Essential SAFe 4.6 Overview and Assessment PDF

Essential SAFe® 4.6 Toolkit Usage restrictions 1. This material is the property of Scaled Agile, Inc. and is protected by U.S. and International copyright laws. 2. Permission to use this material is granted solely to SAFe® SPC4s in good standing, and only to host a Essential SAFe overview or executi...

Essential SAFe® 4.6 Toolkit Usage restrictions 1. This material is the property of Scaled Agile, Inc. and is protected by U.S. and International copyright laws. 2. Permission to use this material is granted solely to SAFe® SPC4s in good standing, and only to host a Essential SAFe overview or executive briefing. 3. An SPC4 may reproduce, modify, use, and distribute handouts and templates in hard copy or PDF format based on this material as necessary. However, the full toolkit itself may not be distributed to or used by anyone other than the SPC4 who downloaded it. 4. An SPC4 may add slides and content unique to a specific context, but such additions shall not change the meaning, purpose, or intent of the original material. Removal of any trademark, logo, or copyright notice is also prohibited. 5. Use of any part of this material in a public setting, or to create derivative works for purposes other than those stated above is strictly prohibited. 6. See the SAFe® Toolkit License Agreement included in this toolkit for all terms with which you must comply. © Scaled 2017 Scaled Agile,Agile, Inc. Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1 Essential SAFe 4.6 Overview and Assessment ® © Scaled Agile, Inc. © Scaled Agile, Inc. 2 Introducing the Essential SAFe configuration... © Scaled Agile, Inc. 3 Why focus on the essentials? Because there’s a danger in skipping critical elements Findings from the field Successful rollout, but still struggling. Some potential root causes: Heard in the field 4 “SAFe is a flexible framework. We’ve adopted what we liked, but we don’t use Agile Release Trains” 4 Not doing Inspect & Adapt 4 “Our leaders don’t have time for training” 4 No Innovation and Planning iteration 4 “SAFe is flexible. We’re adopting it, but we’ve decided not to affect the way the teams are working. So we didn’t include the teams in training” 4 Individual Agile Teams were not actually crossfunctional 4 No routine System Demo © Scaled Agile, Inc. 4 Start with the basics of Essential SAFe... © Scaled Agile, Inc. 5 Apply the ten Essential SAFe elements 1 SAFe Lean-Agile Principles 6 System Demo 2 Real Agile Teams and Trains 7 Inspect & Adapt 3 Cadence and Synchronization 8 IP Iteration 4 PI Planning 9 Architectural Runway 5 DevOps and Releasability 10 Lean-Agile Leadership © Scaled Agile, Inc. 6 1 Anchor the transformation with Lean-Agile Principles #1-Take an economic view #2-Apply #3-Assume #4-Build #5-Base #6-Visualize systems thinking variability; preserve options incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles milestones on objective evaluation of working systems and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths #7-Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning #8-Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers #9-Decentralize © Scaled Agile, Inc. decision-making 7 Without a shared understanding of principles... There is no systematic way to adapt practices to local context Business outcomes do not significantly improve Practices and measures that were once beneficial become problematic Lean-Agile Mindset is unachievable Conflict and disagreement on processes and practices are difficult to resolve © Scaled Agile, Inc. 8 2 Implement Real Agile Teams and Trains Cross-functional Agile Teams and trains work towards a common mission and operate with architectural and Lean UX guidance. Agile Teams power the train. Cross-functional teams apply Scrum, XP, Kanban, and Built-in Quality practices to produce working system increments every iteration. © Scaled Agile, Inc. Agile Release Trains (ARTs) apply systems thinking and build a cross-functional organization optimized to facilitate the flow of value from idea to release. 9 Critical Agile Team roles Well defined roles empower teams and trains. Scrum Master facilitates team events, drives Agile behavior, and coaches the team Product Owner acts as the customer for the team and prioritizes their work. Defines and accepts stories. Development Team is everyone needed to define, build, and test an increment of value © Scaled Agile, Inc. 10 Critical ART roles Release Train Engineer acts as the chief Scrum Master for the train Product Management is responsible for customer needs. Owns the vision and product backlog, prioritizes features for the best economic outcome System Architect/Engineering align ARTs to a common technological and architectural vision Customer consumes the work of an ART. They are the ultimate deciders of value Business Owners are a small group of stakeholders who have financial, governance, fitness for purpose and ROI responsibility © Scaled Agile, Inc. 11 Without Real Agile Teams and Trains... Responsibilities are unclear; delayed decision-making The skills needed to define, build, test and deliver value are not fully present and accountable. Over-specialization and bottlenecks inhibit flow. Teams locally optimize and can’t deliver end-to-end value No architectural and user experience integrity; solution features and components evolve incompatibly Vision and requirements are not clear and prioritization is extremely difficult © Scaled Agile, Inc. 12 3 Apply Cadence and Synchronization 4 Transforms unpredictable events into predictable events 4 Makes wait times predictable 4 Facilitates planning; provides more efficient use of resources 4 Synchronization causes multiple events to happen at the same time 4 Sync events facilitate cross-functional tradeoffs of people and scope © Scaled Agile, Inc. 13 Without Cadence and Synchronization... No development rhythm Gradual decline into disorder and lack of predictability It’s hard to schedule planning, retrospectives, demos and other key events Difficult to adjusting to changing priorities Teams are constantly overloaded © Scaled Agile, Inc. 14 4 Create alignment with PI Planning No event is more powerful than PI planning. It’s the magic in SAFe—the alignment and energy created in just two days saves months of delays. 4 All stakeholders face-to-face, whenever possible 4 Management sets the mission with minimum possible constraints 4 Important stakeholder decisions are made immediately 4 Requirements and design emerge 4 Teams create and take responsibility for plans © Scaled Agile, Inc. See the short PI planning example video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZAtl7nAB1M 15 Without PI Planning... Stakeholders, teams, and management are not aligned Demand doesn't match capacity; no predictability; excess WIP Lack of trust between stakeholders and teams Late discovery of dependencies cause delays Low commitment, ownership, and employee engagement © Scaled Agile, Inc. 16 5 Improve DevOps and Releasability DevOps improves collaboration and flow between Development and IT Operations with a continuous delivery pipeline. © Scaled Agile, Inc. 17 Without DevOps and Releasability... Value delivery is seriously delayed Reduced quality of deployments and high production defects More frequent releases are not possible, increasing time to market Large batches of code are pushed to production, resulting in production errors, and emergencies Friction between development and operations limits collaboration, learning, and cultural change © Scaled Agile, Inc. 18 6 Get fast feedback with the System Demo Demonstrate the full system increment to stakeholders every iteration 4 Features are functionally complete or ‘toggled’ so as not to disrupt demonstrable functionality 4 New Features work together, and with existing functionality 4 Happens after the teams’ demo (may lag by as much as one Iteration, maximum) Full system 4 Demo from a staging environment, resemble production as much as possible System team © Scaled Agile, Inc. 19 Producing a System Demo requires Built-in Quality “You can’t scale crappy code” (or hardware, or anything else) Built-in Quality: 4 Ensures that every increment of the solution reflects quality standards 4 Enables high velocity and a sustainable development pace 4 Software practices include continuous integration, test-first, refactoring, pairwork, collective ownership, and more 4 Hardware practices include exploratory iterations, frequent system integration, design verification, model-based systems engineering, and set-based design © Scaled Agile, Inc. Built-in Quality 20 Without the System Demo... Teams are ‘sprinting’, but the system is not Chronic lack of trust between stakeholders and teams Lack of feedback to iterate to the right solution False progress and poor quality ‘Waterfalled PIs’—problems and risks are discovered too late © Scaled Agile, Inc. 21 7 Relentlessly improve with Inspect & Adapt Inspect & Adapt (I&A) supports systematic review of PI outcomes and continuous improvement. The I&A has three parts: 1. PI System Demo © Scaled Agile, Inc. 2. Quantitative Measurement 3. Problem-Solving Workshop 22 Without Inspect & Adapt... No systemic improvement; problems persist No means to measure or establish delivery predictability Improvement efforts address symptoms, not root causes Leaders who could change the system are not engaged Low morale © Scaled Agile, Inc. 23 8 Dedicate time for Innovation and Planning The IP Iteration provides an estimating buffer for meeting PI objectives, and dedicated time for innovation, education, PI planning and I&A events. © Scaled Agile, Inc. 24 Without the IP Iteration... Lack of estimating buffer and poor predictability ‘Tyranny of the urgent’ iteration inhibits innovation Technical debt grows uncontrollably Lots of overtime and people burn out No time for teams to plan together, demo together, and improve together © Scaled Agile, Inc. 25 9 Enable fast feature delivery with Architectural Runway Architectural Runway is existing code, hardware components, etc. that enables near-term business Features. 4 Enablers build up the runway Feature Feature Feature Implemented now … Enabler … to support future Features 4 Features consume it 4 Architectural Runway must be continuously maintained 4 Use Capacity Allocation (a percentage of train’s overall capacity in a PI) for Enablers that extend the runway Architectural Runway © Scaled Agile, Inc. 26 Without Architectural Runway... Architecture progressively decays under the ‘urgency of now’ Velocity peaks for a while, then falls off Infrequent and irregular releases Solution robustness, maintainability, and quality decay Unsustainable development pace © Scaled Agile, Inc. 27 10 Lead with Lean-Agile Leadership Successful transformations are based on educating leadership first. ‘Lean-thinking manager-teachers’ lead, rather than follow the transformation. “It is not enough that management commit themselves to quality and productivity … They must know what it is they must do. Such a responsibility cannot be delegated.” —W. Edwards Deming © Scaled Agile, Inc. 28 Without Lean-Agile Leadership... Teams cannot learn from their leaders The transformation is fatally impaired Agile development with traditional governance results in ‘Agile in name only’ Constantly escalating decisions increases lead time People not allowed to experiment, fail, innovate, and learn © Scaled Agile, Inc. 29 One more thing, without Lean-Agile Leadership... SAFe will not work! © Scaled Agile, Inc. 30 Activity: Essential SAFe Self-Assessment 4Step 1: Fill out the Essential SAFe self-assessment form on the next page 4Step 2: Use the previous slides to identify the symptoms that exist in your enterprise 4Step 3: Shade one box for each symptom identified (✔) for every Essential SAFe element Example ✔ ✔ ✔ 10 min © Scaled Agile, Inc. 31 No. of Symptoms Essential SAFe Self-Assessment 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Lean-Agile Principles Real Agile Teams and Trains Cadence & Synchronization PI Planning DevOps and Releasability System Demo IP Iteration Architectural Runway Lean-Agile Leadership Inspect & Adapt Essential SAFe Elements © Scaled Agile, Inc. 32 Q&A © Scaled Agile, Inc. 33