Discover SAFe® 6.0 – The Next Evolution with Dean Leffingwell
Here at Scaled Agile, we were thrilled to announce the launch of SAFe® 6.0 and SAFe Studio this month. These new updates will deepen SAFe’s impact, help you build resiliency and reshape the way you approach transformation. On 30 March, Dean Leffingwell is joining us for a deep dive into what these changes mean for you in the APAC region.
When:
March 30, 2023, 11:12 am – March 30, 2023, 11:25 am
The Scaled Agile APAC team is thrilled to host our Co-founder and Cheif Methodologist, Dean Leffingwell, to share his insights about SAFe 6.0. Learn directly from Dean about how these updates enable you to work differently and build the future.
11:30 am AEDT 6:00am IST 8:30am SGT 8:30am CST 9:30am JST
Recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on Lean-Agile best practices, Dean Leffingwell is an entrepreneur and software development methodologist best known for creating SAFe®, the world’s most widely used framework for business agility.
His best-selling books, Agile Software Requirements, Scaling Software Agility, and SAFe® Distilled, form much of the basis of modern thinking on Lean-Agile practices and principles. Founder of several successful startups, including Requisite, Inc. (acquired by Rational), Mr. Leffingwell also served as Chief Methodologist to Rally Software, and prior to that, as Sr. Vice President at Rational Software (now part of IBM). He currently serves as Chief Methodologist to Scaled Agile, Inc., which he co-founded in 2011.
Learn how to apply Flow Accelerators to your context in this workshop to deliver value to your customers faster. After instruction and work time, you’ll see how your area of flow affects the larger system.
When:
June 28, 2023, 1:00 pm – June 29, 2023, 5:00 pm ECT
Where:
Remote
Who:
SAFe Practice Consultant, Program or Project Manager, Release Train Engineer, Agile Coach
This workshop takes place over two days (June 28 and 29) in four-hour sessions from 1-5 pm (CEST).
We designed this eight-hour workshop over two days to support the range of participants needed to optimize one or many value streams.
Who will benefit: The workshop supports everyone involved with building solutions with SAFe®. This may include, but is not limited to, the following: • Cross-functional members of Agile Teams, Agile Release Trains, or Solution Trains running for one PI or longer • A SAFe Portfolio that has already identified its value streams and begun implementing LPM • Full Agile Teams across multiple value streams within a single Portfolio
What attendees will learn: • The flow tools and coaching available to them • Current usage of SAFe Flow Metrics within their organization • How each of the SAFe Flow Accelerators applies within their organization • How to align on actions and create a flow-based improvement backlog • How improvement items affect the larger flow of the value stream or Portfolio
Prerequisites: This workshop is designed to support a set of cross-functional attendees from value stream(s) applying SAFe for at least one PI.
What’s included: • Workshop materials • Eight hours of facilitation from a SAFe Strategic Advisor or SAFe Fellow • Three hours of prep time with internal SPCs or leaders
Speakers
Rune Christensen
SPCT, Strategic Advisor (Scaled Agile, Inc.)
Rune has more than 20 years of experience working with software and cyber physical solutions within enterprise and public safety communication, insurance, logistics, and energy. He has supported several Enterprises in transforming their ways of working using lean-agile practices and helped them achieve greater business outcomes.
Harry Koehnemann
SAFe Fellow, Methodologist (Scaled Agile, Inc.)
Harry Koehnemann is a Methodologist and SAFe Fellow at Scaled Agile Inc., where he helps organizations deliver solutions faster, more predictably, and with high quality. He has spent the past two decades working with large system builders in aerospace, defense, automotive, and other industries, helping them apply Lean, Agile, and MBSE to their engineering practices.
Why SAFe ® and SAP®? Getting better results with experience from the field
In this panel dialogue, we will share our experience at SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) and other SAP S/4 business transformations leveraging SAFe principles and practices to deliver better results.
When:
March 8, 2023, 4:00 pm – March 8, 2023, 5:00 pm ECT
Where:
Zoom
Who:
Agile Coach, SAFe Program Consultant, Consultant, Director
Event Overview: In this panel dialogue, we will share our experience at Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) and other SAP S/4 business transformations leveraging SAFe principles and practices to deliver better results. Showcase: SBB is harmonizing business processes across seven Portfolios with multiple value streams impacting 20.000 employees, building an Enterprise-wide state-of-the-art SAP S/4HANA. You will discover how to combine the SAFe Framework with an SAP delivery model to realize cross-portfolio initiatives.
We discuss the following topics:
• How do you manage SAP Cross-Portfolio Initiatives with SAFe – Organize around value and optimize for Flow for better results • How SAFe helps in achieving harmonization and standardization program objectives? • What is a State-of-the-Art SAP Delivery Model that accelerates Value Delivery and Organizational Agility? • What role do SAP Activate and Focused Build play in the State-of-the-Art SAP Delivery Model to realize program ambitions? • How do you ensure the integration of business concepts, processes, data, and systems, and how does SAFe help to achieve this? • How do you ensure simplicity, efficiency, and steering ability from a business/expert leadership/governance/program perspective – knowing that trade-offs will be necessary? • What patterns are helpful in the transition to a portfolio of portfolio SAFe Lean (Enterprise) Portfolio Management (tactical planning events and organizing around value with Value Nodes or Solution Areas)
In our interactive session, we highly welcome your participation in our discussion!
Speakers
Malte Kumlehn
Director and SAFe® Fellow – SAP Delivery Excellence (Project and Team Inc.)
Malte guides complex Ecosystems, People, Cloud, AI and Data powered digital transformations toward Business Agility. He pioneers Intelligent Operating Models for accelerated strategy execution with large solutions as globally the first of 30+ SAFe® Fellows, Executive Advisor & Advisory Board Members in this field. The SAFe® Fellow Program represents an elite class of experts who can help the world’s largest organizations accelerate digital transformation & achieve business agility. The SAFe® Fellow achievement is Scaled Agile’s most prestigious distinction, recognizing individuals who have exhibited the highest level of mastery and thought leadership in the practice and principles of SAFe. His track record includes founding, leading and growing Accenture’s first SAP Agile Delivery Excellence business. In his Business Owner role, he cared for people, revenue, cost, business development & delivery excellence while living Business Agility, applying Lean-Agile at Scale & SAFe daily.
Oliver Lauffer
Project and Program Manager (SAP)
Oliver Lauffer has been working for more than 20 Years at SAP. He has a long history of leading extensive international Programs and Projects with international Teams. Next to the standard project topics, his focus is on combining agile Methods and Frameworks like SAFe with implementing Standard Software like SAP and connected methodologies like SAP Activate. In addition to his project and program manager role, he has been a highly appreciated, trusted advisor and coach for large, global customer programs. In this role, his extensive experience in Organizational Change Management has been crucial for the success of these programs. Due to his result-oriented, structured working style, good communication skills and high capacity for teamwork, he managed various complex programs and rollouts on time, on budget and with high quality. In Parallel, he is responsible for the Swiss Project Manager Community from an SAP perspective.
Kaya Yumusaklar
Program Manager S/4 and Managing Director (Swiss Federal Railways)
Kaya Yumusaklar (47) has been leading SBB’s SAP S/4 Program since the beginning of 2022 and the overall SBB IT “Asset & Enterprise” practice since the beginning of 2023. In this role, he is the responsible IT Executive for delivering the ongoing SAP transition to S/4 and for developing and operating the overall application portfolio for rail infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance, real estate facility management, logistics, procurement and finance. Before that, he worked as a Finance Director at SBB and was responsible for strategic, companywide programs for cost management, transformation and carve-out initiatives. Kaya grew up in Konstanz in south of Germany. He later moved to Berlin and graduated from the TU Berlin in engineering and management. Later, before he joined SBB in 2015, he gained a broad experience in various industries as a Management Consultant based in Zürich and Berlin in strategy and organizational development projects and large transformations.
Join our virtual event on Wednesday, March 15, at 12:00 PM MDT/6:00 PM GMT to see the full launch and learn what it means for your organization. Sign up to receive a reminder one hour before the event to ensure you don’t miss it.
Development Value Stream Patterns – Observations from Value Stream Mapping and ART Identification Workshops
Development Value Stream Patterns – Observations from Value Stream Mapping and ART Identification Workshops
The speakers will share real-world examples, and you will have the opportunity to bring all your questions in order to get valuable insight and context for your transformation.
When:
February 14, 2023, 4:00 pm – February 14, 2023, 5:00 pm ECT
One of the key principles within the Scaled Agile Framework is Organise Around Value. In this webinar series, you will hear from the field on how to apply this principle and involve your organisation.
The speakers will share real-world examples, and you will have the opportunity to bring all your questions in order to get valuable insight and context for your transformation.
Over three sessions, the speakers will take you through: Session 01: Aligning Around Value – Practical Advice From The Field (January 31, 2023) Register
Session 02: Development Value Stream Patterns – Observations from Value Stream Mapping and ART Identification Workshops (February 14, 2023) Register
Session 03: Funding and Reporting Value – How to Enable Empowerment and Hold It Accountable (February 28, 2023) Register
Speakers
Odile Moreau
SAFe® Strategic Advisor and SPCT (Scaled Agile Inc.)
Odile is a SAFe® strategic advisor and SPCT for Scaled Agile Inc. She guides international organisations through adoption of business agility. By combining deep matter expertise with the ability to coach on behaviour and leadership, she has been a highly effective team coach for large organisations. Odile is passionate about Lean Kanban, Scrum, Lean and SAFe, never losing sight of the human factor. With 20+ years of professional experience helping profit and non-profit organisations in the fields of IT Service Management, Business Information Management and Software Engineering across the world, Odile worked for many profit and non-profits making organisations in Europe. The last 10 years her focus has been helping teams adopt the agile mindset, principles and practices at scale and continuous improvement methods.
Brian Tucker
Principal Consultant, SAFe® Fellow, and SPCT (Ivar Jacobson International)
Brian was one of the first trainers outside of the Scaled Agile Academy to qualify as a SAFe® Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT) having worked with the framework since its initial inception ten years ago. Brian regularly delivers the SAFe Program Consultant training and has delivered it over a hundred times in the last 8 years; more than anyone else in the world. Brian has been involved in SAFe implementations at numerous companies across Europe including hybris, PZU, Ford, Nordea, NHS Blood + Transplants, Etihad Airlines, Sony Playstation and LV Insurance. Brian is a highly proficient Agile and Scrum coach and trainer with extensive management experience in both corporate and small company situations, backed up with 11 years of software development experience.
Connect with SAFe coaches, industry experts, and change agents
Get advice from subject matter experts on setting up a SAFe transformation
Network, ask questions, and share best practices with your peers
Discover firsthand how British and European organizations use SAFe and Atlassian Solutions to deliver value to customers
Speakers
Tina Behers
VP Enterprise Agility (Adaptavist)
Tina is a Lean-Agile Transformation Professional, and an accomplished Business Leader with a proven ability to successfully create and execute value. Over 20 years of experience in leading organizational improvement initiatives with a strong focus on delivery and business alignment. Her expertise in delivering exceptional value, leading complex high-value technology, and business process improvement initiatives as a trusted advisor is proven in how she provides the right balance of consulting and the hands-on practical expertise.
Aslam Cader
Principal Atlassian Consultant (Valiantys)
Aslam Cader is based in London, and he leads the Agile at Scale practice for the Valiantys North EMEA region. He is an Atlassian Certified Expert and a Scaled Agile specialist with over 10 years of experience working with teams at all levels of scale. He has a Masters’ degree in Information Systems and Technology from City, University of London. He co-authored the book, Scaling Agile with Jira Align: A practical guide to strategically scaling agile across teams, programs, and portfolios in enterprises.
Fiona Chalk
Head of Portfolio Strategy and Funding (Vodafone)
Fiona Chalk is Head of Portfolio Strategy & Funding for the Lean Portfolio Management & Transformation team in Vodafone’s global Digital IT organization. Driven to support the implementation of SAFe for Vodafone by establishing how Digital & can organize to match strategic business priorities with the demand from multiple functions, in line with Lean Portfolio Management. Fiona has over 20 years of experience across Vodafone UK and Group in roles spanning Strategy, Sales, Marketing, Procurement, and Business Management. The last 15 years she managed large global Programmes launching major business products and solutions across multiple markets. Fiona enjoys fostering a culture of collaboration in large virtual teams in order to achieve transformational results. She adopted SAFe in 2017, implementing Lean Portfolio Management in 2019 for her programme. Fiona lives in Newbury, UK, with her husband, son and daughter. Outside work she enjoys time with her family cycling, sailing, skiing and walking the dog, and also supporting the local Scout Group. She can be contacted at Fiona.Chalk@vodafone.com or on LinkedIn.
Rick Cobb
Head of Global Solutions Sales (Atlassian)
Rick Cobb is the Head of Global Solutions Sales for Atlassian, a collaboration software company with a mission to unleash the potential of every team. Rick is a strategic, high-integrity technology executive and passionate leader with 25 years of experience building innovative, high-growth software companies known for the quality of their employees and commitment to customer success. His background includes deep international expertise in commercial and government sales, customer support, professional services, business development, and marketing, as well as overall technology company operations.
Mary Gagne
Director, Product Owner of SaaS Business Applications (Boston Consulting)
Mary is a sought-after leader and technology expert at Boston Consulting Group. She spearheaded the Atlassian tool implementation as part of the scaled agile transformation. The success of the Atlassian implementations and adoption has positioned Mary as an internal asset for BCG consultants. She advises colleagues on implementation approaches, governance models, technical challenges and best practices for client cases. In her current role, as a Product Owner, she oversees BCG’s Enterprise Business Applications, spanning Adobe suite, WalkMe, Atlassian & others. Prior to BCG, she had over 15 years of Product/Program Management experience within large to medium sized software development firms. Mary’s ability to deeply understand the organization she works for, while having a pulse on the needs of the people, accelerates the success of any transformation that she is part of. She lives in Boston, MA with her boyfriend and their three dogs. Outside of work she coaches individuals to awaken their heart and find their life purpose. She can be contacted at gagne.mary@bcg.com or through LinkedIn at Mary C Gagne.
Raj Heda
Expert Associate Partner (Bain)
Raj leads Bain’s Global Agile and Product coaching practice. Raj has 25+ years of experience in Healthcare, Banking & Finance, Media, Retail, and Education. He has helped dozens of firms across industries and around the world improve the agility and effectiveness of their technology-based innovation.
Raj has co-authored Agile Project Management (2009) and Risk Management (2013). He has published 13 patents. He is an adjunct professor at Boston University. Previously, he was head of Business Agility at BCG. He is also an SPCT (C).
Aaron Monroe
Global Head of Enterprise Agility (Visa)
Aaron is the Global Head of Enterprise Business Agility at Visa. He is a dynamic transformation leader with over 20 years of experience helping Fortune 500 companies build high performing teams, accelerate speed to market, and increase the business value delivered. He has a proven track record of leading successful enterprise transformations, and is capable of defining and implementing high-agility behaviors and practices at scale. He is a senior-level Agilist proficient at leading analytical problem-solving efforts to improve the effectiveness of product development, engineering practices, and business operations. Aaron is a compelling communicator able to motivate leaders at all organizational levels to embrace an Agile mindset, adopt Agile practices, and embrace change.
Odile Moreau
Strategic Advisor and SPCT (Scaled Agile Inc.)
Odile has over 20 years of experience helping profit and non-profit organizations in the fields of IT Service Management, Business Information Management, and Software Engineering across Europe. Over the last 10 years, Odilehas been helping leaders and teams adopt Lean and Agile values, mindset, principles, and practices at scale. Working as a Strategic advisor, Scaled Agile instructor, and consultant, Odile loves inspiring people and helping them develop the necessary skills, competencies, and behaviors in order to take the first step in improving and changing the way they work. By combining deep matter expertise with the ability to coach on behavior and leadership, she has proven to be a highly effective transformation coach for large organizations. Born and raised in France, after spending 27 years abroad (mainly in the UK and The Netherlands), she now works in Paris. When Odile is not working, you will probably find her exploring the world, immersing herself in local history, culture, cuisine, and arts.
MichelleNeilson
People and Practice Executive (The Adaptavist Group (Gravity Works))
As an entrepreneur, IT Professional and Enterprise Agile Coach in Financial Services and Telecommunications, Michelle has more than 16 years experience in developing and implementing progressive technology solutions for leading corporations. Coupled with her outstanding interpersonal and relationship management skills and talent for successfully leading large projects, Michelle thrives on coaching, mentoring, leading teams (across global locations) to deliver beyond expectations. Michelle is a critical thinker, passionate about high-quality, sustainable delivery across all facets of business and technology. Michelle is currently a Founding Member and Director of Gravity Works Business Consultants (part of The Adaptavist Group), a boutique consultancy focused on all facets of organisational and digital transformation in the financial services and telecommunications industry.Previously, Michelle was a Founding Member and Director of Freethinking Business Consultants, a financial services consultancy. Michelle has also held several senior managerial positions within large financial corporations.Her skills and expertise include Agile Methodologies, Six Sigma, Prince 2, ITIL, Release Management, Risk and Compliance Monitoring Solutions, TOGAF.
Andrew Sales
Principal Consultant, SAFe Fellow & Framework PM (Scaled Agile Inc.)
Andrew is a SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT) and has many years of experience in delivering SAFe implementations across a wide range of different industries. He is an accomplished trainer, regularly delivering Scrum, Kanban, and Certified SAFe courses in both private and public settings.
Andrew possesses an excellent balance of technical and business acumen and has Masters’ degrees in both Philosophy and Software Development, and is part of the MBA program at Warwick Business School.
Sarah Sego
Agile Transformation Consultant (Cprime)
Sarah Sego is an Agile Transformation Consultant with over 10 years’ IT experience. Her career has focused on guiding Agile and Lean practices within large enterprises, both for process (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, etc.) and tooling (Jira, etc.). Sarah helps enterprises achieve scaling, productivity, speed to market, and customer satisfaction. She champions a hands-on leadership approach, emphasizing transparency, learning, innovation, quality, and continuous improvement within all levels of an organization.
Derek Vaughan
Head of Presales Consulting Northern Europe (Valiantys)
As a member of the Northern Europe Leadership team Derek works closely on Agile at Scale deployment with strategic customers. Derek has a passion for helping customers to achieving their value creation objectives with a combination of digital and organisation transformation. As a SAFe(TM) Agilist Derek takes a hands-on role as Project Director, assisting executive teams steer the enterprise in scaling agile and the deployment of Atlassian tools. He has worked on strategic transformation projects with Booking, Boston Consulting Group, amongst others.
Stephen de Villiers Graaf
Managing Director (The Adaptavist Group (Gravity Works))
Stephen is an inspirational coach, trainer and entrepreneur. He has gained over 20 years of experience in creating environments where people can excel, having held senior leadership roles such as Head of Application Development, Development Manager and Support Manager. Stephen has worked in many different industries from the collar and tie of large corporates, to the hard-hats and steel-caps of manufacturing.As a keen methodologist, Stephen is all about helping people discover new ways of thinking, learning and relearning with a strong emphasis on focus, simplicity and continuous improvement practices. As a talented public speaker and thought leader, Stephen inspires people and organisations to become passionately curious, creative, expressive and collectively responsible.Stephen is currently a Founding Member and Director of Gravity Works Business Consultants (part of The Adaptavist Group), a boutique consultancy focused on all facets of organisational and digital transformation in financial services and telecommunications.
Connect with SAFe coaches, industry experts, and change agents. Get advice from subject matter experts on setting up a SAFe transformation. Network, ask questions, and share best practices with your peers. Discover firsthand how European organizations use SAFe and Atlassian Solutions to deliver value to customers.
Speakers
Odile Moreau
Strategic Advisor and SPCT (Scaled Agile Inc.)
Odile has over 20 years of experience helping profit and non-profit organizations in the fields of IT Service Management, Business Information Management, and Software Engineering across Europe. Over the last 10 years, Odilehas been helping leaders and teams adopt Lean and Agile values, mindset, principles, and practices at scale. Working as a Strategic advisor, Scaled Agile instructor, and consultant, Odile loves inspiring people and helping them develop the necessary skills, competencies, and behaviors in order to take the first step in improving and changing the way they work. By combining deep matter expertise with the ability to coach on behavior and leadership, she has proven to be a highly effective transformation coach for large organizations. Born and raised in France, after spending 27 years abroad (mainly in the UK and The Netherlands), she now works in Paris. When Odile is not working, you will probably find her exploring the world, immersing herself in local history, culture, cuisine, and arts.
Andrew Sales
Principal Consultant, SAFe Fellow & Framework PM (Scaled Agile Inc.)
Andrew is a SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT) and has many years of experience in delivering SAFe implementations across a wide range of different industries. He is an accomplished trainer, regularly delivering Scrum, Kanban, and Certified SAFe courses in both private and public settings.
Andrew possesses an excellent balance of technical and business acumen and has Masters’s degrees in both Philosophy and Software Development, and is part of the MBA program at Warwick Business School.
As organizations start to modernize and manage work by product, traditional roles are changing. PMO roles—such as Program and Project Managers—are expanding and evolving due to the reorientation of organizations toward value-based outcomes. So what does the shift from the PMO to the VMO (Value Management Office) really look like?
When:
September 27, 2022, 11:00 am – September 27, 2022, 12:00 pm
Agile Rising’s team of SPCTs, including Chris Ruch, Marshall Guillory, and Andrew Keener, will discuss the organizational structure of a VMO, the key role the VMO plays in driving the transformation across both technology and business, and how an effective VMO can accelerate your transformation by:
Identifying where work is flowing across your product value streams
Establishing the cadence of events to lead the delivery of value
Generating flow metrics to measure value delivery correlated to business results
Creating a successful VMO implementation roadmap
Join us for this interactive session, where you will have the opportunity to explore your experiences and challenges in small group discussions with your peers and an experienced SPCT.
Speakers
Marshall Guillory
Vice President, Government Practice, SPCT (Agile Rising)
Marshall has over twenty-five years of business experience in software development, information technology, product management, and Government fields and sectors. He has spent the past 10+ years focused on leading digital and organizational transformations. Marshall most recently completed successful implementations of the SAFe and Lean-Agile practices, enterprise organizational change for the FAA, Emerson, the Dept. of Veteran Affairs (VA); and is currently the lead enterprise agility coach for an ongoing implementation at the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA).
Andrew Keener
Director, Training Solutions, SPCT (Agile Rising)
Andrew Keener applies expert knowledge, industry experience, and relentless energy to solving a company’s issues. As a SAFe SPCT, Andrew specializes in working with companies as they launch their Lean Enterprise transformation utilizing the Scaled Agile Framework. As the Director of Training Solutions at Agile Rising, Andrew works with leaders and managers to facilitate Value Stream workshops, identify Agile Release Trains, and launch them—combining teaching, coaching, and consulting to spread best practices in Lean Portfolio Management, Scrum, and Kanban development, and DevOps Continuous Delivery. With more than a dozen years of experience in technology management and the successful launch of seven Agile Release Trains, Andrew has the ability to work effectively with leaders and teams, listen to their ideas, and help them implement the changes necessary for successful lean-agile transformation. Andrew has worked as an implementation partner with large enterprises, including Allstate Insurance, United Airlines, and Emerson Process Automation.
Chris Ruch
CEO (Agile Rising)
Chris Ruch, SPCT has more than two decades of experience as a leader and executive in software development, Agile Product Management, and Lean Portfolio Management. He leads Agile Rising’s our team of Enterprise Transformation Coaches and specializes in large, complex transformation strategy, lean portfolio management, and SAFe across the enterprise. Chris is a SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT) with many years of experience overseeing agile transformations across a broad range of industries, including finance, manufacturing, technology, healthcare, and government. He is based in Agile Rising’s headquarters office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Defining and effectively managing value streams can translate to satisfied customers and competitive advantage in an organization. But what is value stream management and how does it relate to SAFe? In this episode, Richard Knaster and Marc Rix continue their conversation about why value stream management is important for effective business agility in an organization, and how it can help organizations succeed in the digital age.
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Defining and effectively managing value streams can translate to satisfied customers and competitive advantage. But what is value stream management and how does it relate to SAFe? In this episode, Richard Knaster and Marc Rix continue their conversation about why value stream management is important, and how it can help organizations succeed in the digital age.
In part two of their deep-dive, Marc and Richard discuss elements including:
What value stream management means in different contexts
Value stream management in the real world: two stories from the field
Follow these links to learn more about topics mentioned in the podcast:
Melissa Reeve is the Vice President of Marketing at Scaled Agile, Inc. In this role, Melissa guides the marketing team, helping people better understand Scaled Agile, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and its mission. Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn.
Guest: Richard Knaster
Richard is a SAFe Fellow and vice president and chief scientist at Digital AI, as well as a former Scaled Agile employee and methodologist. He’s also the author of the SAFe Distilled book series and the ebook, Value Stream Management for the Digital Age. Richard has led large-scale Agile transformations for more than 15 years and is passionate about helping organizations create a better environment to deliver value. Connect with Richard on LinkedIn.
Guest: Marc Rix
A SAFe Fellow and principal consultant at Scaled Agile, Marc helps large enterprises leverage the game-changing power of Lean, Agile, and DevOps at scale. He has over 20 years of experience applying Lean-Agile methods to improve value streams in organizations of all sizes and industries. Marc is also an entrepreneur and internationally recognized thought leader, consultant, trainer, adviser, and speaker. Find Marc on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Speaker 1:
Looking for the latest news, experiences, and answers to questions about SAFe? You’ve come to the right place. This podcast is for you, the SAFe community of practitioners, trainers, users, and everyone who engages SAFe on a daily basis.
Melissa Reeve:
Welcome to the SAFe Business Agility podcast recorded from our homes around the world. I’m Melissa Reeve, your host for today’s episode.
Melissa Reeve:
This is part two of our series on value stream management featuring Richard Knaster and Marc Rix. Richard is a SAFe Fellow and vice president and chief scientist at Digital.ai, and Marc Rix is a SAFe Fellow and principal consultant here at Scaled Agile. Thanks for joining me for this second episode. It’s great to have you back on the show.
Marc Rix:
Thanks a lot, Melissa. I’m very excited to be here.
Richard Knaster:
Thank you, Melissa. It’s great to be here.
Melissa Reeve:
Let’s get started.
Melissa Reeve:
So, for our listeners, I want to break a few of these things down, because I feel like we’ve done a pretty good job identifying in an overarching way what a value stream is, right? It’s the people, the processes, the information, and the tools that are essential to creating and delivering value. And that’s kind of the macro concept. Then we also talked about value stream identification. So what are the products and the services? What is that value that you’re delivering to the customer? We also talked about mapping your value streams. So what are those steps that you need to do to deliver value to the customer? How can you Lean out those steps so that you can identify the waste and make sure that you’ve got the flow flowing through your value streams? And then, we’ve now talked about value stream management, which is that monitoring and the traceability all around these value streams that you’ve identified. And that’s my understanding based on our conversation today. Richard, did I get that right?
Richard Knaster:
I’m talking about the optimization of people, processes, and technology to optimize the flow of value from concept all the way through cash, or from idea to production. And there are a bunch of different processes I’m thinking that are involved in each of those three areas. So very similar to what Marc was mentioning. And this is very nascent, so there are definitely competing definitions of what value stream management means.
Melissa Reeve:
And that’s what I’m sensing here is that it is relatively new and yet it’s a big buzzword. So, I think for our listeners, it’s helpful to hear these different points of view about what VSM or value stream management means to different folks.
Richard Knaster:
Yeah. And the problem too is that the acronym VSM, does that mean value stream management? Or does that mean value stream mapping? So that often gets us into quite a bit of trouble as well.
Melissa Reeve:
I can see that. So Richard, what does all this look like in the real world? Can you share an experience you’ve had in the field helping an organization transition to value streams and value stream management?
Richard Knaster:
Yeah. So, I’m going to talk about a case in the federal government, because if you can do value stream management in the federal government, then you can do it anywhere. When we started with this agency, they were still managing work in projects. And they had many different groups in that organization, and they were separately funded. And one of the first things that we had to do was to bring the funding together for that agency. And that agency included a lot of subgroups or departments or divisions within that agency. So, the first thing we had to get alignment on was that we were going to change the way we work and that we were going to be implementing value stream management. And then to start thinking, in what I call it, a one-portfolio mindset. Because everyone was doing these separate projects and often there was redundancy between one division and another division of that same agency. And we only have one pot of money to spend. So it’s not like we can get more money if we need it.
So, we really had to then start … So, we started at the portfolio with this particular agency because we felt it was important to get alignment on, what is the really important thing that we wanted this agency to work on? What are going to be the large epics that they’re working on? And then for us, it was pretty easy to identify the value streams there because the different divisions of that agency just happened to fall into place; they were essentially the value streams that this agency provided. So the areas were the services that that agency provided. So, we were able to do that.
And so, I’m finding more and more that I’m starting with Lean Portfolio Management when it comes to implementing value streams, because of having to go from projects to value streams and changing the funding mechanisms, as well as getting alignment about the large initiatives that those value streams are going to implement, and then ensuring that we’re organized for value. So, doing the identification and the mapping.
Melissa Reeve:
Yeah. I can see how starting with LPM and getting your funding mechanisms organized around value streams helps then once you identify your value streams and you start to move forward with them. So thanks for sharing that example.
Richard Knaster:
Sure.
Melissa Reeve:
So Marc, how about you? Do you have a real-world example that you can share with our listeners?
Marc Rix:
Sure. Richard’s story actually triggers an experience I had with a government contractor a couple of years ago. Had a really breakthrough moment that will probably stick with me for the rest of my career. But it was very directly related to Value Stream Management and organizing around value and DevOps and value stream mapping. This was a great moment.
So, I was actually teaching the SAFe® DevOps class to a full Agile Release Train, which I’ve had the opportunity to do a few times, but certainly not enough times. It’s always great when you can get an entire Agile Release Train, all of the teams, all of the business owners, and even people from other walks of life who were adjacent to the ARTs, all in a room together learning and talking about value streams.
So, as you may know, there’s a significant amount of value stream mapping we do in the SAFe® DevOps course, which brought everybody kind of onto the same page about what the value streams are. What we quickly realized in the process was that every one of the teams in the room had a different idea of what the value stream actually was. After everybody did their thing and mapped what they thought the value stream was, we had to kind of pause and reflect on what was happening in the room. And what we did on the fly was re-engineer the course to do more of a deep dive into value stream identification and value stream mapping, making sure that we could get all of the teams and everybody on the ART aligned on what the true value stream was.
So we sort of reconfigured the class and reconfigured our objectives and brought the teams together to really think through what the actual value stream was. And that took the dynamic of the course from a team-by-team perspective and split out into teams and do independent work into more of a collective, full-group activity on identifying value streams. This got everybody on the ART involved in identifying the value stream and then mapping it together.
So to kind of shorten the story, where we ended the day was with a renewed understanding of the actual current state value stream in this organization. So now everybody had alignment where there wasn’t alignment before on the actual value stream, because, as we probably know, a lot of times there’s a documented process that’s actually not followed by anybody. This brought everybody onto the same page about the actual delivery process. And then got them aligned on what the value stream should be. So, we did some future-state design work on the value stream and identified the major bottlenecks and what needed to change to increase flow and improve the value stream for this organization with everybody who needed to be involved in the room that day. So it was a big breakthrough moment.
And I’ve had moments like this in other cases too, with other clients and other verticals, other industries either at this larger scale or smaller scale. But I think the lesson to be learned here through all of these experiences I’ve had in the field with doing some form of Value Stream Management or mapping or identification, is great things happen when people take a systems point of view and come together to talk about the entire process end-to-end, not just a segment of it.
So, when you can get stakeholders and practitioners and leaders and sponsors from across the organization talking about a customer-centric point of view of the value stream, not just how we move work from department to department, but what we do to deliver value to our end customers and businesses, great things start to happen. Great conversations start to be sparked. And the team swarms together. And the organization swarms together on redefining those value streams where they need to, sometimes even reorganizing on the fly around that value and creating a situation where they’re now prepared to execute their value streams in a way that their businesses need them to execute their value streams.
Melissa Reeve:
Yeah. I really appreciate that example, Marc, because I think there are times when value streams may be obvious. And then there are these other moments where the value streams aren’t as obvious and it requires some discussion, some internal alignment. And I thank you both for talking about value stream management with me today and how it can be such a game-changer for organizations and their digital transformations.
Thanks for being on the show today.
Richard Knaster:
Thanks for having us, Melissa.
Marc Rix:
This is definitely one of my favorite subjects, so thank you, Melissa, for having me.
Melissa Reeve:
And thanks for listening to our show today. Be sure to check out the show notes and more at scaledagile.com/podcast. Revisit past topics at scaledagile.com/podcast.
Speaker 1:
Relentless improvement is in our DNA and we welcome your input on how we can improve the show. Drop us a line at podcast@scaledagile.com.
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