Resources

A short series of articles on crafting effective, well-formed objectives as part of the SAFe® Program Increment (PI) / Big Room Planning activity. A series of four related articles: 1. Why do we need PI Objectives when we have Features? 2. Writing good PI Objectives 3. PI Objectives and the PI Planning Process 4. PI Objectives Beyond PI Planning: Reaffirming and Monitoring Your Commitments

So what does it mean for a Feature to be “Ready”? And just as importantly when do they need to be “Ready”?** Definition of Ready can be a dangerous thing leading to waterfall behavior and strict hand-overs between Product Owners and their teams. To help resolve these issues, IJI has developed a set of 6 mini-checklist cards that together define the lifecycle of a Feature to use when preparing features for PI Planning.

In EM360's Podcast interview, Ian speaks about his experiences of specialising in large-scale agile adoptions. Drawing on his expert knowledge, Ian has worked with hundreds of projects to introduce iterative and agile practices in sectors as diverse as government, telecommunications, finance, and internet start-ups.

Scaled Agile, Inc. today announced the induction of Ian Spence as a new Fellow into the SAFe Fellow program. The SAFe Fellow achievement is Scaled Agile’s most prestigious distinction, recognizing individuals who have exhibited the highest levels of thought leadership and transformational expertise for implementing the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe). Ian met the SAFe Fellow requirements based on his ongoing contribution to the evolution of the Framework, his demonstrated success in implementing SAFe implementations in a broad range of industries and disciplines, and his willingness to share his expertise publicly through writing and speaking.

Many teams struggle to let go of their waterfall, silo mentality when they first transition to agile ways-of-working. In particular they shy away from collaboratively working on the definition, evolution and implementation of their backlog items insisting on up-front definition of Features and Stories, and clean handovers between the Product Owners and the Development Teams. This is an issue that we see with all the various agile methods but which always seems to get compounded whenever teams try to scale. So what are the worst things you can do to compromise the agility of your program when using Features? In Part 4 of this series, Ian Spence provides some practical tips to avoid waterfalling your features.

A set of nine double-sided SAFe Principle Cards. Handy cards for SAFe Product Owners and Managers to use to assess how well the SAFe Principles are understood and applied.

Many teams struggle to let go of their waterfall, silo mentality when they first transition to agile ways-of-working. In particular they shy away from collaboratively working on the definition, evolution and implementation of their backlog items insisting on up-front definition of Features and Stories, and clean handovers between the Product Owners and the Development Teams. This is an issue that we see with all the various agile methods but which always seems to get compounded whenever teams try to scale. So what are the worst things you can do to compromise the agility of your program when using Features? In Part 3 of this series, Ian Spence provides guidance on what it means for a Feature to be Ready.

The SAFe® principles are very powerful but our coaching and consulting experiences have shown that, as currently presented, they are far less accessible and intuitive than the Agile Manifesto and its supporting 12 Agile Principles. In line with the release of 5.0 of SAFe®, which simplifies and enhances the SAFe® big picture, we have produced a set of cards that we believe do the same for the underlying SAFe® Principles. The cards present the ten principles in a self-contained, readily accessible fashion — allowing executives, leaders, and team members to readily understand the principles and quickly assess their relevance. Download the cards today to help your teams be SAFe®. This blog post introduces the SAFe Principle Cards produced by Ian Spence (SAFe Fellow, SPCT) with help from Brian Kerr (SPC) and Brian Tucker (SAFe Fellow, SPCT).

Many teams struggle to let go of their waterfall, silo mentality when they first transition to agile ways-of-working. In particular they shy away from collaboratively working on the definition, evolution and implementation of their backlog items insisting on up-front definition of Features and Stories, and clean handovers between the Product Owners and the Development Teams. This is an issue that we see with all the various agile methods but which always seems to get compounded whenever teams try to scale. In this short blog series we will look at how this tendency towards waterfall thinking can seriously hinder team’s adopting SAFe® and working with a Program Backlog full of Features. We will also provide some advice on how to get your Features Ready without succumbing to premature Story writing.

Many teams struggle to let go of their waterfall, silo mentality when they first transition to agile ways-of-working. In particular they shy away from collaboratively working on the definition, evolution and implementation of their backlog items insisting on up-front definition of Features and Stories, and clean handovers between the Product Owners and the Development Teams. This is an issue that we see with all the various agile methods but which always seems to get compounded whenever teams try to scale. So what are the worst things you can do to compromise the agility of your program when using Features? In Part 4 of this series, Ian Spence provides some practical tips to avoid waterfalling your features.