Series description

Net Objectives is led by Al Shalloway, an industry thought leader in Lean, SAFe, Kanban, Scrum and technical Agile. Net Objectives has led several successful SAFe based transitions and has seen more that were not as successful. There is a pattern that underlies this difference. We have seen that SAFe can be used as a base for successful transitions but that “SAFe out of the box” often has challenges. We must remember that SAFe is a framework, and one identified for use at scale, not everywhere. SAFe should be thought of as a tool-box of great ideas that can sometimes be used as is, but more often benefits from some degree of elaboration. This day presents a quick overview of SAFe followed by four elaborations we’ve seen useful in most of our SAFe implementations.

These elaborations are:

• Why and how you must drive from business value: why using Minimum Business Increments (MBIs) is essential
• How to create your trains even when they are not well defined and everybody seems to be working on everything
• An introduction to Leanban, Net Objectives’ new team level approach that provides consistency across the enterprise while enabling it to be tailored for the context in which it is being used
• Using SAFe at the mid-scale (organizations of 30-150 people) for which the standard adoption of SAFe may be too heavy

SAFe® in an hour

May 14, 2015 8:30am-9:30am
Al Shalloway | Recording | Slides (PDF)
This presents what SAFe is and why it works. It explains SAFe from a Lean-flow perspective while describing how teams are organized so that they can work together.

Driving from business value in SAFe®, the Net Objectives way

May 14, 2015 10:00am-11:00am
Al Shalloway | Recording | Slides (PDF)
Years before SAFe existed, Net Objectives had been doing scaled Agile by focusing on high density value to be delivered. The Lean Startup does this with MVPs (minimal viable products). We prefer to call them Minimum Business Increments (MBIs). We have found that embedding MBIs into the SAFe framework makes it considerably more effective. This talk discusses how focusing on high density business value improves SAFe’s practices while helping align people as well.

The Net Objectives’ RAPID implementation of SAFe®

May 14, 2015 11:30am-12:30pm
Al Shalloway | Recording | Slides (PDF)
RAPID is Net Objectives knowledge base of Lean-Agile implementations. Net Objectives uses the concept of inflection points and the possible solutions to the questions they ask to both transition to and elaborate on SAFe. This webinar presents this approach and illustrates how you can implement SAFe in stages while learning how to elaborate on it when needed.

Introducing Leanban

May 14, 2015 1:30pm-2:30pm
Al Shalloway | Recording | Slides (PDF)
Leanban enables an organization to have essentially one approach that can be tailored by teams to meet their needs. This avoids the Agile wars within an organization, allows people to move freely across teams, and yet enables teams to have an approach that works well for them. Leanban also has a method of transitioning to new practices in an effective manner, enabling teams to improve their practices as they mature.

Using SAFe® in small- and mid-scale organizations

May 14, 2015 3:00pm-4:00pm
Al Shalloway | Recording | Slides (PDF)
As good as SAFe is, it is intended for large scale organizations (trains of over 50 people). However, many organizations with program smaller than 50 are using SAFe, but in a cumbersome manner. This talk describes how smaller organizations can use SAFe effectively by tailoring key practices. In particular, these include Program Increment Planning, team organization and backlog management. This provides the value of SAFe’s all-in agreement while keeping it Agile and effective.