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Scaled Agile Framework


Scaled Agile Framework (or SAFe) is an Agile software development framework designed by Scaled Agile, Inc. It consists of a knowledge base of integrated patterns intended for enterprise-scale Lean-Agile development. Its proponents consider SAFe to be scalable and modular, allowing an organization to apply it in a way that suits its need.

SAFe synchronizes alignment, collaboration, and delivery for large numbers of agile teams. It supports both software and systems development, from the modest scale of under 100 practitioners to the largest software solutions and complex cyber-physical systems; systems that require thousands of people to create and maintain. SAFe was developed in the field, based on helping customers solve their most challenging scaling problems. SAFe leverages three primary bodies of knowledge: Agile development, Lean product development, and systems thinking.

SAFe was initially developed in the field and was elaborated in Dean Leffingwell's books and blog. Version 1.0 of SAFe, the first official release, was published in its current web site form in 2011. The latest version renamed "SAFe 4.0 for Lean Software and Systems Engineering", was released in January 2016.

SAFe is based on a number of immutable, underlying Lean and Agile principles. These are the fundamental tenets, the basic truths and economic underpinnings that drive the roles and practices that make SAFe effective. The nine SAFe principles are:

There are two different types of SAFe 4.0 implementation, 3-Level SAFe and 4-Level SAFe. 3-Level SAFe is for smaller implementations with 100 people or less, or multiple such programs that do not require significant collaboration. 4-Level SAFe is for solutions that typically require many hundreds of practitioners to develop, deploy and maintain.

The levels in 3-Level SAFe are Team, Program & Portfolio.

All SAFe teams are agile teams. There is more than one type of team for example there may be a Systems Team and architectural teams, and the more common Agile development teams which are called "Agile Teams" in the SAFe methodology.

A Systems Team is a specialised team which is responsible for maintaining the development environment used by the Agile Teams and for testing solutions end-to-end.

Agile Teams typically consist of 5-9 people who work in a two-week sprints using XP (Extreme Programming) methods, and have the skills they need to define, develop, test and deliver value. However unlike traditional development scrums they do not work independently and autonomously. For example, their team backlog consists of items pulled from the Program backlog, and the length of their sprints are synchronised with all the other teams on the same "Agile Release Train" (see the next section), because the SAFe methodology is built around the idea that "basing routine development activities on a fast, synchronous —a regular, predictive rhythm of important events—helps manage the inherent variability in systems development".


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