Note: This article is part of Extended SAFe Guidance and represents official SAFe content that cannot be accessed directly from the Big Picture.

Our training strongly encourages every Lean-Agile leader to rededicate themselves to lifelong learning. After all, in a sea of constant technological and business change, is there any other choice? To this end, we maintain an active list of our ‘Top 10’ (more or less) recommended books that provide a foundational understanding of the ‘principles behind the principles’ in SAFe.

We also maintain a collection of great secondary resources. These ‘staff favorites’ have significantly influenced our thinking in various areas of the Framework. These lists change over time as new works become available, but here are our current favorites.

Foundational Reading

• Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World, Kotter
• Agile Software Requirements, Leffingwell
• Extreme Ownership Babin and Willink
• Lean Product and Process Development, Ward, Sobeck II
• Out of the Crisis, Deming
• Project to Product: How to Survive and Thrive in the Age of Digital Disruption with the Flow Framework, Kersten
• SAFe Distilled 5.0: Achieving Business Agility with the Scaled Agile Framework Knaster, Leffingwell
• The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations, Kim, Debois, Willis, Humble
• The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Ries
• The Principles of Product Development Flow, Reinertsen
• Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders, Marquet

Other Great Resources