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New Guidance for People Managers in SAFe

We are delighted to announce the release of a new community contribution article, The Role of People Managers in SAFe, authored by Mikael Broomé, Lean-Agile Coach and SPCT Candidate at Think Flow!

In this new article, Mikael reflects on his experiences observing people managers as they adapted to the changes in their role as their organizations transitioned to SAFe. The new responsibility wheel for people managers reflects how Mikael has guided these leaders to see their value as they perform the vital role of finding, developing, and unleashing the amazing talent Agile Teams and ARTs need to build the innovative products needed to compete and win in the marketplace.

People manager responsibilities. Promoting employee well-being, managing talent, promoting growth and leading by example

At Scaled Agile, we have heard from many people managers over the years that with the adoption of SAFe, many of their responsibilities shifted to other roles in the network side of the dual operating system. Teams have the autonomy to define their own tasks. Product Owners and Product Managers take the lead on ensuring teams understand customer requirements and prioritize the backlog items that ensure the products being built meet customer needs. Scrum Master/Team Coaches and RTEs facilitate decentralized planning based on cadence-based iterations and PIs. System and Solution Architects lead the technical community to determine the best architectures and tools needed to enable the desired product functionality. With all of these changes, some people managers have struggled to find their place in the new way of working.

The good news is that the people manager role in SAFe is more important than ever! In SAFe, the redistribution of responsibilities provides people managers more time to devote to the critical role of finding and growing the talent needed to build amazing products! Mikael’s article describes how people managers in SAFe fulfill these responsibilities, and also provides four keys to success that will help people managers make this important transition.

Mikael and I will share more about this topic in an upcoming webinar on September 19th at 12:00pm Eastern Daylight time. You can register at https://thinkflow.se/peoplemanager/.

We hope you enjoy this practical guidance that Mikael shares with our community in this new article!

— Dr. Steve and the Framework Team