Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Explained: Definition & Core Values

In 2001, 17 software developers realized their project management behaviors strayed from the traditional Waterfall methodology. Together, they created the Agile Manifesto. It was an ambitious declaration of people over processes, customer collaboration over bureaucracy, and flexibility over rigidity.

Project management hasn’t looked the same since.

Generally, smaller project teams adopt the Agile method. Think of one or two teams with a handful of project leads, typically within the software development space. This is because they have that small, familial feel that makes it easier to maintain communication during sprints.

Does this mean larger organizations can’t benefit from Agile practices? Of course not. It’s all about what principles you adopt and how you maintain collaboration. Enterprise Agile frameworks, such as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), exist to help you navigate those choices.

What is the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a project management framework developed by Scaled Agile, Inc. Initially released in 2011, it is popular for scaling Agile methodologies—typically associated with smaller organizations—to an enterprise level. It can help larger organizations to enjoy the advantages of Agile: rapid feedback, quick response to change, and incremental development.

SAFe is a body of knowledge and provides guidance on team collaboration, quality, alignment, and leadership. In a nutshell, it follows the key concepts of Agile while offering more structure to support larger teams throughout their project lifecycle. This includes guidance on roles and responsibilities, planning, management, and values.

SAFe was developed as an alternative to traditional project management processes; a way to help large businesses meet customers’ rapidly-changing needs. The framework promotes alignment, communication, and project delivery across a large number of agile teams. Today, it is one of the world’s most popular scaled agile frameworks.

Agile Release Trains (ARTs) are a key feature of SAFe. These are cross-functional, agile teams of experts that work together over the long term towards a single goal. They are aligned to a common vision and include all of the agile teams required to achieve deliverables.

What are the core values of SAFe?

Implementing SAFe requires organizations to foster a culture focused around four key values:

• Alignment: To avoid the organization being pulled in different directions, every individual contributor at all portfolio levels should be clear of the enterprise’s vision, mission, and strategy. To create and maintain this alignment, communication is key, as is a connection between strategy and execution—strategic themes should translate into tangible guidance. For this, ARTs are key.
• Built-in quality: All elements and increments throughout the development lifecycle should embody quality—it’s critical that every step of a solution reflects quality standards. Inspecting a product afterwards does not improve its quality; this should be already contained within.
• Transparency: Openness is absolutely key for product development—mistakes should be seen as an opportunity to learn and develop. To help drive decision making, project information and data should be visible to all team members, who should feel empowered to speak directly, openly, and honestly.
• Program execution: SAFe places huge importance on business outcomes and the continuous delivery of products in a valuable, reliable, and efficient manner.

Leadership plays a fundamental role in instilling these values—managers and executives must actively participate in and guide the activities that drive value in the organization. Leaders should embody a continuous learning culture.

What are the 10 principles of SAFe?

There are 10 key principles that provide a foundation for SAFe. These can be referred to in most situations, giving you the flexibility to scale Agile in a way that works for your organization, whatever circumstances or restrictions there may be. After all, no two implementations of SAFe are ever the same.

1. Take an economic view: To support decision-making at a departmental level, you need to consider all economic variables. SAFe encourages each department to consider the cost of their output and operate within the project’s set budget.
2. Apply systems thinking: To overcome challenges in the marketplace and workplace, it’s crucial to understand the systems that users and workers are using. To improve a system overall, everyone using it must understand its aim and commit to achieving its goals.
3. Assume variability; preserve options: SAFe provides the flexibility to make data-driven decisions later in the process, without narrowing down your options early on. This helps to avoid getting stuck with the wrong design—a problem with traditional development models.
4. Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles: Short sprints will enable you to get customer feedback faster and mitigate any issues sooner.
5. Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems: Given all stakeholders have a shared responsibility to ensure that the project will deliver economic benefit, objective milestones help you to take stock of your process at regular intervals.
6. Visualize and limit work in progress (WIP), reduce batch sizes and manage queue lengths: The aim is to achieve a state of continuous flow. Limiting WIP and managing queue lengths improves productivity and limits demand to capacity.
7. Apply cadence and harness with cross-domain planning: Cadence ensures activities occur on a regular, predictable schedule. Cross-domain planning gives teams the chance to come together and develop a common vision for the development process.
8. Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers: Creating an environment that fosters independence and provides purpose will help your employees achieve their goals—ultimately yielding better outcomes for your company.
9. Decentralize decision-making: This empowers specialists to make decisions about operations and development to keep the project moving. Enable employees to make independent decisions when appropriate.
10. Organize around value: The speed at which you deliver new innovations matters. Getting rid of dependencies and organizing around value, rather than functional expertise, means you can respond better to market changes.

Download our complete guide to the SAFe Framework for more detail on each of these principles.

Scaled Agile Framework’s four levels (or “configurations”)

SAFe has four different configurations that accommodate different businesses with varying levels of scale:

1. Essential SAFe: This is the base-level configuration. It includes the minimum viable set of roles, responsibilities, and team sizes. Largely, Essential SAFe focuses on the Lean-Agile principle and ARTs.
2. Large Solution SAFe: This is for businesses that deliver more complex product solutions that require multiple ARTs. Think of businesses within the automotive industry that regularly build and test vehicles. With such large solutions, they require more roles, coordination, and supplier involvement.
3. Portfolio SAFe: This is a light extension of Essential SAFe that aligns strategy with project execution via development value streams. Each stream focuses on solutions that will impact the overall business mission. This framework provides more guidance on Portfolio Strategy, Lean Governance, and Agile Portfolio management.
4. Full SAFe: This is the most complete level of SAFe. As the name suggests, it features all seven competencies. This is mostly used by big worldwide organizations with large, challenging portfolios.

What are the benefits of the Scaled Agile Framework?

SAFe is a brilliant, proven framework. It helps larger organizations realize the benefits of Agile methodologies—rapid feedback, quick response to change, and incremental development—while addressing the operational difficulties that can arise when implementing these ways of working on such a large scale. Benefits of SAFe include:

• Alignment: SAFe offers structure, combating any potential miscommunication or misalignment during project sprints. This is essential when you’re managing many teams. It helps to align all levels of the organization—top management and Agile team members share the same goals. 
• Product quality: As user feedback is gathered throughout the development cycle, quality becomes built in at every step —a core principle of SAFe. Areas for improvement are continually identified, which helps larger organizations remain relevant in a rapidly-changing environment.
• Accelerated time-to-market: By breaking down traditional silos, encouraging cross-team alignment, and focusing on business outcomes, an organization employing SAFe will enjoy faster product development. 
• Employee morale: Scaling Agile gives your team members greater autonomy, freedom, and sense of purpose. They feel part of a higher-performing, more transparent team that is meeting its goals and collaborating more seamlessly. 
• Efficiency and productivity: A core principle of Agile working is empowering teams to identify delays and eliminate unnecessary work. This means you get more output for the same input—in other words, a productivity increase.

Scaled Agile Framework in action: case studies and examples

To understand how the SAFe can impact and improve your projects, it might be helpful to look at three real-world examples.

Woodward

The SAFe core values of transparency and alignment helped Woodward, an advanced aerospace and industrial leader, to instigate a cultural change, helping them harmonize, unify, and integrate Woodward’s operations, reducing inefficiency by 75%.

David Wyack, Program Manager at Woodward, is unequivocal in how these changes led to unprecedented efficiency gains: “It fostered a more collaborative environment, one where sharing information has become the norm, not the exception.

“This change has not only boosted our project success rates but has also made our teams more agile and adaptive.”

PepsiCo

PepsiCo is another company that realized improvements in data quality and efficiency by implementing SAFe principles.

By creating a single source of truth, shifting to SAFe led to greater pipeline visibility and transparency, helping PepsiCo to accelerate their stage-gate processes and manage their several-thousand-strong project portfolio.

Productos Ramo

SAFe’s emphasis on speed-to-value also helped Producto Ramo, a Colombian snack food brand, transform their entire innovation process and expedite product launches.

After centralizing workflows and streamlining stage-gate processes, Ramo’s NPD and innovation team successfully cut their time to market by 75%—achieving C-level-worthy metrics. According to Innovation Manager Juan Pablo Molano, “What once took 18-24 months can now take six months from idea to store shelves.”

Scaled Agile Framework and team size: key considerations

The truth is, there’s no “perfect” size for the adoption of SAFe. The configuration you choose will depend on the size of your Agile Release Trains. These teams consist of experts who are able to implement, test, and deploy a product or service.

SAFe was designed for organizations with multiple teams of 5-11 people. That said, larger businesses with several teams of 50-100+ individuals also make use of the framework.

Not all “perfectly sized” organizations need to convert to SAFe, however. You should only apply SAFe to parts of your company that require Agile with a stronger governance.

Choosing the right SAFe configuration

If you do feel that this framework is right for your project portfolios, you can then narrow down which configuration you use: Essential, Large Solution, Portfolio, or Full.

Large, solution-focused organizations, such as government bodies, would better suit Large Solution SAFe. Worldwide powerhouses with large cross-functional teams would benefit from Full SAFe. And SMBs would be better off adopting the lighter Essential SAFe framework or Portfolio SAFe.

It boils down to one simple thing: the bigger your project, the more structure you need.

Can a team be too big for the Scaled Agile Framework?

Large organizations may wish to adopt Full SAFe or Large Solution SAFe. But is there such a thing as being too big for Agile at scale?

Well, that is a risk. The bigger your program, the more ART teams you'll need. A large-scale program may be anything from an office relocation to a new city to the development of energy efficient transport aircraft.

These programs require more hands on deck, more expertise, and more supplier involvement. This increases the overhead for administering the SAFe implementation, and makes things more complex.

If you have strong project leads and efficient PI Planning meetings, this will ease the communication challenges of large-scaled SAFe.

Is the Scaled Agile Framework suitable for small and mid-size teams?

SAFe is too heavy for organizations that only have two or three teams. In these circumstances, there’s no point in following such a demanding framework since smaller teams don’t suffer from the challenges that SAFe solves.

But what if you struggle with long releases, miscommunication, or poor product quality? If you have a smaller project management team of 25 people or more, SAFe could still work for you.

We may recommend adopting the Essential SAFe configuration and familiarizing yourself with the fundamentals. This configuration can contain 5-12 Agile Teams, consisting of 5-11 individuals.

What are the alternatives to Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?

While SAFe is the most popular framework, it isn’t the only way to implement Agile at scale—other solutions include Scrum@Scale (S@S), Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), Nexus, and Disciplined Agile Delivery (DaD). To help you decide which is best for your organization, explore our guide comparing all five popular Enterprise Agile frameworks.

Of course, before you adopt any project management framework, you must do your due diligence. When determining whether SAFe is the best solution, identify your use cases, dependencies, team size and skill sets. Typically, organizations with larger teams and complex projects will benefit most from SAFe.

Discover even more about the SAFe—including how it differs from other frameworks, how SAFe works in action, and problems you can tackle with SAFe—by downloading our complete guide to the SAFe Framework.

If you’re looking to bring more agility into larger, scaled operations, Planisware’s Enterprise Agile can help. We have been a Scaled Agile Platform partner since 2019, and our tools seamlessly support a Scaled Agile process that follows SAFe principles.