What is SAFe and why is it gaining popularity?

One of the key benefits of SAFe is that it helps organizations align their business goals with their agile delivery. This alignment is essential for successful agile transformation at scale. Another key benefit of SAFe is that it provides a clear path for scaling agile. SAFe lays out a step-by-step process for how to successfully implement agile at scale. This process includes everything from establishing an agile foundation, to launching and scaling agile programs, to delivering value at scale.

SAFe is gaining popularity because it is a proven framework for successfully scaling agile across the enterprise. In fact, SAFe has been adopted by some of the world’s largest organizations, such as IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon.

The four SAFe core values—Alignment, Built-In Quality, Transparency, and Program Execution—guide every decision that a SAFe team makes.

Alignment means that the team is aligned with the business goals. When the team is misaligned, it can lead to frustration and delays.

Built-In Quality means that the team builds quality into every aspect of their work. This includes everything from writing code that is easy to maintain, to testing early and often, to using automation wherever possible.

Transparency means that the team is transparent with stakeholders about their progress and what they are working on. This transparency builds trust and allows stakeholders to provide timely feedback.

Program Execution means that the team delivers value incrementally, using a continuous delivery model. This helps ensure that business goals are met and that customer needs are being addressed. SAFe places focus on delivering value early and often, rather than waiting for the “perfect” solution. Since multiple teams are working on different parts of the solution concurrently, it’s important that they coordinate and communicate regularly to avoid duplication of effort.

A well designed systems architecture determines how a system will function and how it will behave under various conditions. A well-functioning system is one that meets the needs of its users and provides them with an optimal experience. The SAFe methodology recognizes the importance of architecture in achieving these goals and provides guidance on how to design and implement a scalable architecture.

As an organisation must prioritise releasing on demand. The emphasis should be on new features that are gradually brought into production in response to customer demand. Always aim for smaller/incremental changes in production, as this allows faster, more frequent, and risk-free release.

Business outcomes in conjunction with working systems are very well supported by SAFe. The main goal of SAFe is to ensure that all the teams are coordinated and are working on the same page which will lead to lesser chaos and better results. Businesses want their systems to be well-functioning so that users have optimal experience while interacting with it. SAFe lays out clear guidance on how to design a scalable architecture so that businesses can achieve their goals. SAFe gives us scalability and configurability that meets our business objectives, regardless of the size of the company, and lets us focus on delivering working software every two weeks. In what is known as a Program Increment, the Agile Release Train (ART) brings together several agile teams on a consistent schedule every 8-12 weeks (PI). The next fixed and time-bound activity is planning cadence-based sessions when team members come together to discuss the goals they want to achieve. PI planning is a face-to-face, collaborative, interactive, and innovative session that fosters team spirit and synergy and encourages development and management teams to share strategy, common vision, and architecture.

Conclusion paragraph:

SAFe is an industry-proven, value-focused method for scaling Agile at the Enterprise level. The framework offers the ability to maintain and create a centralized strategy to deliver value. The SAFe model has four levels that centralize the strategic themes of an organization. Centralizing these themes helps keep teams aligned with the company’s vision, while giving them room to innovate and work autonomously on their individual projects.If you’re interested in learning more about SAFe, or getting certified in SAFe, be sure to check out our upcoming training course at Skillier.com. This course will provide you with everything you need to know about SAFe, and how to implement it effectively within your organization. Register today and get started on your journey!