Jen's Agile Cliff Notes - Lean-Agile Practices

SAFe focuses heavily on Lean-Agile practices. Lean is all about reducing waste (improving efficiency and eliminating multi-tasking) and increasing value for the customers while Agile focuses on flexibility and collaboration. Another way to look at it, “Agile is focused on users, managing uncertainty, and delivering working software. Lean is focused on eliminating waste, managing processes, and delivering value.”

Where did both originate from and how does SAFe come into play? Not Vanilla Ice, though he said it perfectly: Stop, Collaborate and Listen. (You’re welcome for that earworm).

I actually own this shirt. 🙂

Lean originated from Toyota’s Product System (TPS) in the twentieth century (50’s and 60’s) , known as “Lean Manufacturing”. Agile started with the Agile Manifesto (best practices for software development). You can even take it down a step further and look at the differences between Scrum and Kanban, but that’s another article. :) Then you have Scaled Agile Framework®, created by Dean Leffingwell and released in 2011. SAFe incorporates both values and principles of Lean Thinking and Agile. In fact, both “form the DNA of everything contained within SAFe. All the roles, practices, events, and artifacts in SAFe are designed to provide practical guidance for adopting the combination of these two bodies of knowledge as the new way of working throughout the enterprise.”

In the next article, we’ll dive deeper into the Lean-Agile Principles that make up SAFe’s best practices.

Thank you for attending my TED Talk…and remember to tip your waitress, but don’t “tip” your waitress!