Transition from Plan Driven to SAFe : Periodic Team Self-Assessment

TL;DR

This study examines how a small to medium enterprise transitions from plan-driven methods to SAFe, highlighting the gradual adoption of practices and organizational changes over time through a longitudinal survey.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into the adoption process of SAFe at the team level in SMEs during a transition period.

Findings

Initial struggles with PI/Release and Technical health.

Discernible improvements in SAFe practice adoption over time.

Organizational and team familiarity contributed to progress.

Abstract

Context: How to adopt, scale and tailor agile methods depends on several factors such as the size of the organization, business goals, operative model, and needs. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) was developed to support organizations to scale agile practices across the enterprise. Problem: Early adopters of SAFe tend to be large multi-national enterprises who report that the adoption of SAFe has led to significant productivity and quality gains. However, little is known about whether these benefits translate to small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs). Method: As part of a longitudinal study of an SME transitioning to SAFe we ask, to what extent are SAFe practices adopted at the team level? We targeted all team members and administrated a mixed method survey in February, 2017 and in July, 2017 to identify and evaluate the adoption rate of SAFe practices. Results: Initially in Quarter 1, teams were struggling with PI/Release health and Technical health throughout the organization as most of the teams were transitioning from plan-driven to SAFe . But, during the transition period in Quarter 3, we observed discernible improvements in different areas of SAFe practice adoption. Conclusion: The observed improvement might be due to teams merely becoming more familiar with the practices over-time. However, management had also made some structural changes to the teams that may account for the change.