Introduction to Ambidexterity for scaled agile SAFe consultants

Synopsis

Scaled agile framework SAFe is mainly used in Product-development environments. Although the framework is extending it's guidance more to integrate with the 'Run' business, the main focus currently remains on 'Change', in the sense of product development. For SAFe consultants it's nowadays required to understand the ambidexterous needs of organizations and companies. Thereby the ambidexter configurations must be familiar to the consultant, and likewise the concepts of exploitation and exploration.

Keywords

SAFe, scaled agile framework, ambidexter, ambidextrous, ambidexterity, exploit, explore, evolutionary and revolutionary change.

Introduction

In 1996 Tushman, Michael L and O'Reilly Charles A III published the paper "Ambidextrous organizations: Managing evolutionary and revolutionary change". The first sentence of the article reads: "All managers face problems in overcoming inertia and implementing innovation and change". So, awareness of challenges with regard to balancing between exploitation and exploration therefore predates developments like Agile (2001) and SAFe (2010).

Examples given in a previous article (1996) of Tushman and O'Reilly regarding 'missing the boat' on revolutionary developments include the rise of the transistor and the development of quartz watches, where companies remained exploiting their existing business without exploring the new possibilities.

Nowadays, the phenomenon that disruptions are not properly estimated is illustrated, for example, by the development of the smartphone and the electric car, where existing companies adopted new technology (too) late.

The reason that methods and frameworks such as Scrum, Agile and SAFe have become available is because they recognize the need to respond quickly and adequately to developments, and even better: initiate new developments.

Ambidexterity and configurations

A definition from Tushman and O'Reilly (2013):

"Organizational ambidexterity refers to the ability of an organization to both explore and exploit — to compete in mature technologies and markets where efficiency, control, and incremental improvement are prized and to also compete in new technologies and markets where flexibility, autonomy, and experimentation are needed."

Thereby: ambidexter refers to aim to be equal capable - in parallel - to exploit and to explore. Like having the same skills in your preferred hand (mostly: the right hand - ambi dexter; Lat.)

To meet the needs of organizations and companies to exploit and explore effectively and efficiently at the same time, three basic ambidextrous configurations have been identified. Although variations are possible, the three reference configurations are:

1. Sequential ambidexterity

Firstly, the organization or company can choose to emphasize explore and exploit aspects of their solution successively in time; after exploring (e.g. developing a new solutions – for example a laser printer) shifting the attention to exploiting the product.

2. Structural Ambidexterity

Secondly, the split between explore and exploit capabilities within an organization or company can be split physically, e.g. a Research & Development department, located in a separate building / town / country etc.

3. Contextual Ambidexterity

The third configuration requires employees of an organization or company to be ambidextrous themselves; thereby the workers are required to decide themselves to switch between paying attention to Run or Grow activities.

Ambidexter capabilities within SAFe

A first association of the ambidexter exploit and explore capabilities within the scaled agile framework will likely be with Operational and Development Value Streams.

To fresh up; where ‘Operational Value Streams regards the sequence of activities needed to deliver a product or service to a customer’, the ‘Development Value Streams consists of the activities needed to convert a business hypothesis into a technology-enabled solution that delivers customer value’.

In the latest versions of SAFe, more attention has also been paid to Business Agility. To underline the importance of this, it is prominent visible on top of the Big Picture;

Practically the Business Agility Value Stream consists of components of both the Operational and Development Value Stream:

In the same article ‘business agility’ the so called Dual Operating System – also referred to as operating model or Second Operating System – is mentioned:

Note that the Value-Stream-Network and Traditional-Hierarchy are not linked to explore versus exploit; both are to be seen in the context of a solution generating system. Nevertheless, companies and organizations seeking for ambidexter starting points within SAFe need to be aware of this reference and approach.

Although not obvious, the ‘top’ Business Agility is closely linked to ‘Business & Technology’ item – on the Big Picture positioned left-bottom corner:

The article in question contains important ‘Patterns of Agile Business and Technology’ from the perspective of ambidexterity, while Operational and Development Value Streams are described and visualized closely linked together. Here are two important mentioned.

Firstly; the Agile Business Train.

?As from the picture can be seen, this construct can be seen “a further step towards Business Agility. An Agile Business Train contains one or more SAFe Operational Value Streams and all the ARTs needed to define, build, deploy, operate, and commercialize a complete business solution.”

The aspects ‘operate’ and ‘commercialize’ could be positioned in the ‘Run’ or ‘daily business’ or what is called exploit within the ambidexter context. In the context of the Agile Business Train it is mentioned that a number of ‘Core Competencies’ apply; ‘Team and Technical Agility, Agile Product Delivery, Continuous Learning Culture, Organizational Agility, and Lean-Agile Leadership’.

Secondly; the Combined Portfolio.

As can be seen in this picture, both de Operational and Value Stream are closely linked together; Strategic Themes are operationalized in the Portfolio Vison from which via Participatory Budgeting (Lean Budgets) both Value Stream(s) are funded.

“It leverages knowledge of the operational costs, the performance of the operational and development value streams, revenue, and market research to support strategic decision-making. The Combined Portfolio takes the concept of Systems Thinking beyond just value streams and enables a more global optimization.”

Thereby it can be noticed that the focus of SAFe remains on the explore perspective in the ambidexter context. As from the lean-portfolio-management article; “LPM provides an alignment and governance model for a specific portfolio, which contains a set of Development Value Streams (DVS) for a business domain in an Enterprise.”

Although mentioned from the ‘Combined Portfolio’ approach, more attention needs to be paid to Participatory Budgeting. Especially with regard to two components of a Values Stream budget:

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Although not directly linked to by SAFe, a relation can be identified between on one hand ‘Run’ the business solution costs and ambidextrous exploit and on the other hand between ‘Grow’ and ambidextrous explore.

From Ambidexter perspective, the next aspect to be discussed regards Leadership (Management).

Leaders in the ambidexter organization or company need to flex between exploit and explore. Sometimes summarized as “Leaders should be consistently inconsistent: leadership behaviours should be as constant as possible and as adaptive as necessary”. Exploit behaviours may contain alignment and focus, stability, reduce risk, meeting targets, metrics and rules and so on. Explore behaviours consist of adaptation and freedom for creation, variation, experimentation, allow for failure and learning and so on.

This will bring us to SAFe Lean-AgileLeadership.

As from SAFe: “Lean-Agile Leadership is one of the seven core competencies of Business Agility, each of which is essential to achieving Business Agility.” and also “The Lean-Agile Leadership competency describes how Lean-Agile Leaders drive and sustain organizational change and operational excellence by empowering individuals and teams to reach their highest potential.” Important dimensions are firstly ‘Lean-Agile Mindset, Core Values and SAFe Principles’, secondly ‘Leading by Example’ and lastly ‘Leading Change’.

Although ‘operational excellence’ is mentioned: this can be interpreted as ‘within a product development context’. No requirements are mentioned in the SAFe context for being a leader that can lead an organization or company that requires strong ambidexter ‘management’ (see above).

Some remarks with regard to SAFe compared with literature regarding ambidexterity.

In my view SAFe doesn't differentiate explicitly between evolutionary and revolutionary change. Also within the Run-context, improvements will be developed, although not being a 'game changer'. And improvements can be at large scale; for instance Life Cycle Management initiatives; execution of them doesn't guarentee becoming ready for the future, exploring fundament new possibilities.

Within the SAFe approach, there seems to be a one-size-fits-all approach to becoming an organization or company with 'agile leaders'. In contrast, examples of successful ambidextrous implementations often underline the dedicated attention of top leaders ('management') to revolutionary change. In any case, top leaders must be able to bridge the exploration and exploitation obligations of organizations and companies. This brings demands for top leadership. Thereby ambidextery sometimes is implemented by adressing reserving a large, fixed amount of capacity of top leaders to be able to bridge between exploit and explore duties. Sometimes this is implemented by having two leaders on top-level to guarentee the right attention for both aspects. Active support from the board is also required.

It might be worth to pay more attention to DevOps; the latter needs to result in a practical implementation ('pipeline') with strong involvement of both Run and Change. For this to be succesful, the organization or company needs to fulfil an ambidexter profile. It is likely that a separate article can address this further.

Looking forward

The more SAFe will be used in the context of ambidextrous organizations and companies, the more attention need to be paid on being both capable exploring and exploiting - in parallel. It can be a way forward for SAFe to evolve into a framework for facilitating both Run / exploit and Change / explore equally. Meanwhile it is fruitful for SAFe consultants to be aware of both needs and vocabulary of the ambidexter world we are living in.

References

Tushman, Michael L; O Reilly, Charles A III - "Ambidextrous organizations: Managing evolutionary and revolutionary change". California Management Review; Summer 1996; 38, 4

Leffingwell, Dean (2007): Scaling Software Agility; Best practices for large enterprises. The Agile Software Development Series.

Reinertsen, Donald (2009): The Principles of Product Development FLOW; second generation Lean product development.

O’Reilly, Charles and Tushman, Michael (2013): Organizational Ambidexterity: Past, Present and Future. Academy of Management Perspectives.

Turner, Ian and Maiwald, Marieluise (2020): Ambidexterity in Organisations. Headspring Executive Development. https://www.headspringexecutive.com/webinars/organisational-ambidexterity/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xE_ZfCo9b3c&t=1902s

SAFe 6.0 (2023); https://scaledagileframework.com/safe/ and related Big Picture https://scaledagileframework.com/