SAFe - Scaled Agile Framework

Enterprises must learn how to adapt quickly to changing technology and economic conditions, or they will become extinct. Enterprises that effectively embrace innovative new technologies and business models can positively impact the value of existing products and services offered in the industry. 'Disruption' is so powerful-it enables emergence of new digital products, services and businesses who disrupt the current market, and causes the need for re-evaluation of how businesses innovate, operate and adapt.

Organizational change is hard. It requires adopting new behaviors, leadership styles, practices and culture. SAFe accelerates Lean-Agile transformation with the new Implementation Roadmap, which guides enterprises every step of the way.

SAFe helps companies to:

• Innovate and test ideas more quickly using the Lean Startup Cycle and Lean User Experience
• Deliver much faster with Scalable DevOps and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline
• Simplify governance and improve portfolio performance with Lean Portfolio Management
• Support the full range of development environments, from the simplest to the most complex, using 4 new configurations of the framework

SAFe Configurations

• Essential SAFe is the heart of the framework and is the simplest starting point for implementation. It's the basic building block.
• Portfolio SAFe helps align portfolio execution to the enterprise strategy.It provides business agility through the principles and practices for portfolio strategy and investment funding, agile program guidance and lean governance.
• Large Solution SAFe is for developing the largest and most complex solutions that typically require multiple Agile Release Trains and suppliers, but do not require portfolio-level considerations. 
• Full SAFe is the most comprehensive version of the Framework. It supports enterprises that build and maintain large, integrated solutions that require hundreds of people or more, and includes all levels of SAFe: team, program, large solution, and portfolio.

Each configuration is supported by 'Spanning Palette' and 'Foundation' elements respectively.

The Spanning Palette

The spanning palette contains various roles and artifacts that may be applicable to a specific team, program, large solution, or portfolio context.

Spanning palette element:
Vision, System Team, Lean UX, Metrics, Shared services, CoP, Milestones - fixed-date milestones, Program Increment milestones, learning milestones.
Roadmap - communicates the planned deliverables and milestones over a time line.

SAFe Foundation
Lean-Agile Leaders - lifelong learners and teachers, they understand and embrace Lean and Agile principles and practices. Management has the ultimate responsibility for business outcomes.
Core Values - define the belief system of SAFe: alignment, built-in quality, transparency and program execution.

"Find people who share your values, and you'll conquer the world together."
                                                                         - John Ratzenberger

• Alignment communicates the intent of the mission and enables teams to focus on how to accomplish it.
• Built-in quality practices increase customer satisfaction and provide faster, more predictable delivery. They also improve the ability to innovate and take risks, and also ensure that each solution element, at every increment, achieves appropriate quality standards throughout.
• Transparency builds trust. Trust, in turn, is essential for performance, innovation, risk-taking, and relentless improvement. Creating an environment where 'the facts are always friendly' is key to building trust and improving performance. It enables fast, decentralized decision-making and higher levels of employee empowerment and engagement.
• Program execution, the entire development value stream - from concept to release must become leaner and more responsive to change. Traditional organizational structures and practices were built for control and stability; they were not specifically designed to support innovation, speed and agility.

Lean-Agile Mindset- the combination of beliefs, assumptions, and actions of SAFe leaders and practitioners who embrace the concepts of the Agile manifesto and Lean thinking.

Value is supported by the four 'pillars' of the House of Lean:

• Respect for people and culture
• Flow
• Innovation 
• Relentless improvement
• Leadership

SAFe principles

1. Take an economic view
2. Apply systems thinking
3. Assume variability; preserve options
4. Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles
5. Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems
6. Visualize and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths
7. Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning
8. Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers
9. Decentralize decision-making

Implementation Roadmap
SPC - SAFe Program Consultants are change agents who combine their technical knowledge of SAFe with an intrinsic motivation to improve the company's software and systems development processes.