SAFe^®: The World’s Leading Framework for Enterprise Agility

“Philips is continuously driving to develop high-quality software in a predictable, fast, and Agile way. SAFe addresses this primary goal, and offers these further benefits: reduced time-to-market, improved quality, stronger alignment across geographically distributed multi-disciplinary teams, and collaboration across teams to deliver meaningful value to customers with reduced cycle time.”

—Sundaresan Jagadeesan, SW CoE Program Director, Philips

To succeed in today’s adapt-or-die marketplace, businesses must be able to rapidly change the way they create and deliver value to their customers. Hundreds of the world’s most successful companies–including Intel, Capital One, AstraZeneca, Cisco, and Philips–have turned to the Scaled Agile Framework^® (SAFe^®) to achieve agility at scale and maintain a competitive edge.

SAFe^® 4.5 Distilled: Applying the Scaled Agile Framework^® for Lean Enterprises explains how adopting SAFe can quickly improve time to market and increase productivity, quality, and employee engagement. In this book, you will

• Understand the business case for SAFe: its benefits, the problems it solves, and how to apply it
• Get an overview of SAFe across all parts of the business: team, program, value stream, and portfolio
• Learn why SAFe works: the power of SAFe’s Lean-Agile mindset, values, and principles
• Discover how systems thinking, Agile development, and Lean product development form the underlying basis for SAFe
• Learn how to become a Lean-Agile leader and effectively drive an enterprise-wide transformation

Richard Knaster, SAFe Fellow and Principal Consultant at Scaled Agile, Inc., has more than 25 years’ experience in software development in roles ranging from developer to executive and has been involved in Agile for more than a decade. Prior to joining Scaled Agile, Inc., Richard worked at IBM, where his career spanned from product line management (PPM domain) and professional services to chief methodologist, Agile and Lean. Richard is a certified IBM Thought Leader and an Open Group Distinguished IT Specialist. He is also a certified SPC, PSM, Agile Certified Practitioner, PMP, and a contributor to the Disciplined Agile Delivery framework and PMI Portfolio/Program Management standards. He is a contributor to SAFe® 4.5 Reference Guide (Addison-Wesley, 2018).

Dean Leffingwell, creator of SAFe®, is widely recognized as the one of the world’s foremost authorities on Lean-Agile best practices. He is an author, serial entrepreneur, and software systems development methodologist. His two best-selling books, Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise (Addison-Wesley, 2011), and Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises (Addison-Wesley, 2007), form much of the basis of modern thinking on Lean-Agile practices and principles.

Foreword

Preface

About the Authors

Part I - Introduction

1. Overview of the Scaled Agile Framework

2. SAFe Core Values

3. Principles of Lean, Systems Thinking

4. Agile Manifesto

Part II – Agile Portfolio Management

5. Organizing for Value Delivery

6. Evaluating ideas, managing demand and flow

7. Governing with Agility and responsibility

8. Budgeting with Agility

9. Lean Thinking Leadership

Part III – Agile Programs (Teams of Teams)

10. Empowering programs

11. Driving with Customer Vision

12. Planning on cadence

13. Executing with flow

14. Measuring progress

15. Releasing on demand

16. Improving continuously

Part IV – Agile Teams

17. Enabling high performing teams

18. Aligning to a common mission

19. Delivering code quality

20. Developing incrementally