Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) allows enterprises to accomplish their organizational goals to produce the highest quality product in the shortest sustainable amount of time. It is an approach that scales Scrum to an Enterprise Level and gives you the freedom to scale according to your business needs. It introduces a philosophy of servant and lean-agile leadership and goes beyond just implementing an organizational structure, rather instills a new mindset.
In October 2018, SAFe released its upgrade SAFe 4.6 which offers the capability to make the process of quickly responding to market conditions, customer needs and latest technologies with more efficiency. The new release covers the following five aspects:
1. Lean Agile Leadership
This has always been the focal point of SAFe. Leaders that are trained in being effective Lean Agile Leaders and who can educate their teams is pertinent in SAFe. These leaders need to be well versed in the SAFe Core Values and possess the quintessential Agile Mindset. They need to understand the need for continuous growth in organization and operational excellence. Ultimately they are responsible for the success of their teams.
2. Improved DevOps and Release on Demand
Focusing on implementing Devops and a continuous delivery pipeline to release on demand have been improved. Delivering quick allows enterprises to meet and adjust according to changing demands.
3. Team and Technical agility
Team agility can be thought as the engine of driving SAFe. It is when the teams are aware of Agile principles and practices and perform with high speed. They conduct ceremonies like Scrum or Kanban to fulfill their tasks. On the other hand, Technical Agility is all about doing the technical practices to create high quality and thoroughly designed technical solutions that fulfill business needs. These practices include Built-in-quality, Behavior Driven Development, Agile testing, Test driven development and more.
4. Business solutions and Lean Systems
Building Lean Systems is all about applying Lean-Agile Principles and practices to the specification, development and deployment of software applications. Whether it is full or partial integration, this aspect demands the solution to be continually integrated as much as possible.
5. Lean Portfolio Management
This is a crucial element of SAFe. It dictates the effective management of budgets and formulating approaches for building strategy and the vision for the Value Streams. Activities like investment funding, agile portfolio and lean governance are important when it comes to Lean Portfolio Management. This release also introduces Guard Rails which are means to keeping your investments on track. They act like constraints that help you categorize your solution in such a way that you know exactly where to wisely utilize your budgets in order to keep the Portfolio healthy.
Portfolio Canvas is another feature of this release that helps document all the features in the Portfolio.
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