Now is the time to start rethinking SAFe and move beyond the Feature Factory with Empowered Teams. Many organizations adopt SAFe to scale agility, only to find themselves stuck in a Feature Factory. Product Management writes detailed Features upfront, hands them off to delivery teams, and measures success by output. The result? Busy teams, misaligned solutions, and products that miss the mark. There’s a better [...]
Many SAFe transformations stall or fail to deliver the promised benefit of business agility. One prominent reason for these failures is SAFe’s insistence on using the Feature Factory approach. Let's reinvigorate your SAFe transformation with a Product Operating Model concept. The Dreaded Feature Factory A Feature Factory is where someone other than the Agile development team defines what to do. For example, SAFe describes the [...]
Stop the madness! In my 20+ years of coaching Agile Teams and orgs, this is one of the most pervasive and disheartening aspects I have seen. The Pervasive Situation Take a good look at your Team backlogs. Chances are they are replete with technical tasks. The work item name typically gives it away – “Implement the ABC method”, “Code the retry API”, “Insert the new [...]
In today's fast-paced product development landscape, the Product Operating Model (POM) emphasizes close collaboration between the Product Trio - Product Manager, Designer, and Engineer - and the Customer to solve real problems efficiently. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming this model by supercharging creativity, planning, and execution. While there are countless ways of leveraging AI in the Product Operating Model, let's explore three standout ways that [...]
Considering SAFe for your Agile transformation? Pause and explore a more tailored, effective approach - a leaner alternative to SAFe. Having led successful large-scale SAFe rollouts, I’ve seen its strengths and weaknesses. SAFe can work, but its success hinges on flexibility rather than rigid adherence. Here’s a streamlined, four-step alternative that prioritizes value, empowerment, and lasting results. Step 1: Define Clear Business Objectives Start by [...]
SAFe’s emphasis on writing Features and waterfalling them into the Agile Teams is unfortunate. This approach can easily result in what is commonly known as a “Feature Factory”. In a Feature Factory, the focus is on discovering and writing Features. Unempowered teams are handed Features to go off and build. This makes the Agile Team accountable for delivering Features (an output), instead of true business [...]
I’m often asked, “When will my team join an ART?” My typical go-to answer is, “Maybe never! It’s more about finding the leanest operating model than it is about launching ARTs.” SAFe does a great job introducing us to the notion of a Development Value Stream (DVS). SAFe also does a great job describing the Agile Release Train (ART) as a virtual structure of 5 [...]
Empowered Agile Transformation – Beyond the Framework, by Alexandra Stokes, 2023 What a great book! Alexandra Stokes has written the book many of us Agilists wanted to write. Her approach to Agile transformation is logical, empathetic, goal-oriented, and dare I say it "frameless". She includes over 30 personal stories of her Agile transformation successes and failures. One theme that really resonated with me was to [...]
We’ve all been there before, right? On one hand, we live in a classic siloed organization that is slow to respond to the market. Cross-org dependencies are the norm. The flow of value to the customer is slow. Painfully slow. Value stream identification is non-existent. On the other hand, we understand the power of “alignment to value” and its potential impact on the flow of [...]
Imagine. Let's start rethinking Agile transformations. What if Leaders would issue an “Agile statement of intent” instead of attempting another costly framework-driven transformation? How would our life at work be different? Can you imagine the agility innovation that this would spark? For example, what if a Leader made the following statement: “For our company to be successful, our teams really need to have a desire [...]