SAFe Blog

SAFe Blog

Reimagining SAFe: SAFe Summit Washington D.C. Keynote and Business Agility Podcast

•By Andrew Sales

In addition to reflecting on some truly remarkable global successes with SAFe, I recognized that in this tough economic climate some organizations were questioning or reducing their investment in Lean and Agile ways of working, with some moving away from these methods entirely. 

In many ways, these behaviors were at odds with the fact that Lean and Agile, with a focus on removing waste and accelerating value delivery, are the processes best suited to helping organizations in times such as these. This leads naturally to the most important question of all: Why have Lean and Agile not delivered the expected benefits for some organizations?

New Presentation: Introducing the SAFe Big Picture in Four Stories

•By Andrew Sales

A couple of weeks ago, at the SAFe Summit in Washington, D.C., I announced a new 6.0 Big Picture as part of the work to Reimagine SAFe. The SAFe Big Picture visualizes the Framework—the activities, the roles, and the events. Whereas the Full SAFe 6.0 Configuration is optimized for completeness, providing guidance on everything from Big Data to Shared Services, this new Big Picture is optimized for understanding and storytelling.

Reimagining SAFe: Enabling Strategy Agility with Lean Portfolio Management

•By Rebecca Davis

Welcome to the first blog in our storyline-based series about the new guidance in the SAFe Big Picture. We will explore how each component contributes to a larger lean-agile narrative. Our first storyline introduces brand-new Portfolio Leadership guidance and shares the Portfolio storyline. The Portfolio storyline explains how to connect strategy to the delivery of solutions with Lean Portfolio Management. These stories are essential for lean-agile leaders and practitioners to consider and apply within their organizations. The Framework Team encourages you to read and share these stories as part of our Reimagining SAFe initiative.

Just Announced Live at the SAFe Summit! The New SAFe Big Picture with Enhanced Framework Articles

•By Andrew Sales

At the 2024 SAFe Summit Washington, D.C. (October 14-17, 2024), an exciting new chapter for SAFe was revealed! During the much-anticipated Reimagining SAFe keynote by Chief Methodologist Andrew Sales, a new SAFe Big Picture and a set of Enhanced Framework Articles were announced—both designed to better support organizations in their Lean-Agile journey. The announcements mark a pivotal step in the evolution of SAFe, simplifying key processes and amplifying the focus on what truly matters: driving product innovation, speeding up time-to-market, and delivering business value.

SAFe Fellow Blog | Improving Decision Latency

•By Rebecca Davis

Ian Spence is a SAFe Fellow with significant experience helping others with Lean Portfolio Management (LPM). We are excited to share some of his thoughts, experiences and research. Highlighted by an insightful CHAOS Report, he shares the positive influence of swift decision-making on outcomes on SAFe Portfolios. Organizations demonstrating efficient decision latency enjoy a significantly higher success rate, proving the profound impact of agility and rapid responsiveness beyond just the choice of methodology. Ian is a brilliant thinker and is great at bringing simplicity to the complex.

SAFe Experts Interview: Gene Kim, Dr. Mik Kersten, Andrew Sales and Cheryl Crupi

•By Cheryl Crupi

The 2024 SAFe Summit Berlin featured keynotes from top thought leaders in our community – Gene Kim, Dr. Mik Kersten and Andrew Sales. You won’t want to miss this recorded conversation featuring these three industry leading experts. In this insightful discussion, they share their invaluable perspectives on the future of work and how to successfully scale agility.

A SAFe Summit Washington D.C. Preview: Reimagining SAFe Keynote

•By Andrew Sales

In April this year, at the SAFe Summit Berlin, I used my keynote to reflect on an evolving set of requirements for those organizations looking to adopt SAFe as well as those looking to advance existing implementations. In addition to the comprehensive guidance that organizations greatly value about SAFe, an additional quality is becoming increasingly important: Simplification. 

SAFe Experts Interview: Dr. Mik Kersten, Rebecca Davis, Harry Koehnemann

•By Rebecca Davis

We are thrilled to share one of the conversations from the 2024 SAFe Summit in Berlin. Harry and I had the privilege to sit down with the best-selling author, CTO, and all-around good guy, Dr. Mik Kerstin. Together, we discussed insights on harnessing value stream organizational patterns to revolutionize the way we work. Mik shared an innovative use of Flow Framework data coupled with AI technologies. What was the goal? To frequently optimize the organizational structure of teams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs). Mik shares how he and his peers use data to maximize value delivery by consistently ensuring a more fluid, responsive organizational structure.

The SAFe Big Picture and Implementation Roadmap now available in 8 languages!

•By Risa Wilmeth

As part of our ongoing efforts to support our global market, we have expanded our localization to bring SAFe closer to our community worldwide. First, we translated the Full SAFe Big Picture configuration into Japanese. Next, we translated all articles in the Essential SAFe configuration into Japanese. And now, with this exciting new development, we are proud to announce that the Full, Portfolio, Large Solution, and Essential configurations of the SAFe Big Picture—along with the SAFe Implementation Roadmap—are available in eight languages: English, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, and Spanish.

Wiring the Winning Organization – An Interview with Gene Kim

•By Steve Mayner

At the 2024 SAFe Summit Berlin earlier this year, I had the opportunity to chat with our keynote speaker and globally recognized author Gene Kim about his latest book Wiring the Winning Organization. We’re excited to announce the release of the video recording of our conversation, available here. Our discussion shines a spotlight on the concepts in his book that align perfectly with the principles and practices of SAFe.