Agile at Scale - The Agile Roundabout #28 @ Kingfisher Digital writeup

Folks spent a great evening once again at the #agileroundabout Kingfisher Digital, London with high quality presentations from:

Jules Baldock (Kingfisher) - Rolling out SAFe: stories of ramping up ways of working across multiple sites and trains

Fausto Dassenno (Gumtree) - You think you are agile? Scale up your game. A talk about agile and SAFe

Thank you Gentlmen for sharing your experiences, highs and lows of implementing SAFe in the large. Always good to see how different governance frameworks are put into action in organisations.

Key points are:

1. It helps to create the right culture for sharing and working collaboratively across functions. Consider your working environment, meeting places and cross team dynamics.
2. Don't underestimate the cost of bedding in this change. Getting whole global teams together is expensive use the technology (Skype) and be sensible by using nominated point people for offshore teams.
3. Have clear lines of accountability for delivery phases
4. Senior Stakeholders have to be able to make decisions quickly in order to not become blockers for the quick implementation cycles of SaFe. This can be a difficult challenge.
5. There is a Portfolio/Programme Manager layer but is its high level in recognition of SAFe at a corporate level. As with other framework good programme management and project management skills still apply: budgets/level 1 plans/ overall vision direction.

SAFe appears to provide large corporations that warm fuzzy feeling that they are getting a new governance framework. This could be a triumph of marketing for the SAFe framework over others. To see SAFe in action shows, if adapted properly, with good business backing efficiencies in accurate project delivery and subsequent business benefits can be banked earlier than other project management frameworks.

Sid.

#agileroundabout