3 ms·

Everything described in there is mirrored in SAFe fwiw, even though their survey said it was mostly used in large non-tech companies. Individual teams can use

Everything described in there is mirrored in SAFe fwiw, even though their survey said it was mostly used in large non-tech companies. Individual teams can use whatever they want to manage themselves (Kanban, Lean, Scrum, etc…up to the team). Estimations planning and commitments for each quarter are done by developers exclusively, including coordinating across teams. Releases can happen at any point. A strong and continuously improving CI/CD pipeline is an expectation. I really wish more people knew about SAFe. It’s constantly improving and refining the experience and from what I have seen, if there is a better way to do things SAFe will become it.

jon-wood 5y ago
I'm sure there's some nuggets of value in SAFe, but I just can't take anything seriously which welcomes you into it's world with this diagram: https://www.scaledagileframework.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/SAFe_5.1_Portfolio_SAFe_ImageMap.png https://www.scaledagileframework.com/wp-content/uploads/2021... Also note up in the top left corner, where you've got the customer abstractly feeding work into this treadmill of... stuff. If your development team aren't talking to either the customer, or representatives of the customer, nothing else in agile will work.
- brightball 5y ago
  I do hate that diagram.
- namdnay 5y ago
  oh you sweet summer child... that's only the first or second level of SAFe. Once you get to full "operating thetan level 8" , they give you this abomination: https://www.agilest.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/scaled-agile-framework-4-5-big-picture.png https://www.agilest.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/scaled-ag... yes, that's right, an "agile" process with 5 levels of bullshit between the customer and the keyboards EDIT: anyone know why this is "flagged"? is there a trigger on keywords? or on URLs?
namdnay 5y ago
SAFe is beautiful in that it is the ultimate expression of Enterprise Agile Cargoculting: all pretenses of agility are lost, there are ten different levels of decision making, and all responsibility is diffused in a confused mess of worker bees running around under an all-powerful and all-seeing LPM > Individual teams can use whatever they want to manage themselves (Kanban, Lean, Scrum, etc…up to the team) Except that they can't, because they will need to align on PI dates based on sprint durations, publish their burndown statistics and various other measures, and there's no way the poor soul who is reponsible for collating that will go into several different tools > Estimations planning and commitments for each quarter are done by developers exclusively, including coordinating across teams No they're not, they're done by the product owners, the system architects, the release train engineers (shhh... don't call them project managers), the product managers etc > Releases can happen at any point In my experience, releases can only happen at the end of a program increment, or maybe at the end of each sprint because until then nobody has integrated everything together > A strong and continuously improving CI/CD pipeline is an expectation. Fair enough, until the "innovation sprint" becomes the "bugfix spring" and all those good resolutions fly out of the window > I really wish more people knew about SAFe. So do I, just like I wish more people knew about colorectal cancer > It’s constantly improving and refining the experience and from what I have seen, if there is a better way to do things SAFe will become it. SAFe is constantly evolving, because that's the easiest way to keep the money coming in. It's as if PADI had found a way to change diving equipment every 2 years and ask everyone to recertify Sorry for the tone, but I still have PTSD
- brightball 5y ago
  You have PTSD from a bastardized version of SAFe, based on your description.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    Judging by the number of SAFe consultants (complete with that video of a guy drawing comic-book style diagrams about spotify, cute the first time but infuriating after the 10th) I'd have to say that if our SAFe was bastardised maybe SAFe itself is a bastard
speed_spread 5y ago
SAFe is just waterfall management with agile keywords tacked on. It's not an engineering methodology. The only "problem" SAFe solves is reintroduction of deadlines and quarterly objectives, which flies in the face of everything agile actually stands for.
- brightball 5y ago
  It doesn’t do any of those things. The quarterly PI’s are for planning because the most you can reasonably plan for with any degree of accuracy is about 8-12 weeks. There are no deadlines imposed. You plan what you’re going to work on and how long it will take. You coordinate with other teams for any dependencies they may need from you and when. But you as a developer are responsible for saying how long it will take and when you can have it done. Even after that, you’re only allowed to plan 2/3 of your time and the final 2 weeks of the PI are unplanned specifically to build in more buffer for you. If you do finish when you originally planned to, that 2 weeks is equivalent to 20% time where you can work on anything you want for the company, training for yourself, etc. It’s a built in reward for being on schedule. And then as a group you discuss all of the risks that could prevent one of these items from being hit schedule wise. So if something comes up that keeps a team from being able to finish something, everybody was aware of it in the beginning and had the opportunity to try to help address it. There’s no waterfall to it unless you consider anything that acknowledges dependencies to be waterfall. Planning for 8-12 weeks at a time is the ideal window that lets you set expectations, coordinate multiple teams and avoid derailment without the idea that you can plan forever into the future. The farther you get from now, the more any plans become pure imagination which is why year long waterfall plans are a joke. It’s entirely possible to plan 8-12 weeks at a time. Especially when the point of the system is to acknowledge that estimates are at best a guess. There’s a balance between setting expectations that business people can plan around and working in a box without communicating anything other than “I’ll let you know when it’s ready.” SAFe strikes that balance better than anything I’ve seen. But everything will always boil down to leadership embracing it. Until leadership can acknowledge the fundamental lack of accuracy from software estimates, you’re screwed no matter what the methodology.
  - speed_spread 5y ago
elzbardico 5y ago
> I really wish more people knew about SAFe. Yeah, I feel the same about nicotine, lead, mercury, dioxin and asbestos.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

jon-wood 5y ago

I'm sure there's some nuggets of value in SAFe, but I just can't take anything seriously which welcomes you into it's world with this diagram: https://www.scaledagileframework.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/SAFe_5.1_Portfolio_SAFe_ImageMap.png https://www.scaledagileframework.com/wp-content/uploads/2021... Also note up in the top left corner, where you've got the customer abstractly feeding work into this treadmill of... stuff. If your development team aren't talking to either the customer, or representatives of the customer, nothing else in agile will work.

brightball 5y ago
I do hate that diagram.
namdnay 5y ago
oh you sweet summer child... that's only the first or second level of SAFe. Once you get to full "operating thetan level 8" , they give you this abomination: https://www.agilest.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/scaled-agile-framework-4-5-big-picture.png https://www.agilest.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/scaled-ag... yes, that's right, an "agile" process with 5 levels of bullshit between the customer and the keyboards EDIT: anyone know why this is "flagged"? is there a trigger on keywords? or on URLs?

namdnay 5y ago

SAFe is beautiful in that it is the ultimate expression of Enterprise Agile Cargoculting: all pretenses of agility are lost, there are ten different levels of decision making, and all responsibility is diffused in a confused mess of worker bees running around under an all-powerful and all-seeing LPM > Individual teams can use whatever they want to manage themselves (Kanban, Lean, Scrum, etc…up to the team) Except that they can't, because they will need to align on PI dates based on sprint durations, publish their burndown statistics and various other measures, and there's no way the poor soul who is reponsible for collating that will go into several different tools > Estimations planning and commitments for each quarter are done by developers exclusively, including coordinating across teams No they're not, they're done by the product owners, the system architects, the release train engineers (shhh... don't call them project managers), the product managers etc > Releases can happen at any point In my experience, releases can only happen at the end of a program increment, or maybe at the end of each sprint because until then nobody has integrated everything together > A strong and continuously improving CI/CD pipeline is an expectation. Fair enough, until the "innovation sprint" becomes the "bugfix spring" and all those good resolutions fly out of the window > I really wish more people knew about SAFe. So do I, just like I wish more people knew about colorectal cancer > It’s constantly improving and refining the experience and from what I have seen, if there is a better way to do things SAFe will become it. SAFe is constantly evolving, because that's the easiest way to keep the money coming in. It's as if PADI had found a way to change diving equipment every 2 years and ask everyone to recertify Sorry for the tone, but I still have PTSD

brightball 5y ago
You have PTSD from a bastardized version of SAFe, based on your description.
- namdnay 5y ago
  Judging by the number of SAFe consultants (complete with that video of a guy drawing comic-book style diagrams about spotify, cute the first time but infuriating after the 10th) I'd have to say that if our SAFe was bastardised maybe SAFe itself is a bastard

speed_spread 5y ago

SAFe is just waterfall management with agile keywords tacked on. It's not an engineering methodology. The only "problem" SAFe solves is reintroduction of deadlines and quarterly objectives, which flies in the face of everything agile actually stands for.

brightball 5y ago
It doesn’t do any of those things. The quarterly PI’s are for planning because the most you can reasonably plan for with any degree of accuracy is about 8-12 weeks. There are no deadlines imposed. You plan what you’re going to work on and how long it will take. You coordinate with other teams for any dependencies they may need from you and when. But you as a developer are responsible for saying how long it will take and when you can have it done. Even after that, you’re only allowed to plan 2/3 of your time and the final 2 weeks of the PI are unplanned specifically to build in more buffer for you. If you do finish when you originally planned to, that 2 weeks is equivalent to 20% time where you can work on anything you want for the company, training for yourself, etc. It’s a built in reward for being on schedule. And then as a group you discuss all of the risks that could prevent one of these items from being hit schedule wise. So if something comes up that keeps a team from being able to finish something, everybody was aware of it in the beginning and had the opportunity to try to help address it. There’s no waterfall to it unless you consider anything that acknowledges dependencies to be waterfall. Planning for 8-12 weeks at a time is the ideal window that lets you set expectations, coordinate multiple teams and avoid derailment without the idea that you can plan forever into the future. The farther you get from now, the more any plans become pure imagination which is why year long waterfall plans are a joke. It’s entirely possible to plan 8-12 weeks at a time. Especially when the point of the system is to acknowledge that estimates are at best a guess. There’s a balance between setting expectations that business people can plan around and working in a box without communicating anything other than “I’ll let you know when it’s ready.” SAFe strikes that balance better than anything I’ve seen. But everything will always boil down to leadership embracing it. Until leadership can acknowledge the fundamental lack of accuracy from software estimates, you’re screwed no matter what the methodology.
- speed_spread 5y ago

elzbardico 5y ago

> I really wish more people knew about SAFe. Yeah, I feel the same about nicotine, lead, mercury, dioxin and asbestos.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]