Have you ever wondered and thought, ‘hmm… this story…we Design/Define, Build, Test, Deploy within the iteration…looks like waterfall… in a micro scale!’
In that context, yes indeed! You are driving and delivering the value that is encapsulated in a Story using the classic waterfall steps: Design/Define, Build, Test, and potentially Deploy.
The grand scheme of SAFe is similar… waterfall… albeit in macro scale.
SAFe drives the Epic (the big idea of value)… into smaller chunks of value (features ; or collections of features called capabilities) to ‘Continuous Exploration’ (CE), the ‘Design/Define’ … to ‘Continuous Integration’ (CI), the ‘Build’ and ‘Test’… to ‘Continuous Deployment’ (CD), the ‘Deploy’.
SAFe advocates ‘Release on Demand’ … release the value to the marketplace upon demand. This means decoupling the ‘Deploy’ from the ‘Release’.
There you have it… you are warerfalling in an Agile world… but, with constant fast feedback along the way, on a daily, weekly, bi-weekly, quarterly, bi-yearly, yearly, multi year basis… it is like nigh and day contrast to the classic waterfall project management wherein you get feedback far in between each other.
With fast feedback, innovation is fostered as well.
A bat — flying accurately towards its goal / destination in a dark cave — uses continuous fast feedback — echolocation… imagine what the outcome is for a bat in same scenario but without using echolocation.
Below are some images/posters worth sharing– from my class (super awesome students! I’m dedicating this blog item to them) this past weekend — big idea broken down into small chunks of value… going through design/define, build, test and potentially deploy then release on demand.
