None with LeSS. SAFe in a few organizations but not pervasive. I hear about SAFe most places I go, but not LeSS.
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1 reply by Lenka Pincot
Sep 24, 2018 10:14 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Thank you Sante.
I’m looking at both of them and I also tend to SAFe but at the same time I’m a bit worried about so much structure and vocabulary it contains. I have experience with DaD and agile transformation of large organization, lots of Lean practices, Kanban... The whole transformation took time but it felt also quite natural, people had enough time to get used to the new way of working, new culture, and at the end the transformation was impacting the whole organization and functions. That’s why I’m looking to learn practical feedback on having SAFe or LeSS and if that’s applied also in non IT environment.
I agree with Sante. I haven't heard any organisation using LeSS, so far. Many large organisations have started adopting SAFe and have successfully implemented. You may check the case studies https://www.scaledagileframework.com/case-studies/
If organisational change is required at the larger-level, starting from Portfolio strategy and then into Large Solutions, Programs and finally the Scrum teams then SAFe will be a best choice.
But if products are to be delivered by only a few Scrum teams and if Agile culture has to be adopted quickly then LeSS will be a good choice.
There will be many other differences between SAFe & LeSS. More analysis has to be done to make a decision.
It all depends on what is the vision and need of the organisation, expectations of its customers and market foresight.
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2 replies by Girija Ramakrishnan and Lenka Pincot
Sep 24, 2018 10:20 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Thank you Girija, I’m just going through the case studies. That’s very relevant source of information. Thank you!
Sep 24, 2018 11:26 PM
Girija Ramakrishnan
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You are welcome, Lenka :)
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Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
I have used both and today I am in charge to implement SAFe in my actual work place. The initiative is to use SAFe to create software and non-software products. Before this we work with DaD. If you ask me (and it is what I sustained in my actual work place) it has no sense to use something like that if you implements Agile in the right way: enteprise wide. But here I am. Take into account that both are based on Scrum. Before decided to use something like that we performed an enterprise analysis no matter we used Scrum into some intiatives to create software and non-software products. The enterprise analysis was intended to understand our current situation and to evaluate the impacts the implementation of SAFe or LeSS will have at enterprise level. Key difference is that LeSS (as it name implies) has less process and roles than SAFe. SAFe keep the role of program manager and project manager. LeSS is based on pure Scrum to scale it. Just in case you used Lean into your organization SAFe incorporates Lean principles.
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3 replies by Drew Craig, Kiron Bondale, and Lenka Pincot
Sep 24, 2018 6:33 AM
Drew Craig
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Sergio, I remember your posts often referring to your work with DaD. What happened? Why the switch over to SAFe?
Sep 24, 2018 9:07 AM
Kiron Bondale
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Sergio -
Forgive the small correction - DAD is not based on Scrum and in fact it eschews Scrum nomenclature. Unlike most other scaling framework, DAD draws from a large number of sources - RUP has heavily influenced its DNA which makes sense since Scott Ambler is an ex-IBM'er...
Kiron
Sep 24, 2018 10:28 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Thank you Sergio. Is there any reason why to switch form DaD to SAFe, e.g. to more structure the portfolio / program alignment? Or is there a relation to number of scrum teams that need to be managed?
I like DaD because it is enterprise wide and sounds natural to me how to transform in a large organization that is not just software house but has many many other different products and IT is just a tool but not the purpose. But if the main value added chain of the company is software development, SAFe may be a better option? If you don’t mind to reveal that, what was evaluated in the enterprise analyses that was supposed to say which framework to follow? Thank you!
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Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
In SAFe you will find a similar paradigm to what you may already be used to, e.g., tiered responsibility - Team, Program, Portfolio. At its core, it's Scrum, with the regular ceremonies, divided into 10-week buckets (Program Increment) of five 2-week iterations (sprints), each starting with a 2-day all hands on deck planning session to decompose the selected features. SAFe does have a level of overhead not seen in a traditional Scrum environment. No specific experience with LeSS for comparison.
Have seen the journey offer up its own challenges, but mainly challenges from a maturity and mindset perspective. Seemingly, the Program level is acclimating [perceptively] better than the scrum teams as they look to find their footing.
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1 reply by Lenka Pincot
Sep 24, 2018 10:31 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Thank you Andrew, that is a very good point about the overhead. Is the overhead paying off? How is that impacted by the size of the overall organization? I mean is there a treshold where LeSS is not enough and you must go with SAFe because it would not be possible to align the initiatives?
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Drew CraigSr. Agile & Product Coach| VanguardPhiladelphia, Pa, United States
Sep 24, 2018 5:10 AM
Replying to Sergio Luis Conte
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I have used both and today I am in charge to implement SAFe in my actual work place. The initiative is to use SAFe to create software and non-software products. Before this we work with DaD. If you ask me (and it is what I sustained in my actual work place) it has no sense to use something like that if you implements Agile in the right way: enteprise wide. But here I am. Take into account that both are based on Scrum. Before decided to use something like that we performed an enterprise analysis no matter we used Scrum into some intiatives to create software and non-software products. The enterprise analysis was intended to understand our current situation and to evaluate the impacts the implementation of SAFe or LeSS will have at enterprise level. Key difference is that LeSS (as it name implies) has less process and roles than SAFe. SAFe keep the role of program manager and project manager. LeSS is based on pure Scrum to scale it. Just in case you used Lean into your organization SAFe incorporates Lean principles.
Sergio, I remember your posts often referring to your work with DaD. What happened? Why the switch over to SAFe?
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Sep 24, 2018 10:44 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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Yes, I personally worked a lot with DaD and his creator and we work a lot with DaD in my actual work place. Including we are in the process to implement DevOps too. If you ask me, I go with DaD indeed for lot of reasons that I can justify. My actual work place switch to SAFe because top management considered the inherent orientation to prescription could be useful to implement Agile environments in our actual reality. To be honest, I was totally in the opposite but I do not have the final decision. So, here I am, in charge to make SAFe implementation happend.
Both frameworks have pros and cons so as usual, it's context driven.
SAFe is the "300 pound gorilla" of scaled agile frameworks so it might be slightly easier to get competent assistance from the outside in introducing it, but it also is not an incremental framework - you kind of have to adopt all of one of its four patterns.
LeSS does support more an evolutationary approach but it is the least prescriptive framework (even less than DAD!) and might not scale well to very large companies or products. They also have a very small partner program compared with SAFe.
Kiron
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1 reply by Lenka Pincot
Sep 24, 2018 10:34 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Thank you Kiron, could you please elaborate a bit more on the “it is not incremental”? What does that mean practically? E.g. when it comes to changes in the organization structure? Does it still make sense to do a pilot when implementing it?
What size of organization would you say can go with LeSS and when it’s too big for that?
I have used both and today I am in charge to implement SAFe in my actual work place. The initiative is to use SAFe to create software and non-software products. Before this we work with DaD. If you ask me (and it is what I sustained in my actual work place) it has no sense to use something like that if you implements Agile in the right way: enteprise wide. But here I am. Take into account that both are based on Scrum. Before decided to use something like that we performed an enterprise analysis no matter we used Scrum into some intiatives to create software and non-software products. The enterprise analysis was intended to understand our current situation and to evaluate the impacts the implementation of SAFe or LeSS will have at enterprise level. Key difference is that LeSS (as it name implies) has less process and roles than SAFe. SAFe keep the role of program manager and project manager. LeSS is based on pure Scrum to scale it. Just in case you used Lean into your organization SAFe incorporates Lean principles.
Sergio -
Forgive the small correction - DAD is not based on Scrum and in fact it eschews Scrum nomenclature. Unlike most other scaling framework, DAD draws from a large number of sources - RUP has heavily influenced its DNA which makes sense since Scott Ambler is an ex-IBM'er...
Kiron
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Sep 24, 2018 11:05 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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You are welcome Kiron. You are right. My mistake.
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Wade HarshmanScrum Master| GDITIndianapolis, In, United States
Oversimplified version:
SAFe is an enterprise framework that starts at the top and works it's way down to the scrum team. There are actually multiple versions of SAFe; being certified in one doesn't necessarily make you qualified in a newer version. It is relatively popular as far as Agile frameworks go, but it has a lot of critics. The largest group of criticisms claim that SAFe is not transformative; it let's an organization adopt some Scrum practices without becoming Agile. Proponents argue that being a little bit Agile is better than not being Agile at all. The Scrum Alliance has divorced themselves from SAFe.
By contrast, LeSS is a framework to scale Scrum from the team level up. It's not as well-known as SAFe and there are relatively few people qualified to teach it. I have heard LeSS practitioners claim that your organization must have a solid Scrum foundation before attempting LeSS, which may be a reason it's not as readily adopted. The Scrum Alliance has embraced LeSS. Scrum.org endorses Nexus, which is very similar.
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1 reply by Lenka Pincot
Sep 24, 2018 10:37 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Thank you Wade, so you see SAFe as top down and LeSS as bottom up? And the relation to the Scrum Alliance is also very interesting. Do you have practical experience with them? What are they biggest benefits in real life?
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
I pretty much agree with Sante and Kiron. If I was to chose between the two, I would go with SAFe.
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1 reply by Lenka Pincot
Sep 24, 2018 10:40 AM
Lenka Pincot
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Thanks Rami, I would love to understand what are the best decision criteria when it comes to particular organizations. E.g. total size? Number of development teams? Agility at the current time? Industry and variety of processes that are performed in the organization? Solid scrum in place?
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Pench BattaEnterprise Lean Agile DevOps Coach /SAFe Program Consultant (SPC6)| Capgemini, Inc.Bentonville, Ar, United States
As per the 12th state of annual agile report (2018), SAFe is on top with 29% and LeSS is at 5% which is sharing 4th rank. Surprisingly Scrum of Scrums is in 2nd place with 19% response. This report has very good information. You can find complete details at https://explore.versionone.com/state-of-ag...of-agile-report
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