UX touch points in Scaled Agile's SAFe 5.0

In a previous article a few years back, I wrote about how Scaled Agile fails to properly understand and identify where user experience (UX) fits into its system maps, and now that SAFe 5.0 is on its way, it looks like that gap still persists.

While I like the way the map portrays an organization at large, as it helps people understand the breadth and scope of the system and to identify some of the stakeholders and players involved, there unfortunately is still under-representation of research, design and UX, particularly of the practitioners and where they exist in the organization.

Some of my early observations.

• From 4.x's general 'lean UX', we can now see we should be doing 'design thinking' in version 5.0 - but should we guess that organizations can figure that out without dedicated UXers on the map?
• More worryingly, the customer has been removed from the new map in favor of “customer centricity”.
• Some documentation goes into detail about using personas, but personas are not people - I think a dangerous or damaging behavior might be reinforced with this.

What this means for organizations looking to adopt modern methods of working, is a continuing lack of appreciation and understanding of how a design culture needs to be embedded and integrated, with UX design leadership and other practitioners seeded to ensure user-focus is not washed out by business centricity. 

Below is an updated take on the SAFe map and where UX touch points generally exist. At each of these locations, there must be someone doing some thing to ensure user-centered design and quality is being advanced in balance with business objectives.  

The question remains, can you identify who is and what is being done in these areas that ensures UX involvement? More importantly, can you identify them in your organization?

Thoughts?