Tag: Agile

Career Path for Scrum Masters: A 2025 Guide to Growth and Opportunities

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The job market looks different than it did even one year ago. Teams are leaner, AI tools are everywhere, and it seems like job titles are shifting unpredictably. Responsibilities that once sat squarely in well-defined roles now cross into others – especially as some organizations restructure and resize.

During all this change, career researchers are asking a fair question: 

Is a Scrum Master a Good Long-Term Career Path?

Becoming a scrum master is a fulfilling career path, but it requires more than planning and running standups. If you’re looking for long-term growth, you’ll need proof that you can help drive delivery, coach teams, and grow with the tools and structures around you.

Despite the changes happening across industries and technology, demand is still strong for those with the right skills.

Scrum Master Career Highlights in 2025

  • Tenure: Most scrum masters stay in an entry or junior level role for 2–4 years before moving into senior roles or broader Agile coaching functions.
  • Open roles: Thousands of companies are hiring for career scrum masters right now, especially in industries like healthcare, finance, and defense. 
  • Salary: U.S. average salaries for scrum masters in 2025 range from $105K to $140K, depending on location, industry, and experience.

Best Prior Roles to Transition into a Scrum Master Career

You don’t need to come from a traditional tech background to pursue a scrum master career path. Some of the best scrum experts bring experience from adjacent roles where communication, coordination, and delivery are critical.

Here are a few types of roles from which scrum master experts commonly transition:

Project Managers

Project managers are already comfortable with planning, risk management, and stakeholder communication. Many have experience juggling timelines and unblocking teams, which maps well to the scrum master’s focus on delivery and flow.

Business Analysts

Business analysts are fluent in data and skilled at translating requirements between business and technical teams. Their ability to ask the right questions, clarify ambiguity, and guide conversations makes them strong facilitators.

QA Leads/Testers

QA leads and testers are naturally detail-oriented, focused on quality, and closely tied to delivery cycles. Many QA professionals are already embedded in Agile teams and bring a strong understanding of iterative development, feedback loops, and team collaboration.

Customer Support Leads

Customer support leads are well-versed in rapid problem-solving, strong communication, and navigating complexity in high-pressure environments. If you’ve led a support team, you’re probably great at coaching, context switching, and staying calm under pressure. All of these skills transfer well to a scrum master career path.

Team Leads

Team leads are often responsible for day-to-day team operations, unblocking work, and driving alignment. If you’ve run effective meetings, coached teammates, or helped manage priorities, you already have core scrum master behaviors (even if the job title was different).

Training and Skills to Succeed as a Scrum Master

In particular, for scrum masters who intentionally invest in the right skills, adapt to change, and grow as a leader, choosing this career path is beneficial from any corporate angle.

Certifications

Certifications can help you get noticed, and this is especially helpful if you’re switching roles or industries. Look for certifications that are recognized and updated for modern workflows. SAFe Scrum Master (SSM) is a great place to start, especially if you’re aiming to work in larger organizations as a career scrum master.

Essential Technical Skills for Scrum Masters

You don’t need to write code, but you do need to understand the basics of how modern software gets built. Without that understanding, it’s hard to coach teams, remove blockers, or speak the same language as developers. These basics might include:

  • How CI/CD works. Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery are standard in most Agile environments. Understanding the flow from commit to deployment helps you spot where work gets stuck and improve team habits.
  • What a backlog looks like in Agile lifecycle management (ALM) tools, and how it’s managed. Whether it’s Jira, Azure DevOps, or Rally, you need to know how backlog items are structured, prioritized, refined, and broken down. It’s not just about tickets, it’s about understanding the flow of value.
  • How to interpret burndown and velocity metrics. These metrics are only useful if you can read them in context. Is the team improving? Is work sized realistically? Can you make data-driven decisions about planning and risk?
  • Where dependencies show up and how they’re managed. Scrum masters need to spot cross-team blockers early. Understanding upstream and downstream dependencies (and how to visualize and track them) is essential to keeping delivery on track.

Must-Have Soft Skills for Career Scrum Masters

Soft skills are still the most important part of the job for career scrum masters. Technical capabilities help reinforce your understanding of product development and specifications, but it’s your influence that shapes team culture and builds trust. You’ll need to:

  • Facilitate clearly and with purpose. Meetings shouldn’t feel like routines; they should drive clarity and alignment. Whether it’s sprint planning, retros, or standups, your ability to guide discussions is critical.
  • Coach without micromanaging. Great scrum experts empower teams to self-organize. That means offering guidance without the need for control.
  • Listen well and navigate team dynamics. Teams are made of humans, not roles. Listening actively and noticing patterns in tensions, disengagement, and unspoken blockers can help you intervene early and constructively.
  • Ask the right questions. Your job is not to have all the answers. You need to spark the right thinking. Good questions unlock problems, clarify assumptions, and help teams get unstuck.
  • Influence stakeholders without formal authority. Scrum experts often need to align with Product Owners, managers, or other teams, and you won’t always have direct control. Your ability to build trust, frame conversations well, and speak in terms of outcomes is what gets things moving.

Scrum Master Certifications That Stand Out in 2025

In 2025, there’s no single ladder to climb. Instead, you can grow by deepening your expertise, expanding your influence, or shifting into adjacent roles that match your strengths. There’s more than one way to grow, and more than one destination.


How to Advance Your Scrum Master Career

Growing your career as a scrum master isn’t about waiting for a promotion, it’s about showing you’re ready for what’s next. Whether you’re aiming for a senior role, coaching position, or leadership track, the key is to build visible impact, broaden your skill set, and stay aligned with where the industry is headed.

  • Demonstrate concrete results like improved delivery speed, fewer defects, stronger team engagement.
  • Show progression you’ve achieved through supporting multiple teams, coaching newer scrum masters, additional competencies gained, etc.
  • Develop specific technical capabilities, understand the delivery pipeline, learn how data flows through the system, and know how to spot bottlenecks.
  • Consider training like an Advanced Scrum Master Certification path. 

Want more detail and specific recommendations for advancing as a scrum master in a SAFe organization? Our 2025 Careers Snapshot breaks down trends, titles, and what skills are most in demand right now.

Advanced Roles for Experienced Scrum Masters

The career path for scrum masters can lead to more advanced roles as the scope of your influence expands from a single team to multiple teams, and eventually across the broader organization. Here’s what that progression can look like:

  • Entry-Level: Scrum Master, Agile Team Facilitator
    You’re focused on a single Agile team. Your role is to remove blockers, lead specific events, and help the team deliver value consistently. You’re likely developing a deeper understanding of the technical work that teams complete, and you’re developing ways to improve flow and measure areas for improvement.
  • Mid-Level: Senior Scrum Master, “Team-of-Teams” Facilitator
    You might support multiple teams, help align cross-team efforts, and start mentoring newer scrum masters. At this level, your ability to navigate complexity and support growing teams while maintaining focus on value delivery is key.
  • Program Level: Release Train Engineer (RTE), Program Coach
    You coordinate work across multiple agile teams (often in a SAFe environment) and ensure alignment at the ART level or higher. You’re thinking in terms of delivery cadence, PI planning, and managing larger-scale dependencies.
  • Org-Level: Agile Coach, Director of Agile Practice, Transformation Lead
    At this stage, you’re shaping agile maturity across the organization. You’re advising leaders, designing coaching strategies, and helping teams adopt practices that fit both their context and the company’s goals. Your work focuses less on day-to-day particulars and more on business metrics.

Alternate Career Options for Scrum Masters

After gaining a few years of experience, scrum masters assemble a rare combination of leadership, systems thinking, and delivery awareness. These skills can open up several adjacent career paths.

Product Owner or Manager

As part of their daily work, scrum masters already partner closely with Product Owners. Product management could be a natural transition if you’re curious about the “why” behind the work and you enjoy solving user problems, shaping roadmaps, or defining value. The transition is easier if you’ve already helped refine backlogs, worked with stakeholders, or led cross-functional planning.

Program or Delivery Management

If you’re great at juggling dependencies, managing timelines across multiple teams, and keeping complex projects on track at a higher level in the organization, program management could be your next step. It’s a strong fit for scrum masters who’ve supported larger initiatives, coordinated across teams, or worked closely with RTEs or had exposure to portfolio leadership or solution engineers/architects.

Agile Coaching or Transformation Roles

Working as a scrum master can unlock a joy in enabling others through mentorship, helping teams level up their performance, or guiding leaders through Agile adoption. Roles like Agile Coach, Transformation Lead, or Practice/Program Director might be a natural evolution if you thrive on bigger training and enablement challenges. These roles require a broader view of the organization, systems-level thinking, strong facilitation skills, and the ability to influence without control.

People Management & Team Leadership

If you’ve developed strong team-building skills like conflict resolution and you enjoy growing individuals, you may be well-suited for a team lead or people manager role. This is a common path in companies that promote from within. Additionally, your understanding of Agile principles and team structures can help bridge the gap to more traditional management functions.

Operations or Business Process Roles

Scrum masters who thrive on solving bottlenecks and improving how work flows through a system may find satisfaction in operations roles. These positions often focus on optimizing processes, testing and implementing tools, and coordinating across departments, which is ideal for those who love smoothing out friction in processes.

Learning & Development

If you’ve led team training, coached new employees, or created Agile learning resources, you might enjoy moving into corporate learning and development functions. This is a great fit for scrum masters with a teaching mindset who want to scale their impact through education and enablement programs.

These paths don’t require you to leave agility behind. Instead, they re-apply your skill set in different ways. Many of these roles let you stay close to product teams while opening up new challenges, leadership opportunities, or focus areas that align with your strengths.

Take the First Step in Your Scrum Master Career

Start your scrum master career journey today! The role is evolving, but it’s far from disappearing. Whether you’re stepping into the role for the first time or looking to grow into something bigger, there’s a real path forward. Start by understanding the landscape. Then invest in the right training, gain experience where it matters, and position yourself for the kind of impact that opens doors.


Why The WSJ Got It Wrong About Certifications — And Why SAFe Still Delivers

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The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently ran a piece claiming most certificates and digital badges don’t really pay off. Their data showed that only 1 in 8 non-degree credentials delivered a notable pay increase within a year.

That may be true for many credentials. But here’s the problem with painting them all the same: not all certifications are created equal. When a credential is industry-driven, recognized by employers, and tied to in-demand skills, the results look very different. That’s where SAFe® certifications stand out.

Credentials That Actually Matter to Employers

The WSJ is right about one thing: a lot of certificates lack strong employer input, which makes them hard to translate into promotions or pay raises.

SAFe isn’t one of them. It’s the most widely adopted framework for business agility worldwide, built on lean, agile, and systems thinking, and shaped through direct collaboration with enterprises that employ hundreds of thousands of practitioners. That’s why roles requiring SAFe certification show up consistently in job postings and hiring priorities across industries.

The Numbers Don’t Lie

This isn’t just theory—it’s backed by hard data:

  • According to the 2025 SAFe Careers Snapshot, professionals with SAFe certifications earn, on average, $12,000 more annually than non-certified peers.
  • Job postings that reference SAFe often advertise salaries $24,000 higher than national averages for comparable roles.
  • Advanced SAFe-certified roles like SPC or RTE routinely command six-figure salaries, with senior practitioners earning $150,000+.

Compare that to the WSJ’s analysis, where most certificates showed little to no financial lift, and it’s clear: SAFe is an outlier.

A Smarter Way to Evaluate Credentials

The WSJ highlighted how hard it is for workers to know which certifications are worth it. That’s exactly what the Credential Value Index set out to solve—measuring certifications by wage gain, demand, and job mobility.

On all those dimensions, SAFe scores high because it’s employer-driven and outcome-focused. It’s the kind of credential the WSJ itself suggests workers should seek out—one that leads to real, measurable value.

Global Recognition and Long-Term ROI

SAFe certifications aren’t just about one job or one company. They’re recognized across technology, finance, government, healthcare, and more. With over 1 million practitioners worldwide and adoption by more than 70% of Fortune 100 companies, SAFe has staying power.

And while some certificates fade as trends shift, SAFe has evolved—most recently with SAFe 6.0—to stay current with digital transformation and AI-era demands. That makes it not just a short-term investment, but a career-long asset.

The Bottom Line

Yes, there are plenty of credentials that don’t deliver. But lumping them all together misses the bigger picture.

SAFe certifications are different. They consistently deliver higher salaries, stronger career mobility, and recognition in some of the world’s biggest enterprises. We have trained 2 million SAFe certified professionals and have helped 20,000 organizations reach their agile investment goals.

So if you’re investing in your future, choose a certification that employers not only recognize—but reward. Choose SAFe.

What is a Scrum Master? A Complete Guide to the Role, Required Skills, and Certification

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When you first hear the job title, you may wonder: what is a scrum master? Let’s start there – a scrum master helps facilitate the work of a team using scrum. Most often, their job is to enable, coach, and support software development teams to build and deliver products through scrum methods. 

Your next question is likely – what is scrum? Or, this sounds like a project manager – how is a project manager different from a scrum master? Why should I even consider becoming a scrum master?

To start, as traditional career paths are disrupted, we know that many professionals are seeking ways to advance their careers and learn skills that can flex and adapt across industries. The SAFe Careers Snapshot shows that a majority of open scrum master positions in 2024 required or strongly preferred a certification to show competency, especially if job candidates had less hands-on experience in a prior role. With scrum master training and experience, you can start to pioneer a new career path that’s flexible, fulfilling and financially rewarding.

The Definition of Scrum

Scrum describes a set of practices that emphasize transparency, iterative development, built-in quality, and incremental value delivery within time-bound periods. These practices combine to create a simple and effective agile development approach that keeps cross-functional teams focused on the continuous release of customer value. 

In SAFe, teams use scrum principles to execute in alignment with the broader agile framework used across other teams and departments.

Scrum Master Responsibilities Explained

A Scrum Master’s main job is to help teams work efficiently using Scrum. At a high level, they:

  • Facilitate key events like stand-ups, sprint planning, and retrospectives. Their role is to keep these points of synchronization focused and productive.
  • Clear roadblocks that could be slowing the team down. This might include lack of alignment, external pressure, dependencies, and more.
  • Coach the team to help improve value delivery. Scrum masters help team members understand and apply Scrum principles that drive quality and speed without sacrificing predictability. 
  • Protect focus by shielding the team from distractions so they can deliver work without unnecessary interruptions.
  • Foster a culture of learning, iteration and adaptability through team demos, retrospectives, and inspect and adapt sessions
  • Work cross-functionally to ensure smooth collaboration across departments and alignment with company goals. This includes planning, execution, delivery, and measurement of results.

The application of scrum within an organization can vary widely, which will ultimately determine day-to-day responsibilities. As an example, the following image shows how a scrum master works within the context of an organization using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe):

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Scrum Master Methodology

What Are the Required Skills for a Successful Scrum Master?

Now that we understand the responsibilities of a Scrum Master, let’s talk about what a good scrum master looks like. Scrum Masters come from various backgrounds, and they typically excel at coaching, teaching, and attention to detail. Additionally, they likely bring a strong mix of empathy and high emotional intelligence to help encourage a collaborative environment. The most common skills for scrum masters typically include:

  • Strong facilitation experience
  • Problem-solving and conflict resolution
  • Clear Communication and ability to provide clarity
  • Proficiency with ALM and/or project management tools
  • Understanding of key metrics like burndown, velocity, and flow

Employers may also seek varying depths of technical capabilities or background in conjunction with these “soft” skills.

What are Similar Roles to a Scrum Master

When researching what a scrum master is, you’ll likely see lots of different job titles. Though some are simply called “scrum master,” here are other common job titles:

While this is a long list, one of the most common comparisons is a scrum master vs a project manager. What are the biggest differences?

Scrum Master vs. Project Manager

Focus

A scrum master focuses mainly on the team and the process, removing impediments and coaching the team to improve their efficiency and collaboration.
A project manager focuses on delivering the project on time and within budget by managing all logistics, resources, and risks.

Methodology

A scrum master operates within the Agile framework, as an example, SAFe. They are responsible for ensuring that the team follows SAFe, events (like daily stand-ups and sprint reviews), and artifacts (like the product backlog).

A project manager can work with a variety of methodologies, including traditional “waterfall” project management, Agile, or a hybrid of both. The methodology used depends on the project’s nature and the organization’s structure.

Leadership Style

A scrum master acts as a servant leader. They empower the team to self-organize and make their own decisions. The scrum master’s job is to support the team by removing obstacles and fostering an environment where they can be as productive as possible.

A project manager typically uses a more directive style of leadership, through assigning tasks, making critical decisions, and holding the ultimate accountability for the project’s outcomes.

Scrum Master Certifications & How to Choose One

A Scrum Master certification is a professional designation that establishes your credibility and is a recognizable standard of baseline knowledge. The amount of time and financial investment required will vary across different types of certifications, and it’s wise to research the marketability of the certification and the reputation of the training provider before making your final decision.

Multiple organizations offer scrum master training and certifications, including Scrum.org, Scrum Alliance, and Scaled Agile Inc. These certifications span a range of difficulty, experience levels, and areas of specific Scrum methods. Some of the most popular, rigorous, and well-recognized scrum master certifications for professional development and advancement include:

  • Certified Scrum Master (CSM) – This entry-level certification from Scrum Alliance focuses on foundational Scrum knowledge, demonstrated through a required exam.
  • Professional Scrum Master (PSM) – Scrum.org breaks this certification into three levels (PSM I, II, & III) to verify increasing levels of experience and competency, though courses don’t need to be taken sequentially.
  • Certified Scrum Professional CSP-SM – A more advanced offering, this certification from Scrum Alliance is intended to develop coaching, facilitation, and leadership skills for scrum masters. 
  • SAFe Scrum Master (SSM) – This certification covers a scrum master’s role and responsibilities within SAFe, with a particular focus on coordinating teams within an enterprise environment.
  • SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Certification Path – This certification path was built for experienced Scrum Masters who want to deepen their knowledge in SAFe and improve advanced facilitation, develop coaching techniques, and optimize team performance.

Choosing the right certification depends on your goals. For example, a Scaled Agile scrum master certification will help you learn foundational aspects of the role and demonstrate your understanding of SAFe. Since SAFe is the most widely used agile framework by enterprises globally, a SAFe Scrum Master certification can better position you for a role within a larger, global organization.

When Do Organizations Need a Scrum Master?

The scrum master serves an important role, even in small organizations. While some companies – especially software development firms – are founded with agile practices at their core, others undergo agile transformations over time. Scrum masters become especially important, though, as organizational leadership seeks to help teams adopt agile practices more effectively and consistently across departments and business units.

Scrum masters can help organizations yield agile benefits at the team level consistently and sustainably with an emphasis on continuous improvement and a clear focus on measuring value.

Scrum Master Salary and Career Outlook

Scaled Agile Inc publishes an annual SAFe Careers Snapshot that summarizes trends for different kinds of agile roles, including the required skills, desired certifications, and salaries. Our 2025 careers snapshot found that, the average salary of a scrum master breaks down as follows:

  • Scrum Masters: $105,972
  • SAFe Certified SAFe Scrum Masters: $119,500

The Scrum Master serves an important role in both large and small organizations. While some companies – especially software development firms – are founded with agile practices at their core, others undergo agile transformations over time. Scrum masters become especially important as executive leadership seeks to help teams adopt agile practices to drive business outcomes more effectively and consistently across teams, departments, and business units.

How to become a Certified Scrum Master

Earning your scrum master certification starts with finding a training provider. Most organizations that create and maintain certification materials, including Scaled Agile, will provide a certification class finder of approved providers. Training providers may offer in-person options, virtual sessions, or both. If you’re interested in earning a SAFe Scrum Master certification, you will receive:

  • Attendance at a multi-day training course (typically instructor-led)
  • A corresponding course exam
  • A shareable certificate of completion and/or digital badge
  • Professional membership in a community of practitioners

Plus, you can review the complete guide to Scaled Agile certifications for more detailed information on training, the certification process, pricing, and a lot more!

Overcoming Organizational Change Fatigue – A Brief Guide for Leaders

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by Dr. Ilga Vossen, Stephan Kahl, Odile Moreau, Caroline Schäfer & Yannick Penz

This is the second in a series of articles on leadership and Agile transformation. Thought leaders from Deloitte and Scaled Agile worked together to share their insights and advice.

Have you recently heard executives demanding, “we need to become more data-centric, agile at scale or AI-driven”? Have you read requests in corporate newsletters or interviews such as, “we need to increase supply chain resilience, lower carbon footprints, increase cyber security and compliance”? 

The need to move the needle through technological and organizational transformation to resolve multifaceted issues is present and pressing in many organizations.

At the same time, there is a huge pressure on delivery and performance in daily business. Both pressure points contribute to an increasing workload, a sentiment of unresting and never-ending change demands and unsettling emotions. In a nutshell, the organizational energy is stressed out and exhausted.

Then, despite strong efforts in the workforce, not much change is happening in either direction. Does this sound familiar? Your organization might be in change fatigue.

What is Change Fatigue?

Change fatigue can be described as a mental and sometimes even physical exhaustion towards change initiatives, making it impossible for people to work towards the change. 

Think of our capacity for change like a muscle. It can be trained to be stronger, but if it’s continuously stimulated strongly, energy will drain at some point eventually. Ultimately, this can result in chronic change fatigue and inability to bring up energy. Transformations demand changes in behavior, learning and building new skills. All of which requires high mental effort. As change fatigue paralyzes the whole organization, we are well advised in reducing it or avoiding it in the first place if we want to achieve real transformation.

To understand change fatigue and how to tackle it, we first need to understand which aspects create and drain mental capacity.

In coaching sessions, we observe the core drivers of mental load with regards to transformations:

Expectations Toward Organizational Change

Expectations are primarily shaped through experiences of the affected people (direct or observed) with previous change initiatives and through communication by leadership. Mental load increases if the expected outcomes of the transformation are negative for the individual. 

If the expectations towards the change are primarily negative, it will lead to anxiety and stress and drain mental capacity. Similarly, uncertainty drains capacity. We explore the effect of why agile transformations require effective leadership, but most importantly, if the workforce expects that the change initiative is just a management fad and will soon be replaced by another initiative, it is most unlikely for anyone to engage in change activities.

Effort to Transform vs. Effort to Maintain Daily Operations

If the organizational change is inflicted in bold steps, this leads to more mental load of course. If on top of that daily operations already require more time than available, we have an organization perfectly set up for achieving change fatigue instead of real transformation.

Additional to this, there may be individual issues draining mental capacity such as health or family.

What to Do About It?

Although these patterns are common, there are ways to combat change fatigue. Simply reducing mental load is not enough if the organization is already experiencing it.

Acknowledge The Situation

Leaders and Agile Coaches need to create room for conversations and openly acknowledge the draining sentiment of change fatigue. Allowing the expression of exhaustion in a psychological safe space despite the pressure on performance helps reduce negative emotions.

Find The Root Cause & Act Accordingly

Next, of course, leaders are well advised to discuss and analyze the cause of the change fatigue, as not all factors explored may be equally relevant, and act accordingly.

How to Avoid Change Fatigue in the First Place

Are you about to start a transformation initiative and you don’t see your organization fatigued from other initiatives already? Here’s how to avoid change fatigue before it sets in:

1. Make the Target Desirable

Highlight benefits of the transformation for your workforce. These will most likely not equal the economic benefits of the company. Numbers don’t inspire; a better work life does. Incentivize desired behaviors and get role models for change into the spotlight. It’s all about creating positive expectations towards the change.

2. Descale daily operations to make room for change 

Make sure your people have room for change. It’s not enough to speak about prioritizing change. Leadership needs to deprioritize other running initiatives to free up time from their workforce, especially in the beginning of the transformation.

3. Speak With One Voice

Show courage and ensure that your whole leadership is committed to the change. There can be no room for ambiguity in communication. Inconsistency leads to uncertainty and fuels mental load.

4. Invite, Don’t Inflict 

Create participants instead of affected colleagues. Co-create the transformation. 

While it may be tempting to pursue many change initiatives at the same time, organizations tend to achieve more by doing less. Descale the work, provide focus on what’s most important, and create real change. 

This article the second out of ten in a series entitled Leadership & Change in Agile Transformations.

A Decade in SAFe Adaptation: The Scaled Agile Framework, 10 Years Later

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A little SAFe history …

It was May of 2012, the year that the Mayan calendar said the “great cycle” shall come to an end. And with every cycle comes a new cycle. This new cycle was the beginning of an evolution of knowledge, sharing, and learning around how society builds the world’s largest systems.

For those of you who’ve followed the history of the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFeⓇ), you’ll remember that the book Agile Software Requirements had just been published in 2011. And you’ll also recognize this book as the foundation and initial version of the Scaled Agile Framework. Just open the front cover and you’ll find Dean Leffingwell’s initial “Big Picture” rendition of the Framework. The book itself was fueled by Dean’s 2007 — 2008 blog series, where he published the initial articles and concepts within Scaling Software Agility and Agile Software Requirements, both books that helped move the market.

Agile Enterprise Big Picture: Scaled Agile Delivery Model from Agile Software Requirements

The book unfolds the “why” behind the Framework. Dean discerns that to scale agility, an aspect of Lean is requisite. He further goes on to state that Lean is required to scale agility because of its focus on value streams, principles, and tools that enhance value delivery to customers and its elimination of waste in the development process. You’ll also recognize the influence of Don Reinertsen’s Principles of Product Development Flow as some of the early concepts within the Framework. What you may not know is that the publication of Don’s book caused Dean to go back to the drawing board and rewrite his book.

And for those who know Dean personally, you know that respect for people and culture is a passion of his that continues to be prevalent in Lean as well as in SAFe.

Now, while writing and sharing the book was clearly an affection of Dean’s, taking the knowledge and research in the book and translating it into a learning experience was also a passion. Today marks the anniversary of the first Scaled Agile Framework Certification class!

#1 SAFe Program Consultant Certification, May 25, 2012

Roughly 30 curious agilists attended the first SAFe® Program Consultant (SPC) certification. The course was a bootstrapped effort, invite-only. I remember Dean personally reaching out to those who had leveraged the early concept of SAFe.

At the time, I was a product owner. I was honored when my Lean leader said “yes” to funding and allowed me the time and opportunity to learn and evolve my knowledge of my role and how to better scale and build systems that our customers needed.

SAFe Adaptation

Taught based on V0.94 of the Framework (isn’t that a work of art?), the course introduced the concepts of Lean and Agile, roles and responsibilities, and the practicalities of scale. The class format was similar to today’s, with the first two days about the mindset and principles and the second two days focused on implementation techniques such as identifying value streams and “finding the kidney,” which is a metaphor for identifying who within the organization contributes to value creation and designing Agile Release Trains (ARTs).

It was hosted at the f/k/a Rally Software headquarters in Boulder, Colorado. Instructors included Dean Leffingwell, Alex Yakyma, Drew Jemilo, and Colin O’Neil. Enterprise representatives included Nokia, McAfee, Mitchell International, EMC, Tendril (the case study in Agile Software Requirements), and Nordstrom. And of course, there were the consultants represented by IconATG, Rally Software, Blue Mercury, and Net Objectives.

In the true spirit of SAFe, the class was full of hands-on experiential exercises, teaming within the class, and knowledge that helped create the evolution and advancement of our traditional Agile mindsets to Lean-Agile mindsets.

A picture from the first SPC class

There was even a proctored exam on the last day. If memory serves me, there were at least 30 essay questions and about 75 percent of the class graduated as the first SPCs!

I fondly remember chatting with Drew Jemilo, envisioning what SAFe could be in a decade. I can honestly say that the market has validated the need and exceeded all of our visions and expectations. It’s helped tens of thousands of organizations organize and deliver the highest-value products and solutions to their customers and created a powerful career market for lifelong learners, partners, and consultants.

SAFe Adaptation

Fast Forward 10 Years

The Framework has never stopped evolving and adapting to the field. Perhaps that’s what makes it unique: continuous value delivery to its customers. As humans, we thrive to evolve and learn, and this enables the sharing of knowledge from people like you.

Some of the latest enhancements include the addition of Principle #10: Organize around value (which was always present, just not as detailed and prevalent) and the seven core competencies of the Lean enterprise, which are crucial to achieving and sustaining your competitive edge.

Today, more than 1,000,000 practitioners and 20,000 enterprises worldwide in nearly every industry trust SAFe. Gartner names SAFe the #1 most considered and adopted framework for scaling Agile. If we were to apply Geoffrey Moore’s technology adoption curve from his book Crossing the Chasm to SAFe, it would most likely be in the early majority, and even in the tornado phase.

If there’s one thing for certain, customers are seeing results, and the Scaled Agile Framework has evolved its initial mission of “Better software and systems make the world a better place.” Today, Version 5 represents the most ambitious expansion of that mission in our history: to enable the business agility that is required for enterprises to compete and thrive in the digital age.

Sincere gratitude to my friend, Alex Yakyma, who helped maintain SAFe history with the visuals and helped refresh my memory of the event.

Learn more about the evolution of the Scaled Agile Framework, follow the SAFe blog, and join us at the 2022 SAFe Summit!

About Jennifer Fawcett

Jennifer is a retired, empathetic Lean and Agile leader, practitioner

Jennifer is a semi-retired, empathetic Lean and Agile leader, practitioner, coach, speaker, and consultant. As a SAFe Fellow, she contributed to and helped develop SAFe content and courseware. Her passion and focus have been delivering value in the workplace by creating communities and culture through effective communication, product management, product ownership, executive portfolio coaching, and compassionate leadership. She has provided dedicated service in these areas to technology companies for over 35 years.

8 Patterns to Set Up Your Measure and Grow Program for Success

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We all know that any time you start something new in an organization it takes time to make it stick, and if teams and leaders find value, they will work to keep a program flourishing. The same is true when you implement a Measure and Grow Program within your organization. It takes planning and effort to get it started, but the rewards will definitely outweigh the efforts in the end.

At AgilityHealth®, our Strategists work with organizations every day to help them set up Measure and Grow programs that will succeed based on their individual needs. Through their experiences, they have noticed some consistent patterns across our customers, both commercial and government, for- and non-profit. Understanding these patterns can help you set up a program that’s right for your organization.

Before we jump into the patterns, let’s review what a Measure and Grow program is. Simply stated, it’s how you will measure your progress toward business agility. When we look at how Enterprise Business Agility was defined by Sally Elatta, AgilityHealth Founder, and Evan Leybourne, Founder of the Business Agility Institute, you can see why this is important.

The ability to adapt to change, learn and pivot, deliver at speed, and thrive in a competitive market.

Sally Elatta, CEO AgilityHealth and Evan Leybourn, Founder, Business Agility Institute

We need to maintain our competitive edge, and in the process, make sure that healthy teams remain a priority—especially as we start to identify common patterns across teams.

Patterns

  1. Define how you will measure success.

Bertrand Dupperin said, “Tell me how you will measure me, and I will tell you how I will behave.” This is true of our teams, our team members, and our leaders. After this success criteria have been defined, allow the team members to measure themselves in a safe environment where they can be open and honest about their maturity with a neutral facilitator. The process of actioning on the data is very powerful for teams.

  1. Provide a way to help teams grow after you measure them.

“Measurement without action is worthless data.” (Thanks, Sally, for another great bit of wisdom.) When you set up your Measure and Grow program, make sure it includes a way for teams to learn and mature.

Some of the common ones we see are:

  • Dojo teams—high-performing teams paired with new or immature teams to help them learn
  • Pre-defined learning paths for teams using instructor-led or virtual learning
  • Intentional learning options for teams through Communities of Practice or other options
  • Pairing/Mentorship/Accountability Partners
  1. Tie the results to the goals.

“Why are we taking the time to do this?” This is a common question that teams and leaders ask when we are starting Measure and Grow programs. They feel that the time reserved for an Inspect and Adapt session could maybe be used to tie up those last few story points or test cases, when in reality there is a corporate objective to mature the teams. Be sure to share these kinds of goals with your teams and managers so they understand that this is important to the organization.

  1. Provide a maturity roadmap that takes the subjectivity out of the questions.

We all have an idea of what “good” looks like, but without a shared understanding of “good”, my “good” might be a 3, my teammate’s might be a 4, someone else’s might be a 2, and so on. When you share a common maturity roadmap to provide context for your assessment, your results will be less subjective.

  1. Measure at multiple levels so that you can correlate the results.

When we just look at maturity from the team perspective, we get one view of an organization. When we look at maturity from the leadership and stakeholder perspectives, we get another view. When we look at both together—the sandwich model—we get a three-dimensional view and can start to surmise cause and effect. This gives a clearer picture of how an organization is performing.

  1. Minimize competing priorities and platforms.

Almost all teams, regardless of organization, share that there are too many systems, too many priorities, too many everything (except maybe pizza slices …). Be sure to schedule your measurement and retrospective time when the team is taking a natural break in their work. Teams should take the time to do a strategic retrospective on how they are working together at the end of every PI during their Inspect and Adapt, so use that time wisely.

  1. Engage the leaders in the process.

When this becomes a “we” exercise and not a “you” exercise, then there is a sense of trust that is built between the teams and their leaders. Inevitably the teams are going to ask the leaders for assistance in removing obstacles. If the leaders are on board from the start and are expecting this, and they start removing them, this creates an atmosphere of psychological safety where teams can be honest about what they need and leaders can be honest about what they expect.

  1. Remember, this is all change, and change takes time.

Roy T. Bennett said, “Change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” It takes time, perseverance, and some uncomfortable conversations to change an organization and help it to grow. But in the end, it’s worth doing.

Get Started

Setting up a Measure and Grow program isn’t without its struggles, but for the organizations and teams that put the time and effort into doing it right, the rewards far outweigh the work that goes into it. If you would like to chat with us about what it would take to set up your Measure and Grow program, we’re ready to help.

About Trisha Hall

Trisha Hall - AgilityHealth’s

Trisha has been part of AgilityHealth’s Nebraska-based leadership team since 2014. As VP of Enterprise Solutions, she taps into her 25 years of experience to help organizations bring Business Agility to their companies and help corporate leaders build healthy, high-performing teams. Find Trisha on LinkedIn.

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Why SAFe Hurts – Implementing SAFe in Business

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Why do some people find SAFe® to be helpful in empowering teams, while others find implementing the Framework painful? To be honest, both scenarios are equally valid.

As I was beginning to refocus my career on transforming the operating models and management structures of large enterprises, I found that the behavioral patterns of Agile and the operational cadence of Scrum shined a spotlight on an organization’s greatest challenges. As a byproduct of working faster and focusing on flow, impediments became obvious. With the issues surfaced, management had a choice: fix the problems or don’t.

As we scale, the same pattern repeats, though the tax of change is compounded because change is hard. Meaningful change takes time, and the journey isn’t linear. Things get better, things get worse, then they get better again.

Consultants will often reference the Dunning-Kruger curve when selling organizational change.

Why SAFe Hurts
The Dunning-Kruger curve

The Dunning-Kruger curve illustrates change as a smooth journey. One that begins with the status quo, dips as the change is introduced, and then restores efficiency as organizations achieve competence and confidence in the new model. Unfortunately, that’s not how change works, and depicting organizational change this way is misleading.

Implementing SAFe in Business
The Satir curve

When I’d spend time doing discovery work with a prospective client, I’d instead cite a more accurate picture of change: the Satir curve. The Satir image depicts the chaos of change and better prepares people for the journey ahead. Change is chaotic, and achieving successful change requires a firm focus on the reason why the change is important—not simply the change itself. Why, then, can a SAFe transformation (or any other change) feel painful? Here are the patterns of SAFe transformation that I observed pre-COVID.

The Silver Bullet

An organization buys ‘the thing’ (SAFe) thinking it’s a silver bullet that will solve all of their problems. For example, the inability to deliver, poor quality, dissatisfied customers, unhappy teammates, and crummy products. SAFe can help address these issues, but not by simply using the Framework. The challenge we often face is that leaders just want ‘the thing.’ Management is too busy to learn what it is that they bought. That’s OK though. They did an Agile transformation once and read the article on Wikipedia.

How can you lead what you don’t know? How can you ask something of your team that you don’t understand yourself? Let’s explore. 

Start with Why

Leaders don’t take the time to understand what SAFe is, what problems it intends to help organizations solve, or the intent with which SAFe is best used. Referencing the SAFe Implementation Roadmap, its intent is to avoid some of this pain. We begin by aligning senior leaders with the problems to solve. After all, we’re seeking to solve business problems. As Kotter points out, all change must start with a compelling vision for change. 

With the problem identified, we then discuss if SAFe is the best tool to address those concerns. We continue the conversation by training leaders in the new way of working, and more importantly, the new way to think to succeed in the post-digital economy.

Middle Management

Middle management, sometimes distastefully referred to as the ‘frozen middle,’ is the hardest role to fill in an organizational hierarchy. Similar to how puberty serves as the awkward stage between adolescence and adulthood, middle management is the first time that many have positional responsibility, but not yet the authority to truly change the system.

Middle managers are caught in a position where many are forced to choose between doing what’s best for the team and doing what’s best to get the next position soon. Often, when asked to embrace a Lean and Agile way of working, these managers will recognize that being successful in the new system is in contrast to what senior leaders (who bought the silver bullet but could not make time to learn it) are asking of them.

This often manifests in a conversation of outputs over outcomes. In that, success had traditionally been determined by color-coded status reports instead of working product increments and business outcomes. Some middle managers will challenge the old system and others will challenge the new system, but in either context, many feel the pain. This is the product of a changing system and not the middle manager’s fault. But it is the reason why many transformations will reset at some point. The pain felt by middle management can be avoided by engaging the support of the leadership community from the start, but this is often not the case.

Misaligned Agile Release Trains

Many transformations begin somewhere after the first turn on the SAFe Implementation Roadmap. Agile coaches will often engage after someone has, with the best of intentions, decided to launch an Agile Release Train (ART), but hasn’t understood how to do so successfully.

Why SAFe Hurts
SAFe Implementation Roadmap

As a result, the first Program Increment, and SAFe, will feel painful. Have you ever seen an ART that is full of handoffs and is unable to deliver anything of value? This pattern emerges when an ART is launched within an existing organizational silo, instead of being organized around the flow of value. When ARTs are launched in this way, the same problems that have existed in the organization for years become more evident and more painful.

For this reason, many Agile and SAFe implementations face a reboot at some point. Feeling the pain, an Agile coach will help leaders understand why they’re not getting the expected results. Here’s where organizations will reconsider the first straight of the Implementation Roadmap, find time for training, and re-launch their ARTs. This usually happens after going through a Value Stream and ART Identification workshop to best understand how to organize so that ARTs are able to deliver value.

Implementing SAFe in Business
SAFe Implementation Roadmap

Moving Fast Makes Problems More Obvious

Moving fast (or trying to) shines a big spotlight on our problems and forces us to confront them. Problems like organizational silos, toxic cultural norms, bad business architecture, nightmarish tech architecture, cumbersome release management, missing change practices, and the complete inability to see the customer that typically surface when we seek to achieve flow.

The larger and older an organization is, the more problems there are, and the longer it takes to get to a place where our intent can be resized. Truly engaged leadership helps, but it still takes time to undo history. For example, I’ve been working with one large enterprise since 2013. It’s taken eight years since initial contact for the organization to evolve to a place that allowed them to respond to COVID confidently and in a way that actively supports global recovery. Eight years ago, the organization would have struggled to achieve the same outcome.

When I first started working with this organization, it engaged in multi-year, strategic planning, and only released new value to its customers once every three years. The conceptual architecture diagram resembled a plate of spaghetti—people spent more time building consensus than building products. And the state of the organization’s operations included laying people off with a Post-it note on their monitor and an escort off-campus.

Today, the organization is much healthier in every way imaginable. It’s vastly better than it was, but not nearly as good as it will be. The leadership team focuses on operational integrity, and how maintainable, scalable, and stable the architecture is—and recognizes that the team is one of the most important assets.

Embracing Lean and Agile ways of working at scale begins with the first ART launch. It continues with additional ART launches, a reconsideration of how we approach strategy, technology, and customers. And it accelerates as we focus on better applying the Lean-Agile mindset, values, and principles on a daily basis. This is the journey to #BecomingAgile so that we can best position the team and our assets to serve customers.

Change Is Hard

Change takes time, and all meaningful change is painful because the process challenges behavior norms. The larger the organization is, the richer the history, and the longer it may take to achieve the desired outcome. There will be good days, days when things don’t make sense, and days when the team is frustrated. But all of that is OK. You know what else is ok? Feeling frustrated during the change. It’s important to focus on why the change is taking place. 

A pre-pandemic pattern (that I suspect may shift) is that change in large organizations often comes with evolution instead of revolution. With the exception of a very few clients, change begins with a team and expands as that team gains success and the patterns begin to reach other adjacent areas of the operation. The change will reach a point where supporting organizational structures must also change to achieve business agility.

As mentioned, moving fast with a focus on flow and customer-centricity exposes bottlenecks in the system. At some point, it will become obvious that structures such as procurement, HR, incentive models, and finance are bottlenecks to greater agility. And, when an organization begins to tackle these challenges, really cool things start to happen. People behave based on how they are incentivized, and compensation and performance are typically at odds with the mindset, values, and principles that are the foundation of SAFe.

Let’s Work Together

SAFe itself is not inherently painful. The Framework is a library of integrated patterns that have proven successful when paired with the intent of a Lean-Agile mindset, set of core values, and guiding principles. Organizations can best mitigate the pain associated with change by understanding what’s changing, the reason why the change is being introduced, and a deliberate focus on sound change-management practices. If you’re working in a SAFe ecosystem that feels challenging, share your experience in the General Discussion Group forum on the SAFe Community Platform. Our community is full of practitioners who represent all stages of the Satir change curve, and who can offer their advice, suggestions, and empathy. Together, we’ll make the world a better place to work.

About Adam Mattis

Adam Mattis headshot

Adam Mattis is a SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT) at Scaled Agile with many years of experience overseeing SAFe implementations across a wide range of industries. He’s also an experienced transformation architect, engaging speaker, energetic trainer, and a regular contributor to the broader Lean-Agile and educational communities. Learn more about Adam at adammattis.com.

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