Scaled Agile

Welcome to the amalgamation of a short series of articles on crafting effective, well-formed objectives as part of the SAFe® Program Increment (PI) / Big Room Planning activity. We have seen a lot of confusion surrounding the use of PI objectives; confusion that often results in: Resistance to their use and; The production of poorly formed team objectives that appear to be completely redundant as they just list the Features being addressed. The first step to creating well-formed, useful objectives is for everyone to understand why they are so important. Covered in this document: Why do we need PI Objectives when we have Features? Writing good PI Objectives PI Objectives and the PI Planning Process PI Objectives Beyond PI Planning: Reaffirming and Monitoring Your Commitments  

The Scaled Agile Framework's recommended approach for prioritisation within the Portfolio is to use Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF), but there are some challenges when trying to run WSJF at the Portfolio level. This series of posts explores those challenges, with this post focusing on what happens when the Investment Horizons are used to group the Epics to run the WSJF on a per-horizon basis.

In this series of posts we wil explore the Events that either perform, schedule or track the activities that affect the Lifecycle of an Epic. This second post looks at how the events that run the Portfolio could be structured.

In this series of posts we wil explore the Events that either perform, schedule or track the activities that affect the Lifecycle of an Epic. This first post looks at the activites that the Portfolio needs to perform in order for it to make progress.

Epics have a lifecycle, they don’t magically appear fully formed. There is work to be done to progressively elaborate a business case and if the Epic is approved then there is further work to progress the Epic through implementation. This post looks at some of the alternate scenarios that might be seen in the Epic lifecycle, covering Bad Ideas, Small Ideas, Lean-Startup and Exploring Options.

Epics have a lifecycle, they don’t magically appear fully formed. There is work to be done to progressively elaborate a business case and if the Epic is approved then there is further work to progress the Epic through implementation. In this post we’ll explore the Portfolio Kanban that visualises the lifecycle of an Epic and look at some of the decisions that influence the Epic’s progress through its lifecycle.  

Epics have a lifecycle, they don’t magically appear fully formed. There is work to be done to progressively elaborate a business case and if the Epic is approved then there is further work to progress the Epic through implementation. This post explores the Lifecycle of an Epic and the states it progresses through in that Lifecycle.

This post is an exploration of whether you should be estimating Expense or Effort. Both are required from different processes within the Scaled Agile Framework and there is a route to convert between the two, but which should be the principal estimate and which the derivation?

In a flow based environment where teams pull work towards them an Epic can't dictate to the teams, which makes Epic roadmapping a challenge. This post explores the challenges of Epic Roadmaps and process through which they can be generated.

Portfolios need to build roadmaps to facilitate forecasting activities and to assess time-criticality during prioritisation. This post covers some practical facilitation techniques for Roadmapping activities.