SAFe: Why Can't We Be Friends?
Why Does Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Divide So Many People?
Why does Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) divide so many people?
That's because SAFe divides people by design. It's intentional.
The hate they receive isn't the fault of the community. It's the fault of SAFe. Here's a simple visualization that explains why so many dislike SAFe.
SAFe takes concepts and frameworks that are already successful and incorporates them into their framework.
Sounds awesome right? Who doesn't want a scaling framework that contains a toolbox packed with proven practices and frameworks?
Except they don't stop there. They take what's good and bastardize, dilute and warp it beyond recognition. That's because they don't want to be scary, they want it to be SAFe.
Whatever is assimilated has to fit with buzzword bingo pseudo-Agile narrative of SAFe. As long as it meshes with the existing command and control marketing mix of SAFe, then all is good. How it's actually supposed to work stops mattering.
Please don't take my word for it. Ask people whose ideas have been incorporated in SAFe what they think about the way it's portrayed in the framework.
Ask someone like Manuel Pais, Jeff Gothelf, or Jeff Sutherland whether SAFe does their ideas justice.
Here's what Jeff Gothelf had to say about the incorporation of Lean UX in SAFe 4.5:
"Ever since the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe for short) adopted Lean UX in version 4.5 I’ve received a steady stream of inbound questions about how, exactly, these two methods are supposed to work well together.
The short answer is, I have no idea.
The slightly longer answer is that all the principles we’ve built into Lean UX don’t seem to exist in SAFe. "
So please stop spreading the tree-hugging "why can't we all be friends?" narrative with regards to SAFe.
When you hijack and distort existing ideas, you won't be received with open arms.
SAFe wants to be a stepping stone to Agility for big corporations, and they don't mind stepping on and trampling the hard work of others to serve that purpose.
The hate is their fault. Period.
The primary “customer” for a Scaled Agile implementation isn’t an agilist.
It’s a stressed-out executive worried about staying relevant in the marketplace, who knows that better software is the key, trying to get more effectiveness out of their IT functions, who believes that agility and Lean Portfolio Management can help them accomplish all those things.
These executives and their businesses don’t have an “Agile” problem, they have a set of business problems they believe agility can help solve.
This is the role of Scaled Agile.
But it’s what Scaled Agile *doesn’t* attempt to address is why organizations fail to get the benefits, even after multi-year multi-million dollar SAFe “transformations”:
Organizational Design and underlying systems like project-based Funding.
The org I worked in that flipped to SAFe had such poor change management implementing it. It took at least 3 quarterly plannings to feel like teams were getting it and you still have 1/4 company that had no idea what SAFe even was.