Scaled Agile: SAFe® 5.0 changes and how Agile Hive maps them

We're happy to announce the release of the new version of the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe®, version 5.0.  This release aims to help companies scale agile principles and methods beyond agile IT and development teams to the entire organization. The onboarding of all employees to the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe® requires a comprehensive and detailed plan.  We have extensively updated and supplemented this plan.

In this short overview, we'll show you the SAFe® version 5.0 changes and how Agile Hive - SAFe® with Atlassian Tools supports you as you map your SAFe® implementation.

A new level: Essential SAFe®

SAFe® 5 focuses on business agility.  It often works within an agile framework is limited to individual departments such as development and IT rather than implementation throughout the entire value chain of the company. When you have an agile strategy throughout your entire company, it allows you to focus on the customer even more.

With SAFe® 5, we've synthesized team and program levels into a new, common level: Essential SAFe®. By combining these two indispensable levels, we've enhanced the very core of the framework.

New core competencies

SAFe® 5.0 focuses on two new core concepts based on the ethos of agile product development:

  • Continuous learning describes various values and methods which encourage. This empowers your employees to (jointly) train themselves and act as innovators.
  • Organizational agility aims to support teams across the entire value chain by improving their business processes. It allows teams to think and act more strategically. This also helps establish clear responsibilities and allows the team to react quickly to changes.

Additionally, the other new core concepts were introduced in SAFe® version 4.6 with expansions and modifications.

New element: Measure & Grow

Has your organization already adapted the portfolio level of SAFe®?  Do you value the benefits that your organization can gain from achieving business agility? Unfortunately, the SAFe® Framework assumes that companies can't achieve business agility until they adapt to the portfolio level of SAFe®. Essential and Solution levels don't include business agility because neither of them has a portfolio level.

The solution: a new SAFe® element called Measure & Grow. The aim of Measure & Grow is to identify and understand how your agile transformation is going. It also determines how progress ought to be assessed, and where it is compared to the status quo of a standard agile transformation process. Once you've established this level of awareness, your organization can prioritize goals and objectives which further SAFe® implementation.  A tailor-made plan can further support your transformation with a tailor-made plan.

Focus on customer centricity

Two of the most important elements that are part of the new Essential level of the SAFe® model are, Customer Centricity and Design Thinking. When you're organizing your Agile Release Trains (ART), SAFe® stresses that, before considering all other structures, that you must focus first on what is the value for your customer. Now, SAFe® emphasizes this even more emphatically at the Essential level: here, the customer is at the center.

A New Principle: Organizing around value

The nine core principles of SAFe® have now become ten. When you map a value stream, the goal is to understand how your customers derive value from a given product. Based on this, you can learn how best to build and organize your teams and ART around this value stream. This is concept was explored in earlier versions of SAFe®, but in SAFe® 5  and it's been given this new distinction, stressing its importance.

Agile Hive - SAFe® with Atlassian Tools

We've developed Agile Hive as the solution for implementing the SAFe® methodology using the Atlassian tools software infrastructure that so many companies rely on. Agile Hive allows you to integrate Scaled Agile Framework as an agile scaling concept, using the existing Atlassian infrastructure with Jira and Confluence as your software platform.

By doing so, Agile Hive supports you by curating a series of software solutions.  These give you the functionality needed for the successful scaling of agile methods and processes. The feature set includes comprehensive SAFe® reporting, artifact hierarchies according to SAFe®, visualized dependencies, and automated documentation.

SAFe® with Atlassian tools: Get to know Agile Hive now!

Would you like to know more about Agile Hive and the software-supported implementation of SAFe®? We would be happy to discuss your requirements for enterprise-wide agile product development and product management with you. Get in touch with us today and let us demonstrate how it works in a personal session.

Further information

SAFe® with Atlassian tools: Agile Hive is Scaled Agile Platform Partner
Jan Einfach: Agile and Atlassian explained | A short introduction to “Agile Hive – SAFe with Atlassian Tools”
Agile Hive, scaling agile methods, SAFe software integration and more – Interview with Brandon Huff (cPrime)
Planning in SAFe® – always a talking point

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