The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a popular approach for scaling Agile practices to large organizations and complex projects. In this post, I will explore the three different levels of SAFe: team, program and portfolio and how they work together to support organizations in their Agile journey. I will also discuss the key practices and activities at each level, and how they can help teams and organizations [improve their collaboration, communication,]
and delivery.
What is Scaled Agile Framework?
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a framework for scaling Agile practices to large organizations and complex projects. SAFe has three different levels:
- Team level: It focuses on the work of individual teams and their daily activities. It includes practices for agile development, teamwork, and continuous improvement.
- Program level: This level focuses on coordinating and integrating the work of multiple teams working on a single program, which can be a project, a project of projects, a product, or a number of teams that need coordination. It includes practices for agile planning, program increments, and system demos.
- Portfolio level: This is where the organization aligns its strategy with its portfolio of projects and initiatives. It includes practices for portfolio management, value stream mapping, and governance.
Each level of SAFe builds upon the previous one, and they are designed to work together to help organizations deliver value faster and more efficiently.
Team Level
The emphasis at the team level in SAFe is on creating high-performing, self-organized teams that are able to deliver value quickly and consistently. This is achieved through a combination of Agile practices, collaboration, and support from other parts of the organization.
At this level, SAFe emphasizes the importance of self-organizing, cross-functional teams that are empowered to take ownership of their work and deliver value to the customer. These teams are called “Agile Teams”, and they are responsible for delivering high-quality increments of working software on a regular basis.
Agile Teams should follow an iterative and incremental development process, with each iteration (usually implemented as Scrum sprints) resulting in a deliverable increment of functionality. At the beginning of each Iteration, the team plans the work and breaks it down into small, manageable chunks called User Stories or PBIs (Product Backlog Items). The team then works on these work units in priority order, completing as many as possible within the Iteration timebox.
In my experience, it’s better to think of the iteration as a heartbeat instead of a timebox. Having an amount of work to be finished by a given time puts you in a mindset of project completion, which creates bad stress and it’s not healthy.
SAFe also emphasizes the importance of collaboration and communication within and across teams. Agile teams are encouraged to work closely with customers and stakeholders to understand their needs and preferences and to regularly demonstrate their progress and ask for feedback. Teams are also encouraged to collaborate with other teams and cross-functional groups within the organization to ensure that they are aligned with the overall goals and objectives of the company.
SAFe focuses on delivering value to the customer, continuous improvement, and collaboration within and across teams as key principles for team success. Notice that there is nothing different at this level from what you may already know about Scrum or Kanban.
It is important to recognize that SAFe is a framework designed to help organizations scale agile principles and practices to large, complex projects involving multiple teams. As such, it does place a strong emphasis on scaling and coordinating work across multiple teams and levels of the organization. It is done at the program level.
Program Level
The program level refers to how the organization coordinates and aligns the work of multiple Agile teams towards a shared vision or goal.
At this level, SAFe emphasizes the importance of transparent and continuous communication, collaboration, and alignment across all levels of the organization. To facilitate this, it introduces the concept of the “Agile Release Train” (ART), which is a long-lived team of Agile teams working together to deliver value to the customer.
The Agile Release Train (ART) is responsible for defining and prioritizing a shared backlog of work, called the “Program Increment (PI) Planning” process, which is used to coordinate and align the work of all teams within the ART. The PI Planning process involves the creation of a “Program Vision” and “Program Backlog,” which are used to guide the work of the ART and ensure that it is aligned with the overall goals and objectives of the organization.
At the program level, SAFe also emphasizes the importance of continuous integration, delivery, and deployment of working software. The ART is responsible for regularly delivering increments of working software to the customer and gathering feedback to inform future development efforts. Overall, SAFe promotes a focus on delivering value to the customer, continuous improvement, and collaboration across all levels of the organization as key principles for success at the program level.
There are many practices popularized by SAFe, like the release train or the PI Planning event. I’ll dedicate a future post to going deep into these practices that can be used also outside this framework.
Portfolio Level
The portfolio level aligns the work of multiple programs and teams with the overall strategic goals and objectives of the organization.
At this level, SAFe emphasizes the importance of aligning investments with strategic goals and objectives, and of creating and maintaining a portfolio of work that delivers value to the customer.
To achieve these goals, SAFe introduces the concept of “Lean Portfolio Management” which involves the use of techniques such as Lean budgeting, Lean governance, and Lean governance flow to align investment decisions with strategic goals and objectives.
SAFe also promotes the use of “Portfolio Kanban” at the portfolio level to help visualize and manage the flow of work through the organization from ideation to delivery. At this level, SAFe also emphasizes the importance of transparency and continuous communication to ensure that all levels of the organization are aligned with the overall goals and objectives. This includes the use of events to do the budgeting and the governance, involving stakeholders from across the organization in the planning process.
This is usually the cornerstone of all Agile transformation initiatives because, at this level, almost all stakeholders use not only reasonable arguments but also politics. Unfortunately, finding companies where the balance of internal power is more relevant than the business strategy is very common. SAFe is not impermeable to it either.
SAFe in large organizations
Overall, SAFe is mainly designed to help large organizations to effectively coordinate and align the work of multiple teams towards a shared vision or goal, and to continuously deliver value to the customer through the regular delivery of working software. Using many of these programs in a small company may produce more bureaucracy and an increase of intermediary roles than the desired increment of efficiency.
One of the biggest challenges that can occur when introducing Agile (including SAFe) in large companies is the existing culture produced by years of different business strategies, changing management rules, and by the well-known effect of too many people working together. Aligning goals around a strategy is challenging, but it can be done. Having coherent management rules based on clear principles and acknowledged by everyone is also difficult, but it can be done too. But, uh, having more than 150 people working together without conflicts and a shared mission? 
