Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) for Lean Enterprises is a comprehensive framework built around seven core competencies which enable business agility. Because SAFe is comprehensive it provides a lot of guidance which is very useful especially for large organisations. At the same time, it can be challenging to understand and implement all the good practices step-by-step.
Often organisations spend a significant amount of time and effort on defining and documenting how to change existing ways of working, in other words how to implement the framework. Although all the roles, practices etc. are described in the SAFe knowledge base it is not done in a way that makes it easy to operationalise in the daily work. For example, if you are assuming the role as Product Management understanding what are you supposed to do when in collaboration with whom as well as which work items are typically used as inputs to the work or created as a result of the work is not straight forward to understand from the knowledge base. So often organisations create their own descriptions of how the roles, processes, work items etc. are implemented, which of course needs to be updated as the framework and the implementation of it changes.
It is of course important to discuss and understand how to implement new roles, responsibilities, practices etc. However often the discussions and especially the documentation part end up slowing down the implementation.
Instead of spending a lot of time and effort on agreeing and documenting what to do, the time and effort would be better spent on actually changing the ways of working.
Applied SAFe® is a platform that enables everyone in your organisation to focus on implementing and improving lean-agile principles, practices, and processes instead of talking about it. It provides a common starting point which is fully aligned with SAFe. All teams can tailor their implementation of SAFe to fit their specific needs but still be aligned with the basic structure and processes in the framework. Applied SAFe contains all the descriptions in the SAFe knowledge base, but structured according to processes and roles. That makes it easier to understand what to do and how to do it in a concrete situation. Back to the example with the Product Management role. Let’s imagine that you want to know what you need to do in order to get the Program Backlog ready for PI Planning. In Applied SAFe you can quickly get an overview by looking at the simple process diagram:
It includes the description of program backlog refinement from the SAFe knowledge base, so you also have the detailed explanation.
So instead of discussing how to implement SAFe you are ready to implement it.
Applied SAFe has more features, for example related to compliance, and can provide many other benefits in addition to the ones described above.
If you would like to learn more about Applied SAFe join our free introduction webinar or contact us directly.
