Creating a product that will meet market needs requires teams of talented people working collaboratively. Missing precious deadlines due to miscommunication and rework will erode team morale and hurt productivity.
SAFe teaches leaders how to build agile processes that eliminate those problems and help them accelerate time-to-market. These processes are based on lean principles and economic concepts that have proven successful in the software industry.
The SAFe Leader’s Role
A key part of the role is to support and facilitate the work of Lean-Agile teams. This is not an easy task, and it’s essential that leaders possess the right leadership skills to be successful. This is where SAFe provides a powerful framework to help companies successfully transform into Agile.
SAFe is a workflow pattern and activity set that scales Agile principles and practices to enterprise-wide levels. This framework supports business agility by enabling development teams to deliver fast and reliable results that address critical customer needs, adapt to changing market conditions, and capitalize on opportunities.
Unlike traditional Agile methods, SAFe integrates the people side of agile with the process to create a holistic approach. In the SAFe model, work is organized into cross-functional teams called Agile Release Trains that are focused on delivering the highest value first and iterating and learning along the way. The program level then coordinates and synchronizes multiple ARTs to produce a larger solution.
To implement SAFe, leaders need to understand the core values of the Lean-Agile mindset and its ten fundamental principles. The leadership principles are based on a combination of Lean thinking, systems thinking, and observations of successful enterprises. They include alignment, transparency, respect for people, and relentless improvement. A great SAFe leader has a strong understanding of these principles and regularly demonstrates and applies them to carry out their organizational responsibilities.
The process of implementing SAFe requires the commitment of leaders throughout the organization, from managers to executives. Leaders need to be prepared to provide the vision and guidance for the transformation and the training and resources to enable it. The first step is to establish a sense of urgency to begin the transformation. This is achieved by identifying the key stakeholders and creating a strong coalition to drive change.
Once a coalition has been established, the next step is to create a plan for achieving business agility through SAFe. This plan should include a timeline for the initial phases of implementation and identify key roles, responsibilities, and expectations for all involved. Finally, the SAFe implementation roadmap should be reviewed by a qualified SAFe Practice Consultant to ensure it is fit for the organization’s transformation goals and capabilities.
The SAFe Leader’s Habits
The leadership behaviors that enable world-class teams also support a Lean-Agile transformation. A SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT) can provide coaching and guidance to help your leaders develop these leadership qualities.
Leaders need to be visible advocates for change. This means they need to communicate the urgency of embracing SAFe and why it’s necessary for their organizations. They need to share the vision and goals for transforming SAFe as well as explain the value of the Lean-Agile culture. They should also engage with other leaders in the organization to build a guiding coalition to drive the change.
They must also extend their reach through the Lean-Agile Communities of Excellence (LACE). This helps to align each portfolio to SAFe practices and leadership. The LACE should also spearhead improvement initiatives and create a continuous learning culture. Finally, they need to engage their employees by sharing the company strategy and connecting it to their work. Porsche shared an example of this at their 2021 SAFe Summit by having executive leadership commit to the way they would work and which KPIs they’d drive with their products. This transparency and connection to company strategy was important to sustaining employee engagement during the change.
In addition to extending their reach and engaging their employees, leaders should also focus on building bridges between departments and silos within the organization. This can reduce knowledge loss, speed up decision-making, and increase productivity. In many organizations, functional silos are created because teams do not have the autonomy and skills to work together. These silos can lead to a waterfall delivery approach that delays the flow of work and wastes time. In a SAFe transformation, these silos can be replaced with cross-training and collaboration across functions.
The best leaders are excellent collaborators who work with others in the organization to get things done. They are able to meet people where they are, show empathy, and listen to ideas that will help the team achieve their goals. They can also identify and resolve conflicts that might impact the team’s success. This is especially critical when attempting to transform an organization from the inside out.
The SAFe Leader’s Mindset
Achieving business agility requires a transformation of an organization’s leadership mindset. It’s the only way to create an environment that fosters high-performing Agile teams and drives a relentless quest for continuous improvement. This change is more than just a new set of processes and procedures. It’s a new way of thinking and behaving that inspires others to follow suit.
Leaders must embrace a growth mindset and be open to learning the core values and principles of two primary underlying bodies of knowledge: Lean Thinking and Agile. Both have long histories of published guidance and case studies. SAFe combines these approaches to achieve its intended outcome: a continuous flow of value across the enterprise. Thousands of implementations have shown that the key elements of this mindset are alignment, transparency, respect for people, and relentless improvement. Leader behaviors play a critical role in communicating, exhibiting, and emphasizing these core ideals.
Lean-Agile leaders also help transform organizational cultures from pathological (negative, power-oriented) and bureaucratic patterns to a more generative, performance-oriented culture that is required for business agility. They do this by modeling the desired behaviors for others to follow and engendering the commitment to these aims that exceeds that generated through positional authority. Leaders exhibit these behaviors through their beliefs, decisions, responses, and actions. This earned authority inspires followers to incorporate the leader’s example into their own development journey.
Finally, effective SAFe leaders promote and encourage an environment of open communication with coworkers on safety concerns, conduct safety training, and provide physical resources to keep employees safe (schedules, workloads, equipment). This support provides the psychosocial conditions that allow individuals to safely work under pressure.
A key challenge is to shift the prevailing mental model that rewards productivity over worker safety. This can be difficult because it will require a change in an entire workforce’s beliefs, attitudes, and behavior. Until this happens, an organization will not achieve world-class safety.
Lastly, effective SAFe leaders understand that the customer is ultimately the decider of value, and they favor close collaboration with customers to create win-win contracts. Rather than relying on contractual arrangements that often lead to contentious short-term results and distrust, they seek to build a lasting relationship based on mutual benefit.
The SAFe Leader’s Toolkit
A SAFe transformation requires significant organizational change. Leaders must learn how to drive and support the new way of working, delivering value in the shortest sustainable lead time while creating flow, fostering customer delight, and increasing productivity—all with happy and engaged employees. It’s a daunting task. Achieving true agility demands the ability to collaborate across silos and build coalitions that support Agile principles and practices.
To do this, leaders need a toolkit that includes tools and habits they can use to transform themselves into agile champions and enable a successful Agile transformation. A key element is psychological safety, which builds trust and increases the speed at which information flows. Leaders can foster a sense of psychological safety by using a variety of techniques, including setting the stage by framing the work and emphasizing a shared purpose; inviting participation by demonstrating situational humility and practicing inquiring and engaging behaviors; and facilitating productive discussions and responses to team member contributions and potential setbacks.
Those who successfully complete a Leading SAFe course with SA certification and become SAFe Agilists or SPCs are well-equipped to understand these leadership best practices and habits. As a result, they are better equipped to help others succeed in an Agile transformation.
The SAFe leader’s toolkit also contains practical tools for supporting agile practices. One such technique is reality-based forecasting, which helps teams predict what they can achieve given their actual velocity rather than trying to estimate by the person. This approach results in more accurate project plans and more effective resource allocation. Other pragmatic tools include addressing bottlenecks, visualizing, and limiting WIP, managing queue lengths, working in small batches, getting fast feedback, optimizing time “in the zone,” and remediating legacy policies and practices.
Finally, the SAFe leader’s toolkit contains practical strategies for facilitating collaboration and building coalitions. These tools and habits can be applied to a range of situations, from collaborating with remote teams to resolving conflict. Ultimately, these skills and habits make the difference between the success and failure of an Agile implementation.
Those who have been through an Agile transformation know that it takes a lot of work to adopt and apply lean-agile practices at scale. The most successful transformations are those that go beyond the adoption of technical practices and address cultural change. For this reason, selecting the right transformation vendor is critical. Choose a partner that is aligned with your goals and values, understands the challenges of change management, and supports the full implementation of SAFe.