Key concepts:
- ART Design – Organizing around Value Delivery.
- ART Roles
- ART Events and Cadences
- ART Launch
Traditional Structures Impede Agility
Getting the right organizational structure in place is a critical prerequisite for successful scaling.
Traditional functional silos do not scale and create flow-impeding dependencies between teams. A value stream mapping exercise can help ensure teams are focused on customer value delivery, have clear missions, and can operate with minimum dependencies. The best delivery performance in terms of throughput and delivery cycle time is achieved with small, autonomous, cross-functional teams that can independently deliver deployable product features and capabilities.
Teams are the fundamental units of delivery within an agile organization. In Scrum, teams exist to produce working increments of a product as the output of every sprint. Each increment represents a step towards achieving the Product Goal.
To participate effectively in PI Planning, teams must be able forecast the rate at which they can translate their backlogs into working software.
Agile delivery teams must:
- Be cross-functional: Have all the skills needed to produce value as the output of every sprint.
- Be able to define, refine, and estimate product backlogs.
- Operate with a stable velocity or throughput.
- Reliably produce working increments of the Product to a Definition of Done.
If individual delivery teams in an organization are unable to perform these basics, then the enterprise will be incapable of anything that resembles agile delivery. If an organization is not agile at a basic team level, it’s going to be difficult to be agile at scale.
Teams can be impeded by legacy organization structures designed around functional silos that cause dependencies, hand-offs, and resulting delays. The ideal agile team is small: a maximum of around 10 people. Small teams will have less planning overhead, operate with less WIP, and can make decisions faster. It is easier to build high levels of trust within a smaller team, which can lead to more risk-taking and innovation.
| Patrick Lencioni in, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, describes how lack of trust leads to a cascade of problems within teams that severely impact cohesion and performance. It all starts with trust:Because they trust one another:
· They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas. · They commit to decisions and plans of action. · They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans. · They focus on the achievement of collective results. |
ART Design – Organizing Around Value
One of the most consequential actions an organization can take is to re-align their work around business value streams. A value stream is the sequence of activities performed by a business unit to deliver a product or service to a customer. Even if they are not always aware of it, all software delivery organizations have a value stream associated with each product or service they provide.
A value stream is the collection of activities necessary to produce and deliver a product or service (SAFe uses the term solution to cover both) to a customer. Value stream analysis identifies those activities that directly contribute to customer value creation. Non-value adding activities, for example, those associated with the lean waste categories (overproduction, defects, moving goods around, inventory management), are excluded. Activities in the value creation workflow are supported by interconnected systems, subsystems, or individual applications. Each of these is in turn supported by one or more development teams. For example:
This example shows a value stream aligned team structure for a software development organization that supports a business value stream. Each team is aligned with a specific activity within the value stream – for example, the team focused on search in an eCommerce business can independently develop user-facing features related to that activity. Each team is focused on a specific aspect of the value stream but at the same time all teams are collectively aligned on a common product goal and vision. Large enterprises may operate a portfolio comprising multiple business units or product units, each with their own value stream.
Here’s a more detailed example for an organization that operates an eCommerce business:
Each individual step in the value stream, or each customer touchpoint, should add measurable value. When each part of the business value stream is complex it may be necessary for different teams to focus on different parts of the system. This allows teams to focus on a smaller subset of the problem domain and avoid cognitive overload. These teams are often referred to as feature teams. If we use an eCommerce system as an example, we might have one team focused on search, another on shipping and perhaps another on payments. In addition, there may be cases where deep specialist skills are required (e.g., data analytics, or complex search algorithms), and these skills may be organized into a subsystem team for that purpose. In either case both feature teams and subsystem teams will have their own backlogs and their own Product Owners. A SAFe Agile Release Train (ART) is based on this model.
| Value Stream Mapping: Is an exercise from Lean used to design an organization around value delivery. It involves identifying the sequence of activities needed to provide a product or service from order to delivery, and then identifying the systems and teams to support these activities. Aligning teams with the necessary activities and systems is a way to organize for value delivery. A value stream-based organization is one in which teams of people work together to maximize the results of the value stream and not the results of a single function. |
Value stream-based delivery differs from traditional project models in several ways:
- Based on dedicated teams, with longevity and stability, focused on a long-term product vision, instead of temporary groups organized around short-term projects.
- Long-lived teams develop deep domain knowledge and can deliver at much higher velocities.
- Velocity is maximized by minimizing dependencies and handoffs between teams.
- Long-lived teams are better positioned to develop greater improvements to their delivery effectiveness through the process of continuous improvement.
Organizing around value delivery is an effective way to dismantle functional silos and to remove dependencies within an organization.
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Value Stream Mapping in SAFe Each product or service (‘solution’) provided by an enterprise is delivered via a ‘value stream’.
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ART Roles
If the value stream is supported by more than just a few (2-3) teams, then we may need to scale both the Product Owner and Scrum Master Roles. In this case we will ideally have one PO and one SM per team but will also need additional support to manage the scaled product (ART) backlog, and to help orchestrate and synchronize the planning and delivery activities across multiple teams. (Note, these are roles, not job titles. Individual organizations will have organization-specific titles for these roles).
- Product Manager: Owns and prioritizes the ART Backlog. Responsible for ‘what gets built’. Works with customers and internal stakeholders to understand their needs and provide clarity and direction for the delivery teams.
- Release Train Engineer (RTE): Facilitates all value stream governance events (PI Planning, ART Syncs, System Demos), takes the lead on impediment removal, and is responsible for ensuring the organization is continuously improving its performance.
- System Architect: Defines the overall architecture of the system. Identifies architectural runway needs, non-functional requirements, and system interfaces.
The distribution of responsibilities between Product Manager and Product Owner breaks down as follows.
| Product Manager | Product Owner |
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Product Manager vs. Product Owner Responsibilities
The Release Train Engineer (RTE) role supports any additional orchestration needed to support PI Planning and execution beyond the team level, and responsibilities between RTE and Scrum Master break down as follows:
| Release Train Engineer | Scrum Master |
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Release Train Engineer vs. Scrum Master Responsibilities
Note: In SAFe 6.0 a Scrum Master can also be referred to as the Team Coach.
This organizational pattern is not intended to represent a hierarchy. Any Product Owner and Scrum Master from any of the teams could potentially play the role of Product Manager or RTE (and vice-versa).
ART Events and Cadences
- ART Cadence – ARTs operate on a recurring fixed cadence of 5-6 Iterations per PI. Within a PI, teams run on the same iteration cadence. and deliver potentially releasable solution increments as the output of every iteration.
- System Demos: Completed features are demonstrated at the end of each iteration.
- Innovation & Planning (IP) Iteration at the end of each PI provides a buffer to complete unfinished work, conduct the PI Inspect and Adapt event for the PI and time to plan the next PI.
- PI Planning for the next PI occurs within the IP iteration.
- Team Cadence – Within a PI, teams run on the same iteration cadence, that is, all iterations start and finish on the same schedule. Teams deliver potentially releasable solution increments as the output of every iteration.
ART Launch
Once an ART has been designed for a value stream the organization should finalize the steps needed for ART launch and mobilization. These are summarized below.
- Team Readiness. Team rosters should be reasonably complete, with the roles of Product Owner and Scrum Master identified for each team. Team size should be a maximum of around 10, including PO and SM. Teams need to be able to sprint. That is, be able to plan and deliver working, tested software, or product increments consistently. It is important that teams acquire a stable velocity as a priority. This is an important factor for successful PI Planning, and vital for the overall performance of the ART.
- ART Readiness. ART readiness will include having key ART roles in place (Product Manager and RTE) and defining ART events and cadences. When ready, the RTE should schedule the first PI Planning event and the Product Manager should create an ART Backlog.
- ART Kickoff Event. Hold a kickoff event to communicate the mobilization of the ART. This could be a town hall type of event (either live or virtual), with all the teams, ART leadership, business stakeholders and other partners. The event is led by the ART Product Manager or other senior leader and facilitated by the RTE. Topics covered should include the ART vision, strategy, success factors and any near-term business objectives. Present the team structure (list of teams and associated missions if any) and any newly appointed Product Owners or Scrum Masters, along with the names of the people in the key ART roles. Announce the first PI Planning event and the work needed to prepare for it, including any training that will be offered on the actual planning process.
For more, download the eBook: Agile Delivery at Scale with SAFe.
eBook Contents:
- Chapter 1. Introduction to the Scaled Agile Framework. This provides an overview of the SAFe framework.
- Chapter 2. Organizing for scaled delivery. Describes the organizational prerequisites for successful SAFe adoption.
- Chapter 3. Constructing an ART Backlog. The ART Backlog is the starting point for PI Planning. This chapter describes how to create a backlog that is aligned with product vision and strategy and has product features sufficiently well-refined to support PI Planning.
- Chapter 4. PI Planning Step-By-Step, takes you through each of the basic steps of planning a PI.
- Chapter 5. PI Execution Practices explains the essential roles, practices, and artifacts necessary for successful execution and delivery throughout a PI.
