Scaled Agile Framework Quotes

We’ve lost our way” is how another manifesto author, Andrew Hunt, put it in a 2015 essay titled “The Failure of Agile.” Hunt tells me the word agile has become “meaningless at best,” having been hijacked by “scads of vocal agile zealots” who had no idea what they were talking about. Agile has split into various camps and methodologies, with names like Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS) and Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD). The worst flavor, Hunt tells me, is Scaled Agile Framework, or SAFe, which he and some other original manifesto authors jokingly call Shitty Agile for Enterprise. “It’s a disaster,” Hunt tells me. “I have a few consultant friends who are making big bucks cleaning up failed SAFe implementations.” SAFe is the hellspawn brainchild of a company called Scaled Agile Inc., a bunch of mad scientists whose approach consists of a nightmare world of rules and charts and configurations. SAFe itself comes in multiple configurations, which you can find on the Scaled Agile website. Each one is an abomination of corporate complexity and Rube Goldberg-esque interdependencies.

SAFe® helps to improve the flow of value from the strategic level to the customers.

Executives need to understand the basic challenges of their current architecture and work to improve it over time. The build process needs to support managing different artifacts in the system as independent entities. Additionally, a solid, maintainable test automation framework needs to be in place so developers can trust the ability to quickly localize defects in their code when it fails. Until these fundamentals are in place, you will have limited success effectively transforming your processes.

It’s said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others’ mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others’ successes.

Real learning gets to the heart of what it means to be human. Through learning, we recreate ourselves. Through learning, we become able to do something we never were able to do. Through learning, we re-perceive the world and our relationship to it. Through learning, we extend our capacity to create, to be part of the generative process of life. There is within each of us a deep hunger for this type of learning.” —Peter M. Senge,

Agility is the ability to adapt and respond to change … agile organizations view change as an opportunity, not a threat.” —Jim Highsmith

In the age of software, every business is a software business. Agility isn’t an option, or a thing just for teams; it is a business imperative.” —Dean Leffingwell, creator of SAFe

This model, which Kotter calls a dual operating system, restores the speed and innovation of the entrepreneurial network while leveraging the benefits and stability of the hierarchical system.

With SAFe, organizations can better link strategy with execution, innovate faster and deliver high-quality solutions to the market more quickly.

interconnected, real-time world in which every industry depends on technology and every organization is (at least in part) a software company.

Lean Portfolio Management aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking approaches to strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and governance.

Overloading teams and ARTs with more work than can be reasonably accomplished causes too much WIP, which confuses priorities, causes frequent context switching, and increases overhead and wait times. Like a crowded highway at rush hour, there is simply no upside to having more WIP than the system can handle. Experience shows that excess WIP drives high utilization, which results in the inability to respond to change, burnout, late product launches, reduced profits, and poor economic outcomes.

The last insight to improve flow is to manage and reduce the length of the work queue. Long queues of work create all sorts of undesirable results.

Leaders set the example through coaching, empowering, and engaging individuals and teams to reach their highest potential.

The Lean-Agile mindset is the combination of beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, and actions of leaders and practitioners who embrace the concepts of the Agile Manifesto and Lean thinking and apply it in their daily lives.

Lean-Agile Leadership describes how Lean-Agile leaders drive and sustain organizational change by empowering individuals and teams to reach their highest potential.

Organizational Agility describes how Lean-thinking people and Agile teams optimize their business processes, evolve strategy with clear and decisive new commitments, and quickly adapt the organization as needed to capitalize on new opportunities.

To begin the Lean-Agile journey and instill new habits into the culture, everyone must adopt the values, mindset, and principles provided by SAFe, Lean thinking, and the Agile Manifesto. This new mindset creates the foundation needed for a successful Lean-Agile transformation.

The first step to correct the problem is to make the current WIP visible to all stakeholders. The simple Kanban board in Figure 4-8 provides one example of how to do this.

Strategic themes are elaborated by using a simple phrase or by using the Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) format

Leaders have to understand the principles and practices of change leadership and organizational change management. They must become curators, caretakers, and defenders of the new way of working.

A continuous learning culture will likely be the most effective way for this next generation of workers to relentlessly improve, and the successful companies that employ them.

excess Work In Process (WIP) produces multitasking (lowering productivity), unpredictability (lowering trust and engagement), and burnout (lowering everything).

The same level of attention and effort should be devoted to the launch of each subsequent train as for the first, focusing initially on ARTs within the same value stream before moving onto the next value stream.

Achieving business agility requires a more flexible approach to all types of contracts. How this is achieved depends on the nature and type of contract, but each must be considered in terms of the adaptability that may be required as strategy evolves.

The ‘SAFe managed-investment contract’ describes an Agile approach to contracts and can be found on the SAFe website.