Your LACE sets the tone for your transformation. Therefore, selecting members of the LACE can be a daunting task. Hear from our experts with unique perspectives on what they have seen work best in various contexts. Our panelists will deliver thoughtful answers about how to staff your LACE.
Speakers
Eduardo Alvim
SPCT, Head of Product Strategy and Development (Gladwell Academy)
Prior to becoming SPCT, I’ve gained extensive working experience in the areas of software development, IT and team management. Also, implemented Agile ways of working in industries as diverse as aviation, healthcare, pharmaceutical, banking & insurance, media and IT. This has led me to an extended practical knowledge of the need for agile ways of working and firsthand examples of the benefits of implementing SAFe.
Christine Babowicz
SPCT Candidate, Assistant Vice President, Global Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (Metlife)
Agility evangelist, industry speaker and founding member of the MetLife Global Lean-Agile Center of Excellence; proving that a small yet determined group of change agents can seed and influence a pull-based global agile transformation. Skilled in product portfolio mapping, facilitation, implementing the lean-agile toolbox and developing an in-house coaching capability to sustain enterprise agility. Experience applying agility to Portfolios, Solutions, Programs and Teams across MetLife. Execution expertise also extends to organizational change management and leadership coaching. SPCT Candidate
Deema Dajani
SAFe Fellow, Product Manager (Scaled Agile, Inc.)
Deema draws on a Startup background and an MBA from Kellogg. Deema helps established enterprises create the environment to shape disruption with business agility and Lean Portfolio Management (LPM). Started her Agile journey in the early 2000โs as a Product Manager, Director of Strategy, and pre-IPO turn around specialist. Deema transitioned to advisory where she led some of the largest transformations to Lean-Agile with SAFe in Financial Services and Insurance. Deema currently serves as a Scaled Agile Product Manager focused on LPM and Leadership. Co-founder of the Women in Agile, a non-profit organization focused on breaking barriers and inclusivity in the agile community.
Mike Foster
iSPCT Candidate, Agile Coach (Zurich Insurance Company Ltd.)
I help technical people be happy at work by delivering amazing results while having fun.
Why SAFe ยฎ and SAPยฎ? Getting better results with experience from the field
In this panel dialogue, we will share our experience at SBB (Swiss Federal Railways) and other SAP S/4 business transformations leveraging SAFe principles and practices to deliver better results.
When:
March 8, 2023, 4:00 pm – March 8, 2023, 5:00 pm ECT
Where:
Zoom
Who:
Agile Coach, Consultant, Director, SAFe Program Consultant
Event Overview: In this panel dialogue, we will share our experience at Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) and other SAP S/4 business transformations leveraging SAFe principles and practices to deliver better results. Showcase: SBB is harmonizing business processes across seven Portfolios with multiple value streams impacting 20.000 employees, building an Enterprise-wide state-of-the-art SAP S/4HANA. You will discover how to combine the SAFe Framework with an SAP delivery model to realize cross-portfolio initiatives.
We discuss the following topics:
โข How do you manage SAP Cross-Portfolio Initiatives with SAFe – Organize around value and optimize for Flow for better results โข How SAFe helps in achieving harmonization and standardization program objectives? โข What is a State-of-the-Art SAP Delivery Model that accelerates Value Delivery and Organizational Agility? โข What role do SAP Activate and Focused Build play in the State-of-the-Art SAP Delivery Model to realize program ambitions? โข How do you ensure the integration of business concepts, processes, data, and systems, and how does SAFe help to achieve this? โข How do you ensure simplicity, efficiency, and steering ability from a business/expert leadership/governance/program perspective – knowing that trade-offs will be necessary? โข What patterns are helpful in the transition to a portfolio of portfolio SAFe Lean (Enterprise) Portfolio Management (tactical planning events and organizing around value with Value Nodes or Solution Areas)
In our interactive session, we highly welcome your participation in our discussion!
Speakers
Malte Kumlehn
Director and SAFeยฎ Fellow – SAP Delivery Excellence (Project and Team Inc.)
Malte guides complex Ecosystems, People, Cloud, AI and Data powered digital transformations toward Business Agility. He pioneers Intelligent Operating Models for accelerated strategy execution with large solutions as globally the first of 30+ SAFeยฎ Fellows, Executive Advisor & Advisory Board Members in this field. The SAFeยฎ Fellow Program represents an elite class of experts who can help the worldโs largest organizations accelerate digital transformation & achieve business agility. The SAFeยฎ Fellow achievement is Scaled Agileโs most prestigious distinction, recognizing individuals who have exhibited the highest level of mastery and thought leadership in the practice and principles of SAFe. His track record includes founding, leading and growing Accenture’s first SAP Agile Delivery Excellence business. In his Business Owner role, he cared for people, revenue, cost, business development & delivery excellence while living Business Agility, applying Lean-Agile at Scale & SAFe daily.
Oliver Lauffer
Project and Program Manager (SAP)
Oliver Lauffer has been working for more than 20 Years at SAP. He has a long history of leading extensive international Programs and Projects with international Teams. Next to the standard project topics, his focus is on combining agile Methods and Frameworks like SAFe with implementing Standard Software like SAP and connected methodologies like SAP Activate. In addition to his project and program manager role, he has been a highly appreciated, trusted advisor and coach for large, global customer programs. In this role, his extensive experience in Organizational Change Management has been crucial for the success of these programs. Due to his result-oriented, structured working style, good communication skills and high capacity for teamwork, he managed various complex programs and rollouts on time, on budget and with high quality. In Parallel, he is responsible for the Swiss Project Manager Community from an SAP perspective.
Kaya Yumusaklar
Program Manager S/4 and Managing Director (Swiss Federal Railways)
Kaya Yumusaklar (47) has been leading SBB’s SAP S/4 Program since the beginning of 2022 and the overall SBB IT “Asset & Enterprise” practice since the beginning of 2023. In this role, he is the responsible IT Executive for delivering the ongoing SAP transition to S/4 and for developing and operating the overall application portfolio for rail infrastructure and rolling stock maintenance, real estate facility management, logistics, procurement and finance. Before that, he worked as a Finance Director at SBB and was responsible for strategic, companywide programs for cost management, transformation and carve-out initiatives. Kaya grew up in Konstanz in south of Germany. He later moved to Berlin and graduated from the TU Berlin in engineering and management. Later, before he joined SBB in 2015, he gained a broad experience in various industries as a Management Consultant based in Zรผrich and Berlin in strategy and organizational development projects and large transformations.
Events > Webinars > Business Agility in Banking: How Easy Can It Be?
Business Agility in Banking: How Easy Can It Be?
Banking is a highly regulated business, and most of the large banks have traditions that can easily become a major impediment to new ways of working and thinking.
When:
December 7, 2022, 1:00 pm – December 7, 2022, 2:00 pm ECT
Companies in the financial sector are also extremely aware of risk and financial risk management is one of the very regulated areas one has to take into account when changing the way of working.
In this webinar, Audrey Boydston and Mats will share some experiences in a dialog and discussion, as well as answer your questions.
Speakers
Audrey Boydston
SAFeยฎ Fellow and SPCT (Scaled Agile Inc.)
As an executive management professional, I spent almost 20 years leading and managing projects and process improvement initiatives. After experiencing an agile transformation, I have discovered that it is more than just a methodology for managing product development, and am passionate about helping organizations on their Agile journeys. As an Agile trainer and coach, I have gained a unique perspective that allows me to take my hands on experiences and learnings and weave them into each training session I facilitate. I consider myself a visionary with the ability to establish rapport and facilitate highly collaborative sessions with diverse groups ranging from developers to senior leadership. I hold an array of certifications: SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT), Training from the BACK of the Room! (TBR-Certified Trainer), Project Management Professional (PMP), Org Mindset Enterprise Coach (OMEC), Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-SM and CSP-PO), SAFe RTE (RTE), ICAgile Certified
Mats Jegebo
Co-Founder and Strategic Advisor (WoW! Agile)
Currently Head Coach and co-founder of WoW! Agile, with 29 years of experience from being a consultant. Real life experience from large projects and organizations is what has given Mats his knowledge and understanding of how you create real business value and benefit. Since 2004 Mats has worked solely with large agile implementations, in leading roles as Project manager, Change control manager, Head coach, strategic advisor, etc. Mats has spent a great deal of his career in regulated businesses and the last 6 in banking.
How the world’s largest low-cost carrier leverages SAFe as a business operating model to live up to its mantra of โBetter, Faster, More Efficient”
Southwest Airlines is famous for its employee-first culture and “Fun-LUVing” Attitude. And when it comes to meeting the urgent demands of technology development in a highly-complex logistical environment, a thriving culture is just the start to meeting the challenge.
To live up to Southwestโs purpose of connecting People to whatโs important in their lives through friendly, reliable, low-cost air travel, Southwest began its Agile transformation in 2018 in Operations. The fantastic results led to SAFe adoption throughout Southwest.
Now four years (and counting) into their Agile transformation, more than 2,000 Southwest Employees collaborate cross-functionally across the organization. View this rare keynote interview to learn how the worldโs largest low-cost air carrier is breaking ground in the airline industry by leveraging SAFe to deliver business value to its customers.
Presented at the 2022 SAFe Summit by:
Katie Morris, Director IT Transformation, Southwest Airlines
Marty Garza, Vice President, Air Operations Technology, Southwest Airlines
Moderator: Michael Clarkin, Chief Marketing Officer, Scaled Agile, Inc.
Learn how the separate worlds of vehicle engineering and IT came together at Porsche to reimagine the sports car of the future
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Revolutionary things can happen when pizza is being served. Youโll find out why when you join Porsche visionaries Mattias Ulbrich and Dr. Oliver Seifert for a candid discussion about transforming one of the worldโs most iconic motoring brands into a digital-first pacesetter.
As huge technological advances usher in an automotive renaissance, Porsche is moving at top speed to meet the evolving needs of its customers. They are fully focused on making their cars a central element of their buyersโ lifestyles through digitalization, connectivity, and electromobility. This requires total business agility throughout the enterprise, a new mindset, and a new way of working together closely. It also requires vehicle engineering and software teams to collaborate closely and harmonize the differing speeds at which they traditionally work. This might have been daunting for any company that is as storied and successful as Porsche.
โThe most important thing is that you shouldnโt underestimate that the digital world is totally different from the physical world,โ says Ulbrich.
But Porsche didnโt let this slow them down. To build bridges between the groups, the company created new opportunities for people to talk, learn, and understand each other with the help of SAFe. They created the Porsche โTakt,โ the heartbeat that synchronizes the teams. They focus on results and communicate the vision in a way that motivates people to visualize opportunities for change.
Says Ulbrich, โIf you look right now in a team, you couldnโt distinguish whether a person is from R&D, IT, sales, or marketing. They work together.โ
Presented at the 2021 Global SAFe Summit, October 2021 by:
Mattias Ulbrich, Chief Information Officer of Porsche AG and CEO of Porsche Digital
Dr. Oliver Seifert, Vice President R&D Electric/Electronics /Porsche AG
Interviewer: Michael Clarkin, Chief Marketing Officer, Scaled Agile, Inc.SHOW LESS
How the legendary automotive brand approached Lean-Agile Transformation by building the Digital Product Organization
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Porsche leverages the power of using one language for roles, routines, and artefacts as they bring Porsche’s experience into the digital age.Porsche experience into the digital age.
In this presentation by Porsche transformation leaders, you will:
Get insights about the transformation approach and setup
Learn about the critical success factors at the beginning of the transformation
Find out more about over one year of a fully remote transformation experience and remote ART Launches
Get to know how the LACE Team handles different transformation velocities within the organization
Experience โPorsche Taktโ as the Heartbeat of the transformation
Presented at the 2021 Global SAFe Summit, October 2021 by:
Alena Keck, Senior Manager / MHP – A Porsche Company
Jan Burchhardt, Director Digital Transformation /Porsche AG
How SAFe and Business Agility helped FedEx respond to the impacts and opportunities of COVID-19
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In this interview with Dean Leffingwell, FedEx CIO Rob Carter shares a rare look inside the worldโs largest express transportation company. Rob describes their seven-year journey with SAFe and Agile, their approach to business agility and Lean Portfolio Management, and why alignment between the business and IT is so critical. Turning to the business impacts of the pandemic, Rob described how the company quickly responded to a dramatic increase in package volumes and application demand with a workforce working largely from home with the help of SAFe and Business Agility.
โOne of the things that the pandemic has really presented to us is a set of rapid changes in marketplaces and needs, and frankly, you canโt fake it in the face of something like what weโve all been through in this crazy world.โ โRob Carter.
Presented at the Global SAFe Summit, October, 2020.
โWe collaborate more than ever with our customers by involving them in planning as much as we can. And we deliver frequent demosโeven beyond customersโ expectations. Our customers have found communication to be more effective since the SAFe implementation.โ
โSam Wu, Agile Head Coach and Training Director, Cerno
Challenge:
Deliver custom solutions faster and with higher quality for clients.
Industry:
Information Technology, Software
Results:
Delivery cycle time dropped by 58%
The rate of release failure went down from 0.6 times on average per release to 0
The interface automation level increased from zero to 70 percent
Reported defects decreased from 13 times per release to five
Best Practices:
Power through setbacks โ Find solutions and donโt let them stop your momentum.
Assess regularly โ Inspect & Adapt and DevOps health checks keep teams aware of progress and on track toward goals.
Choose a compatible partner โ A partner with a business view, not just R&D, moved Cerno ahead with training and coaching.
Introduction
As a custom software factory, Cerno is poised for rapid growth as part of Chinaโs expansive technology market. The company delivers technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, open source software, and IoT solutions for a diverse range of clients, from logistics to government.
To compete effectively, Cerno set out to elevate the speed of delivery, reduce defects, and improve the quality of its solutions in the long term, with the ultimate objective of being more client-focused.
โWe needed a next-generation software development method to meet customer needs and reach our goals,โ explained Sam Wu, Agile Head Coach and Training Director, Cerno.
Cernoโs founders brought experience in developing software for the financial industry. They found the โweak matrixโ structure worked in HR outsourcing, but not so well in product delivery. (A weak matrix is an organizational structure in which the balance of power tilts decisively in the direction of line or functional management.)
And while the traditionally waterfall company had experimented with Lean-Agile development in the past, they lacked the training or business support to build momentum.
SAFeยฎ: The Path from Strategy to Delivery
While attending Leading SAFeยฎ training, a Cerno executive saw a promising path to Agile, leading Cerno to adopt the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFe). โIt was clear that we needed SAFe to make Cerno a total Agile enterprise, to expand Agile not only to product lines but also to the business and functional departments such as HR and finance,โ explained Liu Yilei, VP, Cerno. โWe saw SAFe as the model that would take us from strategy to delivery.โ
โSAFe provided a comprehensive toolkit and an easy way to move forward,โ added Wu, who was hired at that time to lead the effort as the internal change agent. At the same time, the company brought in SAFe Gold partner Aura International for coaching and training.
Per the SAFe Implementation Roadmap, James Li, Principal Consultant from Aura, led the SAFe Executive Workshop. Jack Xu, Senior Consultant from Aura, delivered SAFeยฎ for Teams training and helped prepare for the first Program Increment (PI) planning event. They organized teams, reconfigured the office to better support those teams, and reorganized the product plan with user-story mapping.
For the first Agile Release Train launch, they began with four Agile teamsโthe entire R&D team plus Infrastructure and Operationsโon an existing initiative to digitalize a logistics solution for a client.
From that first PI, team leaders embraced the Lean-Agile mindset. They identified priorities based on business value and began allowing people to self-organize. Instead of waiting to be assigned work, developers identified the work based on business objectives, committed to the work in PI Planning, and moved forward with it.
More Stories in Less TimeโDespite Setbacks
Though Cerno set out to follow SAFe by the book, they ran into roadblocks that forced mid-course adjustments. In middle of the first PI, the Systems Architect left, leading Cerno to assemble a team to assume his responsibilities.
Additionally, the customer cut some funding because of market forces. And when managers wanted to move some teams to another client project, it nearly stopped the train. Given technical and capacity challenges, Cerno chose to postpone 15 percent of the high-risk PI objectives and scale back the size of the train.
Developers also found it challenging to transition from private to public code, a decision made to reduce bottlenecks in bug fixes and hidden technical debt. As the project team transitioned away from three-week waterfall development, the coaching team helped set code standards. In time, they found that developers took more pride in their code because of its public nature.
Even with the early challenges, the Inspect and Adapt session after the first PI showed the teams had met PI objectives and reduced defects. The ART could produce 45 stories per two-week iteration, on average, by the end of the first PI, compared to 30 stories per three-week iteration in waterfall.
Routine DevOps Health Checks
When Cerno first introduced DevOps practices, the company lacked a SAFe DevOps Practitioner. Still, they made progress on a delivery pipeline and staging environment, supported a grayscale release of a product, and shortened the time to release future versions.
Additionally, they formed a new system integration testing (SIT) plan that shrunk testing time by 25 percent initially, and then by half, freeing the development team to put more effort into new features.
To expedite progress, they began conducting DevOps health checks. Early on, those checks uncovered opportunities to improve delivery. To stay on track, they now perform this exercise every PI. With the habit of regular checks, Cerno has made strides with automated testing and continuous integration/continuous deployment.
To support their efforts, they also established Communities of Practice and hold monthly technical workshops for developers.
Delivery Cycle Time Down 58 Percent
Today, Cerno runs two ARTs with 80 people. These high-confidence teams agree on, and begin working on, requirements faster. They communicate and collaborate more tightly than before they introduced SAFe and are continuously improving.
When the ART completed work with one client, they simply switched the train to support another logistics client with a similar solutionโeffectively a plug-and-play release train. The company then added a second ART to deliver value to another client. Each train continues to serve a single client.
To date, Cerno has made remarkable progress:
Delivery cycle time dropped from 3ยฝ weeks to two weeks, or 58 percent
The average offline time for a new production environment release decreased from 3ยฝ hours to half an hour
The rate of release failure went down from 0.6 times on average per release to 0
The interface automation level increased from zero to 70 percent
Reported defects decreased from 13 times per release to five
Most importantly, Cerno realized its goal of becoming a more customer-centric organization.
โWe collaborate more than ever with our customers by involving them in planning as much as we can. And we deliver frequent demosโeven beyond customersโ expectations,โ Wu said. โOur customers have found communication to be more effective since the SAFe implementation.โ
โThis is the first SAFe transformation case I have coached in a local company in China,โ Li said. โAlthough thereโs still more to improve, it is really a great and wonderful start! It is a significant milestone for SAFe in China.โ
Looking ahead, Cerno is building toward agility beyond solution delivery, into administrative management and marketingโto become a total Agile enterprise.
Gaining C-Suite support for SAFe Enterprise Agility
MetLife is one of 12 Fortune 500 companies to thrive for over 150 years. Met has scale and a proud history โฆ and the many challenges of incumbency including legacy systems and challenges to speed. Agile is quickly being embraced as the way to achieve speed in innovation.
In this 45-minute video, Cheryl Crupi shares the story of how a small team sold MetLifeโs new CEO and his new executive group on SAFe Enterprise Agility. This short, immersive session enabled this executive group to experience Agile for themselves and resulted in a third of the group requesting individual follow-up on how they can embrace Enterprise Agility, including HR, Legal, Marketing and regional business presidents.
โFor Deutsche Bahn Digital Sales, SAFe is the framework for the strategic digitalization program โฆ With it, we are delivering faster and more effectively on our objectives, which drives our ability to compete in the digital age.โ
โMatthias Opitz, Senior Program Manager, DB Vertrieb, Deutsche Bahn
Challenge:
After privatizing the company, Deutsche Bahn faced new market forces, along with increasing competition from new transportation players.
Industry:
Transportation
Results:
Lead time dropped from 12 months to 3-4 months
Coverage of test automation improved from 30% or less to 80-90%
Greater collaboration among teams and better results have raised employeesโ satisfaction levels
Best Practices:
Start ASAP – Begin, even if imperfectly. โItโs more important to give people a chance to work in this environment than to wait until everyone is trained,โ said Thorsten Janning, SAFe Fellow, of KEGON.
Train extensively – That said, train management and teams as much as possible before the first PI Planning event.
Get expert help – DB worked with Scaled Agile Partner, KEGON, from the start and continues to do so for the support and experienced guidance a partner can bring. Progress is a continuous process of asking questions, which a partner can help answer.
In recent years, Deutsche Bahn (DB)โone of Europeโs largest railway operatorsโhas faced unprecedented change. In 1994, the two railways of East and West Germany merged after the countryโs reunification. While the company was adjusting to the Lean-agile transition, it was also contending with rising costs and greater competition than ever before from other railway operators, long-distance bus services and new, fast-acting players providing ride services and car-sharing.
Within this challenging environment, in 2014 DB embarked on a digital transformation to modernize the way their business units operate, from cargo transport to passenger ticket sales. It was up to each business unit to decide on a path forward to meet those goals.
Initially, the business units implemented Lean-Agile practices at the team level, on a small scope. Yet as they began trying to deliver on objectives, they fell short of targetsโespecially on larger solutions. The company struggled with lengthy decision cycles; fragmented responsibility; constant design, coordination and estimation; changing requirements; and many, many dependencies.
โIn nearly every business unit, the transformation projects struggled to deliver large solutions,โ said Matthias Opitz, Senior Program Manager, DB Vertrieb. โWe were going around in circles analyzing, and the processes were so complex that the organization was not able to deliver simple minimum viable products.โ
It was clear the effort would require a considerable overhaul of its long-established ways of working.
Full-Speed Ahead in DB Cargo
The company looked for a Lean-Agile methodology capable of handling its complex environment on a larger scale and found it in the Scaled Agile Frameworkยฎ (SAFeยฎ).
Within each segment of the company, at least one business unit rolled SAFe out as part of the digital transformation initiative:
DB Cargo: Freight transportation and Logistics
DB Netze: Infrastructure/rail network
DB Vertrieb: Passenger transport
โFor Deutsche Bahn Digital Sales, SAFe is the framework for the strategic digitalization program,โ Opitz said. โIt brought a continuous delivery process that keeps us on track toward our objectives.โ
DB Vertrieb started its Lean-Agile transformation in 2015, when the business unit established an effort named โKAIโ (an acronym for the German words meaning customer centricity, agility, and innovation), which stressed five attributes:
Customer excitement over optimization of profits
Iteration over perfection
Participation over hierarchy and silos
Trust and personal responsibility over top-down
Active participation instead of business as usual
To ease the transition, the company engaged Scaled Agile Partner KEGON as its primary provider for training and coaching. With KEGON, the DB companies began comprehensive training to prepare everyone who would be joining an Agile Release Train (ART), a team of teams in the Framework.
Lean-Agile leaders at DB Cargo and DB Vertrieb took the Leading SAFeยฎ course, with others taking role-based training such as SAFeยฎ Scrum Master, SAFeยฎ for Teams, and SAFeยฎ Product Owner/Product Manager. At least nine change agents at DB business units also earned SAFeยฎ Program Consultant (SPC) certification in order to teach their colleagues. DB saw training as essential for helping people through the inevitable challenges that would come up, including resistance.
โTraining was very important for giving us confidence and answers to questions that came up,โ Opitz said. โBecause we trained all participants, training also helped open discussions and convince skeptical people that this was the right way to go.โ
Delivering on All Commitments
DB Cargo was the first division within the company to kick off the first ART with a Program Increment (PI) planning event. Managers of the other business units attended only to observe.
In that meeting, they accomplished several of their top objectives:
Clarified an incremental release strategy
Identified business epics regarding end-to-end processes
Prioritized business epics with weighted shortest job first (WSJF)
Analyzed business epics and identified features
Figured out dependencies and planned teamsโ work for the coming PI
SAFe practices such as the Program Board gave participants clear insight, for the first time, into the companyโs numerous dependencies. With that visual aid, they realized that changes to peripheral systems would affect the critical path of the initiative, allowing teams to coordinate appropriately.
As the PI got underway, leaders and team members alike hit challenges with breaking old habits. The governance and budgeting structures remained in a waterfall construct early on, but began to move toward Lean budgeting as DB Vertrieb kicked off PIs in 2017.
To bridge this gap, Opitz stresses that the business units had to ensure that SAFe and the new approach extended to the broader organization, beyond IT. Therefore, DB Vertrieb decided to establish a โTarget Operating Modelโ (TOM) for the business unit and to perform the transformation activities in a dedicated ART. Shared services departments such as HR, controlling, communication, training and support, and marketing were brought into the fold.
Any doubt or resistance soon faded away as teams delivered perfectly on target for their first PI. โAt first, everyone looked at the committed backlog and said, โItโs too much,โโ Opitz said. โBut by the end of this first PI, we had delivered almost everything, which was a surprise to everyone.โ
With SAFe, DB Vertrieb finally implemented a process by which to plan requirements, prioritize, and synchronize the various programs, and to break down the requirements and epics into features and stories. Additionally, automated epic and feature reporting brought critical transparency regarding implementation status.
โJust a year ago, it was a big challenge to do specifications,โ Opitz said. โNow we have a process that makes it happen.โ
Steps to Success
A number of steps and factors contributed to DB Vertriebโs SAFe transformation. For one, DB leveraged Agile metrics to manage Portfolios and ARTs, and to help secure funding for them. In turn, management supported the effort by funding standing teams. They also invested in co-located and synchronous PI planning events for all ARTs in 2019.
The company performed a Value Stream analysis, which resulted in four Value Streams covering vertical products and horizontal services.
Toward continuous improvement of testing, teams performed system tests and implemented integrated development test servers.
Starting at the Portfolio level, they switched from a traditional requirements specification process to Agile requirements engineering.
DB Vertrieb found that self-organized teams were empowered to make decisions. In one case, a team detected an incorrect architectural decision when communicating with a stakeholder.
