The search for the right Health Check model Back in 2015, I wrote in my personal blog about a Spotify Squad-level tool I started using in Executive/Management workshops as well as all-hands QuickStarts/QuickBoosts. Also, the option to run this assessment using a Kahoot survey is especially relevant these days when we’re all virtual. This might …
Seriously, please don’t come. Don’t come if you’re looking at it as a formality since you already know everything about agile and just need the SPC (SAFe Program Consultant) Certificate. Don’t come if you’re looking for the cheapest way to get your SPC so that you can add it to your resume. Don’t come if you …
SAFe includes Scrum — so how come many Scrum practitioners and thought leaders consider it unsafe? The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe™) is one of the most popular approaches to applying agile at scale out there. SAFe’s perspective is that “Nothing beats an Agile Team” and it doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel or even innovate too much when …
SAFe™ (The Scaled Agile Framework) uses Story Points throughout the various levels as its estimation currency. This is covered in the “Story” article on the SAFe site. This is a pretty standard practice in organizations scaling agile these days. If you dive a bit deeper into how this is done in SAFe you will see …
Actual is a relative term when it comes to business value delivered by a SAFe PI Objective. Planned Business Value — Making sure Business Owners and the Agile Team are on the same page Let’s start from the basics though. PI (Planning Increment) Objectives are used as a “back briefing” mechanism by Agile Teams on an Agile Release …
We find it crucial to emphasize when training new SAFe Program Consultants (SPCs) that they should use SAFe as a framework, not a methodology. First, what’s the difference between a framework and a methodology? I found this concise, useful comparison written by Liz Keogh, who I think highly of over at Quora – A methodology …
In the scaled Agile framework, one key role is the Release Train Engineer (RTE). But who should I look for to fill this role? What are the first few process improvements experienced RTE’s typically do? Yuval Yeret (Yeret Agility) and Mattias Skarin (Crisp) took the time to discuss the traits of a good RTE. What …
I just shared my perspective that SAFe isn’t a hard-coded methodology and while it gives you a comprehensive and to some even overwhelming set of practices, there are still a lot of choices. My old friend Sutap suggested: Would be great if you can share examples around how SAFe is not a one size fits …
A recent discussion on the Scrum Alliance Linkedin group was around Mike Beedle’s claim that “Hard-coded Frameworks are neither Agile or Frameworks” which is clearly aimed primarily at SAFe. I admit to thinking something similar before really getting to know SAFe in depth. Over time I realized SAFe isn’t one size fits all. Far from …
This week I’m in Fort Lauderdale, Florida speaking at the Lean/Agile US conference. The subject of my talk today was “Introduction to Lean/Agile scaling approaches” where talked about why scaling approaches are necessary and when to actually try to de-scale as well as gave a very brief introduction to a couple of the key frameworks …