only then the transformation will be taken seriously.

Effective communication

SAFe® is employed primarily in large organizations, in which it can be difficult to communicate across teams, due to the size and complexity. To combat this, regular sync meetings should be established in the initial meeting structure, and more should be added if deemed necessary. Communication must also be standardized, so that members of the organization don’t lose the overview, therefore a standard communication channel must be selected and communicated to the employees. This could be MS Teams, Slack or Confluence.

Managing dependencies in large scale development

Large organizations with many teams can get complex quickly, which can result in dependencies being identified too late. To mitigate this, SAFe® roles like the RTE and the PI Planning event are crucial. The dependencies should be identified as early as possible, so that they can be considered in the planning of a PI. Tools like Jira Align and Agile Hive can be very helpful in regard to making those dependencies visible. This is important for the management, as well as for the teams, as they can keep track of the dependencies and ensure that they don’t affect the flow of value.

6. Measure Success and Improve Continuously

To determine if the organization is progressing and to identify improvements points there is a fundamental need of data.

Metrics and KPIs

The metrics and KPIs that could be useful in the SAFe® transformation can be team velocity, quality related metrics, delivery lead time and customer satisfaction. These can be visualized with Jira tools, like Agile Hive and Jira Align in their respective reporting functions.

Inspect and Adapt

SAFe® is built on the belief in the power of iterative feedback and improvements. This can be practiced by having regular retrospectives in the meeting structure not only on the team, but also on the program and if applicable portfolio level. By empowering everyone in the organization to embrace the change and the lean-agile principles the organization will continuously improve itself and its flow of value.

Case studies

The best way to convince people that something is working is always a real world example. This can be done by sharing real world examples and stories from other companies that have implemented SAFe®. The insights and best practices that can be derived from these case studies can inspire the staff and turn everyone into a committed change driver when they realize the value and potential.

7. Key Takeaways

To conclude the journey of exploring the SAFe® implementation journey here are the key takeaways:

1.     Embracing agile business management means moving away from traditional approaches

2.     Creating customer-centric products is at the heart of SAFe®

3.     SAFe® is not just a new framework, it should foster a culture of innovation and collaboration

4.     Enabling every member of the organization is crucial and a transformation team to lead the process is of great value

5.     Utilizing the power of software tools can make the transition easier for everyone in the organization

6.     A structured approach to organize around value and launching SAFe® gradually smoothens the transition

7.     Turning everyone in the organization into a SAFe® supporter drives the implementation

8.     The striving for continuous improvement never ends

Sources:

¹The Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) | Scaled Agile