Agility loves company - Be part of an agile enterprise!

Our world, especially our working environment, has become quite a dynamic place: faster development cycles and changing customer demands call for new processes. Customers no longer order a certain product – they order a solution to their problem and expect to have it quickly. The Value Stream of a customer matters!

That eliminates the ability to predict the exact outcome of a plan from the start – projects have become far too complex for that. So we now must break them down into different steps and use the result of each step to plan the next one.

To achieve this flexible style of project management, we must become active immediately! We need to drop old habits and acquire an entirely new mindset.

That means all of us must take on new responsibilities, be more creative and be open to change. This also means reducing or even eliminating hierarchies in order to empower everyone to take more action. And no matter what step we take, it must always be with our customers’ best interest at heart.

To successfully live this change we need new working methods that enable us to become more dynamic and agile. Especially, for a large organization this is a big challenge.

Most likely you have already heard of the terms “Scrum” or “Kanban”. One further method that has been developed on their basis is the Scaled Agile Framework – SAFe. The inventor, Dean Leffingwell, explains the principle right to the point: “As Scrum is to the agile team, SAFe is to the agile enterprise.”

So let’s have a closer look at the methodology. The framework is basically Scrum applied to four organizational levels:

1. Team: On the team level, the basic Scrum / Kanban method is in use.
2. Program: The program level consists of multiple teams. This “team of teams” is called Agile Release Train (ART). The project management and work flow is pretty much according to Scrum on the team level with similar roles.
3. Large Solution: The large solution level coordinates multiple ARTs while building larger solutions which a single ART can’t deliver by itself.
4. Portfolio: The portfolio management helps define directions for all underlying value streams by deriving themes from the enterprise’s strategy and by allocating budget to the value streams.

You’ll find further and more detailed information on SAFe on www.scaledagileframework.com (see Full SAFe).

Let’s benefit from the obvious advantages of these method!

• Clear roles and responsibilites to Integration Business and IT (first step how IT can become a capability not being a function anymore)
• Synchronize Heartbeat between agile and waterfall Business on ART Level
• Leading SAFe and Implementing SAFe education drives cultural change and provides the possibility of talking the same dialect company wide

Generally, I would like to ask you to keep an open mind towards new approaches and new ways of thinking. Enjoy start experimenting!