Sunday, January 20, 2013

Scaled Agile Framework Applied - Part 1/5: Introduction and Context


Since encountering Dean Leffingwell’s Scaled Agile Framework(SAFe), I have presented the model to dozens of senior executives and middle management from numerous enterprises grappling with the question of how to effectively scale agile.  Without exception, the ‘Big Picture’ resonates.  It is easily incorporated in their mental model of the key ingredients in delivering enterprise scale outcomes, and a 1 hour overview leads to the response ‘I can believe in that’. 

The challenge, of course, arises when you start to delve into the follow-on question – “Now how do I make it work in my special situation?”  Like any good framework, it is designed on a set of principles.   Implementation requires leveraging your understanding of the principles to tailor the detail to your situation.

In this series of posts, I will endeavour to illustrate with working examples the fashion in which it has been applied in the group I have been guiding for the past 9 months.  

Approach

The success of this implementation has attracted a great deal of interest in both the enterprise the group belongs to and other Australian companies grappling with scaling agility.   On a weekly basis, groups visit to understand ‘how it is done’.  

Over time, we have established a ‘2-hour tour format’ that walks the model.   Tours always begin at an A0 poster of the ‘big picture’.  We spend 5 or 10 minutes giving a brief overview, then proceed to work our way through the portfolio, program, feature and team kanban walls illustrating the way work flows through the layers of the model and the type of discussions they facilitate.  My intent in this series will be as much as possible to provide a simulation of a physical tour.  It will be structured as follows:

  • Part 1 - Introduction and Context
  • Part 2 - Demand management and the portfolio kanban
  • Part 3 - Program level pipeline management and the program kanban
  • Part 4 - In-play work and the program level feature wall
  • Part 5 - Results to-date and Conclusion 

Context 

The setting is a large enterprise in the midst of an Agile transformation.    They experienced good success with many smaller agile projects, but encountered significant challenges in the early stages of applying it to major programs of work.  Over the course of 2012, 4 major groups across the enterprise successfully adopted SAFe.  Each applied it to different problems and tailored it to suit – the one I will be writing about focuses on business intelligence and data warehousing. 

In April, I heard Dean describe his typical approach with a new client as “give me your worst program, I’ll fix that first and we’ll keep adding a program at a time from there”.   It’s a fairly apt description of the case at hand.   Agile project teams existed, but knitting them together into a program with appropriate cohesion, visibility and governance continued to be traumatic.  The model was applied first at the program level (the 2nd and 3rd layers of the framework), then extended up to the portfolio level and additional programs are now being transitioned in.

One other piece worth noting is that we are not yet describing a full enterprise-level SAFe implementation.   It is being actively explored, and what is known so far is that it will require 2 additional portfolio layers as the various groups are brought together.  I will be describing an implementation keeping 3 programs or delivery groups and roughly 200 people busy, but the eventual target involves more than 5,000.

Having set the scene, in Part 2 I will explore demand management and the portfolio layer implementation.

52 comments:

  1. Hi, did you define a vision at the start of your journey as guide in the dark ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, did you define a vision at the start of your journey as guide in the dark ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for sharing this, I actually appreciate you taking the time to share with everybody.
    Best Data Science Training In Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  4. I've read this post and if I could I desire to suggest you some interesting things or suggestions. Perhaps you could write next articles referring to this article. I want to read more things about it!
    data science training in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  5. Actually I read it yesterday I looked at most of your posts but I had some ideas about it . This article is probably where I got the most useful information for my research and today I wanted to read it again because it is so well written.
    Data Science Course in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  6. Amazing journal. I appreciated studying your articles. this can be extremely a fantastic perused on behalf of me. I even have bookmarked it and that i am anticipating studying new articles. Keep doing awesome!
    data scientist course

    ReplyDelete
  7. i am glad to discover this page : i have to thank you for the time i spent on this especially great reading !! i really liked each part and also bookmarked you for new information on your site.
    best data science courses in bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  8. I recently found many useful information in your website especially this blog page. Among the lots of comments on your articles. Thanks for sharing.
    data scientist training in hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  9. Highly appreciable regarding the uniqueness of the content. This perhaps makes the readers feels excited to get stick to the subject. Certainly, the learners would thank the blogger to come up with the innovative content which keeps the readers to be up to date to stand by the competition. Once again nice blog keep it up and keep sharing the content as always.

    data analytics courses in bangalore with placement

    ReplyDelete
  10. Thank you for taking the time to publish this information very useful!
    data scientist training and placement in hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am a new user of this site, so here I saw several articles and posts published on this site, I am more interested in some of them, hope you will provide more information on these topics in your next articles.
    data analytics training in bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  12. I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoy every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
    business analytics course

    ReplyDelete
  13. Wow, happy to see this awesome post. I hope this think help any newbie for their awesome work and by the way thanks for share this awesomeness, i thought this was a pretty interesting read when it comes to this topic. Thank you..
    Artificial Intelligence Course

    ReplyDelete
  14. I need to thank you for this very good read and i have bookmarked to check out new things from your post. Thank you very much for sharing such a useful article and will definitely saved and revisit your site.
    Data Science Course

    ReplyDelete
  15. Excellent Blog! I would like to thank you for the efforts you have made in writing this post. Gained lots of knowledge.
    Data Analytics Course

    ReplyDelete
  16. I am sure it will help many people. Keep up the good work. It's very compelling and I enjoyed browsing the entire blog.
    Business Analytics Course in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  17. I have voiced some of the posts on your website now, and I really like your blogging style. I added it to my list of favorite blogging sites and will be back soon ...

    Digital Marketing Training in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  18. http://www.agilenotanarchy.com/2013/01/scaled-agile-framework-applied-part-15.html?showComment=1625299948168#c4094004040793279168

    ReplyDelete
  19. I found Habit to be a transparent site, a social hub that is a conglomerate of buyers and sellers willing to offer digital advice online at a decent cost.

    Artificial Intelligence Training in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  20. The Extraordinary blog went amazed by the content that they have developed in a very descriptive manner. This type of content surely ensures the participants explore themselves. Hope you deliver the same near the future as well. Gratitude to the blogger for the efforts.

    Machine Learning Course in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  21. Your site is truly cool and this is an extraordinary moving article and If it's not too much trouble share more like that. Thank You..
    Digital Marketing Course in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thank a lot. You have done excellent job. I enjoyed your blog . Nice efforts
    Data Science Certification in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  23. Thanks for posting the best information and the blog is very important.artificial intelligence course in hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  24. Such a very useful information!Thanks for sharing this useful information with us. Really great effort.
    data scientist courses aurangabad

    ReplyDelete
  25. You have completed certain reliable points there. I did some research on the subject and found that almost everyone will agree with your blog.

    Data Science Training in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  26. Excellent blog, I wish to share your post with my folks circle. It’s really helped me a lot, so keep sharing post like this…

    Data Science Training in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  27. Thanks for bringing such innovative content which truly attracts the readers towards you. Certainly, your blog competes with your co-bloggers to come up with the newly updated info. Finally, kudos to you.

    Data Science Course in Varanasi

    ReplyDelete
  28. I just got to this amazing site not long ago. I was actually captured with the piece of resources you have got here. Big thumbs up for making such wonderful blog page!
    data science training in malaysia

    ReplyDelete
  29. Excellent work done by you once again here. This is just the reason why I’ve always liked your work. You have amazing writing skills and you display them in every article. Keep it going!
    data scientist training and placement in hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  30. Thanks for posting the best information and the blog is very good.data science course in Lucknow

    ReplyDelete
  31. Great post happy to see this. I thought this was a pretty interesting read when it comes to this topic Information. Thanks..
    Artificial Intelligence Course

    ReplyDelete
  32. Nice Post thank you very much for sharing such a useful information and will definitely saved and revisit your site and i have bookmarked to check out new things frm your post.
    Data Science Course

    ReplyDelete
  33. Really impressed! Everything is a very open and very clear clarification of the issues. It contains true facts. Your website is very valuable. Thanks for sharing.

    Digital Marketing Training in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  34. Thanks Your post is so cool and this is an extraordinary moving article and If it's not too much trouble share more like that.
    Digital Marketing Course in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  35. Thanks for posting the best information and the blog is very good.Cloud Computing course in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  36. You have done excellent job Thanks a lot and I enjoyed your blog. Great Post.
    Data Science Certification in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  37. I wanted to leave a little comment to support you and wish you the best of luck. We wish you the best of luck in all of your blogging endeavors.

    Data Science Training in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  38. Nice blog, all contents are so good. it is very helpful informative for me. thanks for sharing these information with all of us. whatsapp mod

    ReplyDelete


  39. It is late to find this act. At least one should be familiar with the fact that such events exist. I agree with your blog and will come back to inspect it further in the future, so keep your performance going.machine learning course in jaipur

    ReplyDelete
  40. Very good article and liked reading your post, very pleasant to share, I want to tweet this to my followers. Thank you!.
    Digital Marketing Institute in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  41. I am always searching online for articles that can help me and you made some good points in Features also. Keep working, great job
    Data Science Training

    ReplyDelete
  42. Very interesting post and this is my first time visit here and found so many interesting stuff in your blog especially its discussion. Thanks for the post!
    Digital Marketing Training Institute in Hyderabad

    ReplyDelete
  43. It is late to find this act. At least one should be familiar with the fact that such events exist. I agree with your blog and will come back to inspect it further in the future, so keep your performance going.

    Best Data Analytics Courses in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  44. I am hoping the same best effort from you in the future as well and in fact your creative writing skills has inspired me.
    Data Science Course near me

    ReplyDelete
  45. This is an informative and knowledgeable article. therefore, I would like to thank you for your effort in writing this article.
    Best Digital Marketing Courses in Bangalore

    ReplyDelete
  46. The information you have posted is very useful and knowledgeable. Thanks for sharing.
    Business Analytics Course in Jaipur

    ReplyDelete
  47. Thanks for your post. I’ve been thinking about writing a very comparable post over the last couple of weeks, I’ll probably keep it short and sweet and link to this instead if thats cool. Thanks.
    cyber security course malaysia

    ReplyDelete