The increasing number of organizations performing Agile development at the team level know that nothing beats an Agile approach for delivering fully-tested products to the customer in the most efficient manner possible.
As Agile momentum continues to grow in every industry, “Agile Mature” organizations are implementing what’s called SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) to create an Agile organizational structure at the Portfolio, Program and Team levels. If your team is having difficulty integrating Agile methodologies into your projects, read our recent blog on finding your agile rhythm.
SAFe is an industry-proven, value-focused method for scaling Agile to the Enterprise level. It answers tough questions like "How do we budget?", "How do we plan?" and "How do we become cross-functional in architecture and DevOps?" SAFe helps large organizations point teams toward meeting the organization’s strategic goals, not just individual project goals. The framework provides the ability to create, and maintain, a centralized strategy with a coherent approach towards delivery of value.
The SAFe model has three levels that centralize the strategic themes of an organization. This centralized strategy, coupled with the de-centralized Agile development execution, can be an efficient manner of Enterprise Scale Agile.
Portfolio Level
The portfolio management level of SAFe provides aim for the entire system. This is where the organization’s strategic themes are given life, value and priority as part of the development process. The majority of organizations that can benefit from implementing SAFe either currently have a Portfolio Management Office (PMO), or have a need to generate a group that performs this work. SAFe builds upon the typical PMO infrastructure by ensuring Lean and Agile practices are used.
Program Level
The Program level in SAFe is where the Agile Release Train (ART) resides. Agile Release Trains are a group of 8-12 teams funded to perform long-term development based on the enterprise strategy. This approach provides a continuous flow of products, applications and services for your customers to enjoy. SAFe utilizes value streams to align initiatives within the ART.
Team Level
At the Team level, SAFe uses the Agile development Scrum, inheriting its Roles, Ceremonies and Artifacts. Once Release Planning has happened at the Program level, a team then plans every Sprint during Sprint Planning at a micro level; as typically prescribed by Scrum.