SAFe 4.5 Distilled: Applying the Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Enterprises

by Richard Knaster, Dean Leffingwell

SAFe(R) The World's Leading Framework for Enterprise Agility "Philips is continuously driving to develop high-quality software in a predictable, fast, and Agile way. SAFe addresses this primary goal, and offers these further benefits: reduced time-to-market, improved quality, stronger alignment across geographically distributed multi-disciplinary teams, and collaboration across teams to deliver meaningful value to customers with reduced cycle time." --Sundaresan Jagadeesan, SW CoE Program Director, Philips To succeed in today's adapt-or-die marketplace, businesses must be able to rapidly change the way they create and deliver value to their customers. Hundreds of the world's most successful companies-including Intel, Capital One, AstraZeneca, Cisco, and Philips-have turned to the Scaled Agile Framework(R) (SAFe(R)) to achieve agility at scale and maintain a competitive edge.

SAFe(R) 4.5 Distilled: Applying the Scaled Agile Framework(R) for Lean Enterprises explains how adopting SAFe can quickly improve time to market and increase productivity, quality, and employee engagement. In this book, you will

Understand the business case for SAFe: its benefits, the problems it solves, and how to apply it Get an overview of SAFe across all parts of the business: team, program, value stream, and portfolio Learn why SAFe works: the power of SAFe's Lean-Agile mindset, values, and principles Discover how systems thinking, Agile development, and Lean product development form the underlying basis for SAFe Learn how to become a Lean-Agile leader and effectively drive an enterprise-wide transformation Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

Genres: Business

423 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 20, 2018

Reviews

[John Cumming · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars, but not for SAFe... This book highlights the problem that SAFe intends to solve (the pace of change and uncertainty) well enough and describes SAFe as a bloated prescriptive solution if taken as a whole organisational architecture rather than a framework to pick and choose from. However, the power of ‘the framework’ essentially comes from the multitude of domains that SAFe is, allegedly, based on. This book does a great job of talking through the importance of these domains before becoming absorbed in the SAFe world - a highly commercial interpretation of all the domains that are independent of SAFe. That’s not to say SAFe isn’t a solution to all your organisational woes, but the real value of this book comes from the discussion of principles, domains and practices that SAFe draws in, rather than SAFe itself... now to buy a printed copy :)

[Mitchell Friedman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reached chapter 8 which is Iterating. And found real content and value. Its still a review of other practices and procedures, but it is detailed, interesting and actionable. Some of what I've been doing with scrum and agile, I've been doing long enough that I don't think about describing it. But the reminder that the standard standup (what you did yesterday, what you are doing today, blockers) is not covered by just walking the board. And the idea of a review action by walking the stories completed seems a good one. And a reminder that one you run into a wall in a sprint, to raise a red flag so outside the team knows where you are - would seem a good idea.

Well that could have been worse. But it sure wasn't a very good book. It really just claims to be a summary of a website. So I guess I shouldn't have expected much. Perhaps there is better content elsewhere - I definitely didn't find it here.

[Gary Watts · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're in an organisation that's using SAFe, looking at SAFe for the first time, or experienced in SAFe and just need an occasional reference book, then I think this is the one. Much more digestable than the huge body of knowledge on the Scaled Agile website and a lighter tome than the full reference book. This served my needs perfectly. As to SAFe itself, I'll leave that to raging debates, but when moving from adhoc agile and waterfall to a need to scale agile, and for organisations where compliance and control remain a pervading requirement, then this scaled framework can be a good stepping stone on the route to becoming a more agile large organisation. The number one rule when scaling agile though, don't, unless you have to.

[gbkMnkii · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have used this book to pass my certification exam, I must say the content is very good but the usability is quite a horror. Multiple embedded links and pictures in it and I've found hard to follow certain concepts with this type of reading.

[EN-Kindle]

[Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels like SAFe is the natural progression of the career path I'm taking, and this book reinforced that feeling. If you're into agile coaching, this is a great read.

[Wilhelm van der Merwe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good resource, quite technical, but explained clearly.

[Mario Kossmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good summary of the Scaled Agile Framework and the underlying principles and ideas. Very useful to get up to speed if you are new to the approach.

[Vijayekkumaran M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though most of the content is from the site, it provides a logical sequence to go through the framework.

[Laura]

Passed my exam!