Twelve years later, my first proper encounter with the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) was at Scan Agile 2013, where many an agilist in the audience was huffing and puffing and mumbling objections during Dean Leffingwell’s presentation.
If you come from a small but growing software development company, I can well understand how SAFe feels like an un-agile and overly complex framework – and it may well not be the best recipe for your situation. But for those of us who work in large systems development companies with traditional project management practices in a regulated field, SAFe provides a practical map for starting your agile journey – just make sure that you don’t stop moving.
In our business unit, we started using Scrum in our software development teams four years ago. It soon became evident that we wouldn’t reap all the benefits of agile development if we didn’t try to change the surrounding organization and the way we selected and prioritized our goals. This year, we decided to try out SAFe. It has been a busy spring and summer for us: getting trained, forming new teams, setting up our tools, collecting backlogs... but also discussing our values and management styles. Our first release planning event will start tomorrow.
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