SAFe Implementation Roadmap Overview

Many leaders pride themselves on setting the high-level direction and staying out of the details. But big picture, hands off leadership isn’t likely to work in a change situation, because the hardest part of change—the paralyzing part—is in the details.

Any successful change requires a translation of ambiguous goals into concrete behaviors. To make a switch, you need to script the critical moves.

—Dan and Chip Heath, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

The SAFe Implementation Roadmap consists of an overview graphic and 12-steps that describe a strategy and an ordered set of activities that have proved effective in successfully implementing SAFe.

Achieving the business benefits of Lean-Agile development at scale is not a trivial effort, so SAFe is not a trivial framework. Before realizing SAFe’s rewards, organizations must embrace a Lean-Agile Mindset and understand and apply Lean-Agile principles. They must identify Value Streams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs), implement a Lean-Agile portfolio, build quality in, and establish the mechanisms for continuous value delivery and DevOps. And, of course, the culture must evolve as well.

Based on proven organizational change management strategies, the SAFe Implementation Roadmap graphic and article series describe the steps, or ‘critical moves,’ an enterprise can take to implement SAFe in an orderly, reliable, and successful fashion.

Details

To achieve the desired organizational change, leadership must “script the critical moves,” as described by Dan and Chip Heath [1]. When it comes to identifying those critical moves for adopting SAFe, hundreds of the world’s largest enterprises have already gone down this path, and successful adoption patterns have become clear. A fairly standard pattern is shown in Figure 1.

The roadmap is shaped like a huge S, flipped vertically and divided into segments resembling arrows. To the top-left of the S, is a Toolkit that is marked with the Triggering point at its top. This obviously marks the start of the roadmap, that is labeled Go SAFe. The top portion of the S has three arrow segments labeled as follows: ‘Train Lean-Agile Change Agents,’ ‘Train Executive, Managers, Leaders,’ and ‘Identify Value Streams and ARTS.’ An extra arrow labeled ‘Lean-Agile Center of Excellence’ points from the Train Lean-Agile Change Agents segment to the Train Executives segment. These two segments are also tagged on the top as follows: Implementing SAFe (SPCs) and Leading SAFe. The Identify Value Streams and ARTs segment is attached to a Toolkit at the bottom and has a train-like structure labeled ‘Agile Release Train’ on the top. The two ends of this train taper upward to three arrowheads, which in turn contain two train structures within each of them. The roadmap now turns right and this segment is labeled ‘Create the Implementation Plan.’ The next part of the S has two arrow segments labeled ‘Prepare for ART Launch’ and ‘Train Teams and Launch ART,’ from the right to the left. The Prepare for ART Launch segment has three tags attached to its top namely: Leading SAFe (for ART stakeholders), SAFe PO/PM, and SAFe Scrum Master, from the left to the right. Train Teams and Launch ART has ‘SAFe for Teams’ attached to its top and contains PI Planning on its left end. Both these arrow segments are attached to Toolkit below them. A compass-like structure is positioned after every arrow segment from here on. The next arrow segment causes the roadmap to make a downward left turn and is labeled ‘Coach ART Execution.’ This has an "I ampersand A" tag on its right end. The bottom portion of the S roadmap is again divided into three arrow segments, just like the top portion. The first segment is labeled ‘Launch More ARTs and Value Streams,’ and has the following above it: a spiral arrow pointing to the right, beside which are three train structures labeled ‘Agile Release Train.’ The second segment is labeled ‘Extended to the Portfolio,’ and is tagged ‘Implementing SAFe (more SPCs),’ at the top. There is a block containing a pie-chart titled Portfolio whose two larger portions point to a sequence of five arrowheads each. The arrows are collectively labeled ‘Value Streams.’ This segment is also connected to the Toolkit below it. The third and final segment is labeled ‘Sustain and Improve,’ and has two tags above it namely: SAFe Release Train Engineer and SAFe Advanced Scrum Master. There is a compass-like structure after this segment also. This structure is explained on the top-right of the diagram. It is labeled ‘Business Results’ at the center and has four segments placed in the circle around it namely: Time to Market, Quality, Productivity, and Engagement, in the clockwise direction from the top. These segments also contain the following value ranges mentioned beside them as follows: 30 to 75 percent, 25 to 75 percent, 20 to 50 percent, and 10 to 50 percent.

Figure 1. SAFe Implementation Roadmap

While no two adoptions are identical, and there is rarely a perfectly sequential step-by-step implementation in any enterprise, we know that businesses getting the best results typically follow a path similar to that shown in the SAFe Implementation Roadmap. It includes the following 12 steps:

1. Reach the Tipping Point

2. Train Lean-Agile Change Agents

3. Train Executives, Managers, and Leaders

4. Create a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence

5. Identify Value Streams and ARTs

6. Create the Implementation Plan

7. Prepare for ART Launch

8. Train Teams and Launch the ART

9. Coach ART Execution

10. Launch More ARTs and Value Streams

11. Extend to the Portfolio

12. Sustain and Improve

This overview serves as a launching pad for you to explore these steps in detail and understand how to apply them to your own implementation. Each step of the SAFe Implementation Roadmap is described in Part 2 of this book.

LEARN MORE

[1] Heath, Chip, and Dan Heath. Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Crown Publishing Group, Kindle Edition.

[2] Knaster, Richard, and Dean Leffingwell. SAFe Distilled: Applying the Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Software and Systems Engineering. Addison-Wesley, 2017.