In Summer 2018, I took a certification course in Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) so that a federated team arrangement could cohabitate on a Platform as a Service such as ServiceNow or Salesforce. Its two-month iteration cadence lets teams predict when they need to complete work to move to production and handle upgrades with less resource intensity on the platform team. This was not a proper Scaled Agile adoption. But, I believe in having multiple frameworks for problem solving and adapting a framework to the problem at hand. This implementation solved the tactical problem without confronting the organization’s culture.
It Starts with Why (Value Proposition)
Lean Startup tells you to develop a clear understanding of the Problem and fixate on the Solution; what is broken and what the world looks like when it’s fixed. (Solution is not what you are doing to fix the problem, it is the outcome of a fixed problem.) The means are variable, but know your purpose. Scaled Agile survivors report the results of a successful adoption. This speaks both to the Problem and Solution.
Large organizations were challenged with miscommunication between teams / sub-programs, high defect rates, and reduced customer (and executive) confidence. Survey data objectively measures the outcomes with significant improvement in company morale, consistent & faster market delivery, and reduced defects. Therefore, if you are a large organization with multiple teams afflicted with low morale, slipped deliveries, and high defects for a product or service line, you should consider Scaled Agile Framework. A later section speaks to success stories.
Why Scaled Agile Fails
While we don’t have firm statistics on why SAFe adoption fails, the SAFe organization has dogfooded its process to understand why it fails for some organizations. Its training tells you how to overcome this failure.
Scaled Agile will fail for the same reason any imitated process will fail: a lack of understanding and a lack of commitment to the process over the outcome. Organizations cannot out-Toyota Toyota in the Toyota Way because they focus on the techniques Toyota is employing today. It frustrated them when they learn Toyota pivoted away from those techniques. Companies don’t understand the underlying principles of the Toyota Way. Leaders need to understand why Scaled works.
The Stockdale Paradox asserts that fixating on the Outcome will lead to failure, but fixating on the Process will lead to success. The early stages of Scaled Agile adoption are rife with failure and setback. SAFe training tells you that the first two iterations will be chaotic. This is because the organization is learning a fresh way to operate. Cultural inertial will try to kill it. Leaders need to commit to the process to get to the solution.
Scaled is an Organizational Change activity. Its processes are easy, but the implementation is hard and rife with impediments. Few organizations can do Organizational Change well.
The Paradox also means we should not wait for perfect understanding and commitment. Perfect understanding is an Outcome. We must remain fixated on the Process of understanding, of cultural transformation, and of the Scaled Agile adoption.
It Starts with Why (Value Proposition)
Lean Startup tells you to develop a clear understanding of the Problem and fixate on the Solution; what is broken and what the world looks like when it’s fixed. (Solution is not what you are doing to fix the problem, it is the outcome of a fixed problem.) The means are variable, but know your purpose. Scaled Agile survivors report the results of a successful adoption. This speaks both to the Problem and Solution.
Large organizations were challenged with miscommunication between teams / sub-programs, high defect rates, and reduced customer (and executive) confidence. Survey data objectively measures the outcomes with significant improvement in company morale, consistent & faster market delivery, and reduced defects. Therefore, if you are a large organization with multiple teams afflicted with low morale, slipped deliveries, and high defects for a product or service line, you should consider Scaled Agile Framework. A later section speaks to success stories.
Why Scaled Agile Fails
While we don’t have firm statistics on why SAFe adoption fails, the SAFe organization has dogfooded its process to understand why it fails for some organizations. Its training tells you how to overcome this failure.
Scaled Agile will fail for the same reason any imitated process will fail: a lack of understanding and a lack of commitment to the process over the outcome. Organizations cannot out-Toyota Toyota in the Toyota Way because they focus on the techniques Toyota is employing today. It frustrated them when they learn Toyota pivoted away from those techniques. Companies don’t understand the underlying principles of the Toyota Way. Leaders need to understand why Scaled works.
The Stockdale Paradox asserts that fixating on the Outcome will lead to failure, but fixating on the Process will lead to success. The early stages of Scaled Agile adoption are rife with failure and setback. SAFe training tells you that the first two iterations will be chaotic. This is because the organization is learning a fresh way to operate. Cultural inertial will try to kill it. Leaders need to commit to the process to get to the solution.
Scaled is an Organizational Change activity. Its processes are easy, but the implementation is hard and rife with impediments. Few organizations can do Organizational Change well.
The Paradox also means we should not wait for perfect understanding and commitment. Perfect understanding is an Outcome. We must remain fixated on the Process of understanding, of cultural transformation, and of the Scaled Agile adoption.
Scaled Agile Survivor Case Studies
In 2015, Cisco started their own Scaled Agile transformation. They started with delivery-phase sub-programs using waterfall that led to high defects and frequently missed deadlines. Cisco embraced Scaled Agile by creating three ARTs (agile release trains) originally focused on one product line. Cisco’s transformation led to a significant defect reduction in their subscription billing (40%) and WebEx (25%) products, a higher on-time delivery of extra features, and a significant reduction in over-time required to hit those deliveries.
Johnson Controls had a similar SAFe journey, starting with one ART. The first two PIs were chaotic, but they stayed the course. They did concurrent planning in multiple time zones, including the US and India. They started with wild changes from SAFe’s recommendations, including 3-week sprints. Johnson Controls had to break 50 years of process. Ultimately, they reduced their defect backlog by 2/3s, had 100% on-time delivery of new capabilities and more than doubled their new feature release rate.
Deutsche Bahn increased employee satisfaction and cut feature delivery lead time by 60-75%, and provided greater fiscal and feature-delivery transparency. Capital One increased employee and customer satisfaction, with greater predictability in what they delivered. Accenture fixed misalignment of disparate teams, integrated Agile & Waterfall teams, and worked across multiple time zones, increasing their retrofit rate by 50% and 60% defect reduction. Intel doubled their feature delivery with the same resources, spread over 8 ARTs and over 150 delivery teams; having since become the largest SAFe success with over 440 teams spread over 35 ARTs.
There are other case stories available on the SAFe website.
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Ben
In tenebris solus sto