The Agile methodology is used by numerous organizations to achieve their business objectives.
Change is the only constant thing and in this constantly changing world, organizations need to be limber enough to adapt to those changes.
As organizations grow and expand, their business processes tend to become rigid, complex and difficult to change.
They would have deep rooted cultures and processes that are difficult to change. While these processes might ensure the organization’s business continuity and growth, it can also makes them less adaptable to the changing environment quickly.
Some of these changes might be caused by competitor products, socio-economic changes in the world or internal changes by the organization.
Regardless of the reason, every organization should be agile enough to adapt to a constantly changing world and this is where the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) comes in.
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is an agile methodology that is used by organizations to deal with issues that might negatively affect the organization.
Agile methodologies are used to help organizations provide their customers with early competitive solutions and continuous value delivery.
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) are a set of principles, processes and best practices that help larger organizations adopt agile methodologies which include Scrum, Kanban and Lean.
These principles can help create and and deliver goods and services in a faster, more efficient manner.
There are currently seven core competencies of SAFe and they are :
- The Lean-Agile Leadership: This competency describes how Lean-Agile leaders maintain and support organizational change by helping their employees to reach their full potential.
- The Continuous Learning Culture: These are a set of values and practices that helps keep the organization motivated. It helps lead to increased competence, knowledge, innovation and performance.
- The Team and Technical Agility: This competency describes the Lean-Agile principles and practices that are used by Agile teams to help create high-quality products for their customers. Some of the benefits of using this competency include increased productivity, consistent value delivery, and faster time-to-market for the organization’s products..
- The Agile Product Delivery: This competency uses a customer-focused approach to describe, create and release goods and products to customers. This would help produce solutions that would help fulfil the customers needs, reduce development costs and increase their market share.
- The Enterprise Solution Delivery: This competency helps provide details on the application of agile principles to the development, operation and deployment of software applications.
- Lean Portfolio Management: This competency is used to align the implementation and the application of Lean and system thinking approaches to the organization’s business operations and governance. It helps the organization to meet their existing commitments, improve their product innovations and align their strategy to execution.
- The Organizational Agility: This competency helps create strategies, optimize business processes, and adapt the organization to help it take advantage of new business opportunities.
So SAFe is used by organizations to help them improve their adaptability and business outcomes. It also helps improve their product’s time-to-market, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, economic outcomes, and product quality.