Resources

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.

The way we develop software struggles to keep pace with changes in technology and business. Even with the rise of agile we still see people flip-flopping from one branded method (or to be more fashionable framework) to another throwing away the good with the bad, and behaving more like religious cultists than scientists. Dr. Ivar Jacobson delivered this presentation at a keynote address at SECR Russia in October 2017. He revisited the history of methods, explained why we need to break out of our repetitive dysfunctional behavior, and introduced Essence: a new way of thinking that promises to liberate the practices and enable true learning organizations.

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.

Software Engineering Conference in Russia (SECR) is one of the brightest annual IT events in the country. The 13th edition of the SECR will take place on October, 20-22 in Saint-Petersburg and the conference program will include a key-note address by IJI Chairman Dr. Ivar Jacobson.

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).

The Industrial Internet Consortium predicts the IoT (Internet of Things) will become the third technological revolution after the Industrial Revolution and the Internet Revolution. Its impact across all industries and businesses can hardly be imagined. Existing software (business, telecom, aerospace, defense, etc.) is expected to be modified or redesigned, and a huge amount of new software, solving new problems, will have to be developed. As a consequence, the software industry should welcome new and better methods. This article makes the case that to be a major player in this space you will need a multitude of methods, not just a single one. Existing popular approaches such as Scrum and SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) may be part of the future, but you will also need many new methods and practices—some of which aren’t even known today. Extending a single method to incorporate all that is needed would result in something that is way too big and unwieldy. Instead, the new OMG (Object Management Group) standard Essence can be used to describe modular practices that can be composed together to form a multitude of methods, not only to provide for all of today’s needs, but also to be prepared for whatever the future may bring.