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SAFe: A Case Study Expanding agile up into the enterprise using the Scaled

Agile Framework

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Agile Coach

Project Manager

Architect

Developer

70%

90%

80%

65%

About Heath Murphy, PMP, MCSD

• I’m an agile enthusiast working for a pretty kick

ass consulting company, HMB

• I do a little bit of everything

• I live in Columbus, Ohio therefore that makes

me a huge Ohio State Buckeye fan. It’s a state

law!

• I like Cats

• I Pumpkin Beer

• And yes…. I look very much like these guys:

What am I?

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Callouts

I’m not affiliated with Scaled Agile, Inc.

SAFe

Transformations take time and energy

It’s not easy!

Agile = Scrum (Scrum.org)

For you purists

I love this stuff!

Ask Questions, have fun

Before we Start

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Agile Baseline

A one slide over and

discussion of what happens at

scale

SAFe

What is it and why should I

care?

Case Study

A deep dive analysis of how

SAFe helped solve scale

issues with an HMB client

Questions

Don’t wait. Ask any time!

Today’s Outline

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Page The Agile Slide

Sprint Planning

Product Backlog

Sprint Demo

Sprint Retrospective

Sprint

Sprint Backlog Sprint Task Breakdown

Production Deployment

Change

Process Improvement

The Product Owner

The Scrum Master

The Development Team

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Agile Team

Project

Agile Team

Project 1

Project 2

Agile Team

Project 1

Project 2

Agile Team

Project 2

Project 3

Project 4

Agile Team

Project 2

Project 3

Project 4

Agile Team

Project 2

Agile Team

Project 2

Project 3

Project 4

When Agile Grows Project & Team Dependencies at Scale

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“You’re doing agile and your doing it well.

You’ve grown your team size to the point

where the business can no longer keep up

with a waterfall approach to portfolio

management. Dependencies between teams

and projects cause delays and changing

project priorities have unforeseen

downstream effects. Enter SAFe, an open

framework for applying agile patterns at

enterprise scale.”

Enter Safe… The elevator pitch

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About SAFe

The Scaled Agile Framework is an open set of

guidelines designed to manage a large number of

teams working in an enterprise agile environment.

http://www.scaledagileframework.com/

Versions

• 1.0 released in 2011

• 4.0 is the current version

• 3 - level

• 4 - level

Certifications

Programs are available on their

site to get certified

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SAFe The Big Picture

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Team

Program

Portfolio

The Levels 11 Page

Plain ole’ vanilla agile!

The heart of the ART

(Agile Release Train)

The PMO of agile

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Team

Program

Portfolio

The People 12 Page

The usual suspects

System Architects,

Product Managers,

Business Owners

Epic Owners,

Sponsors, Enterprise

Architects

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The Backlogs 13 Page

Team

Product & Sprint Backlogs

Program

Program & Release Backlogs

Portfolio

Portfolio Backlog Kanban

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The Cadence 14 Page

Program

PI (Program

Increment) &

Releases

Portfolio

Kanban Review

Cycles

Team

Sprints

Continuous Delivery

Release any time

based on current

market conditions

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The Quality 15 Page

QA

Inspect & Retrospect

Quality is present at all levels in

many fashions

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Well, duh!

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Case Study A SAFe implementation

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About the Client A global leader in power and automation technologies

Canada

Dev Teams

Zurich (HQ)

SMEs India

Dev Teams

India

QA Teams

Poland

Dev Teams

Westerville, OH

Client Site

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About the Client The story so far…

Business Man Make it work, get buy in.

Idea Man Engineer with over 30

years of experience The Developer Turn it into a product

The three person team that started a global success

A “start-up” in a large company

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Scaling Problems When more than 3 people are not enough

Cowboy Coding…

Three people led to one team which eventually led to 7

teams working across the globe

It only goes so far

Product managers

jockeying for their

projects

There was no one

accountable for the

portfolio

Release schedules

were not coordinated

which led to schedule

collisions

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The “Littler Picture” A SAFe implementation

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ART (Agile

Release Train) A set of agile teams

working together to

deliver program

increments on a set

cadence.

PI (Program Increment)

A group of feature epics

that are planned and

scheduled during a

release planning

meeting. A PI will often

span multiple team

sprints.

Architecture Epic

Large, typically cross-

cutting technology

initiatives that are

necessary to evolve

portfolio solutions to

support current and

future business needs.

Business Epic

Large, typically cross-

cutting customer-facing

initiatives that

encapsulate the new

development necessary

to realize certain

business benefits.

Strategic Theme

Specific, itemized

business objectives that

connect portfolio vision

to the evolving

enterprise business

strategy.

Terms & Definitions

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Ideas

The entry point into the

process

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02

03

04

Strategic Themes defined by upper

management typically span multiple

years

All architecture & business requests

must fit into a theme

Ideas are incubated into VersionOne

and periodically reviewed.

Business owners and architects are

responsible for epics being incubated.

Portfolio Incubation

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Analysis

Review

Canvas

Backlog

Incubated ideas

Ready for next review cycle

Product Manager’s current

priority. BA most likely assigned

Prioritized and ready to begin

work

A Portfolio Epic begins life…

Requests (ideas) become Portfolio Epics

and begin life on the planning board. This

is a separate planning “room” in

VersionOne.

Portfolio Planning The Kanban board

In Progress Currently being worked in a PI

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The Portfolio Planning Meeting

REQUIRED Monthly reoccurring meeting scheduled with product managers and

architects to share information about their epics with upper

management.

Funding Priority Readiness Review

Status Updates

Portfolio Prioritization Move across the Kanban board

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Swag & Priority

More Detailed Workflow

Feature Epics

Cross Cutting

At the program level we called

these feature epics

Feature epics require more

refinement

All epics in the backlog must be

prioritized and estimated

Often times QA & Tech/Team

leads are involved

Business analysts work in conjunction

with the epic owners and technical team

to break down portfolio epics into

program level epics. Epic owners are

now the BAs and Architects.

Portfolio Epic Breakdown

Program Epic Creation

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Top to bottom all members attend. Product manager and

business owners discuss why feature epics are important.

Architects discuss architectural runway. End goal is to plan

one or more PIs to reach a release.

All Members Attend

Another formalized meeting. If you don’t have a release

planning meeting you’re not doing SAFe. It akin to skipping a

sprint planning meeting!

REQUIRED

Release Planning All aboard the ART (Agile Release Train)

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Feature epics “on the train” are scheduled and maintained by

the RTE (Release Train Conductor). VersionOne allowed a

timeline view into the work. Keep in mind multiple teams are

working from this same backlog.

Release Timeline Visually monitoring the train’s progress

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Inspect

Release Review Meeting

REQUIRED

The release review board meets on a scheduled cadence with the

goal of reviewing the productivity of the ARTs to ensure the PI will

meet the business goals.

Feature epics are reanalyzed and the user stories that make up the

epics are scheduled into sprints for the teams.

Release Review Managing the ART (Agile Release Train)

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The same ole agile

Working towards a PI All teams perform sprints working from stories created from the feature

epics. This may include shared services teams such as DBAs, QA,

architect or even documentation teams.

ART Ticket

The teams are responsible for getting their

stories onto the ART. They are accountable.

Stabilize Final sprint for all teams allows for final QA

and stabilization tasks

The Teams

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Backlog Depth Ensuring that the portfolio &

program keep pace with teams

Epic Burnup Portfolio epics creeping

towards their approved

budgets

Release Burndown A quick gauge of how healthy

the release is.

Visibility Portfolio & feature epics must

be visibility on the board to be

in-scope

Team-level Agile Velocity, capacity, burndown,

estimate accuracy, effectiveness

(stories started but not finished)

ART Capacity Teams may fluctuate.

VersionOne shows a loading

bar on the timeline.

The Metrics What should we be tracking?

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The Results A continuous work in progress

Collaboration Visibility and cadence

led to new levels of

collaboration

Processes in place All together it took a little over

1 year to integrate SAFe

processes.

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Remaining Questions?

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+1 502 649 1981

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