Join Odile Moreau (Scaled Agile) and Raul Barth (Gladwell Academy) for an in-person Implementing SAFe® Training from February 4 to 7. Combine the enchanting atmosphere of Amsterdam with a unique opportunity to elevate your career and become a certified SAFe® Program Consultant.
I joined Scaled Agile, Inc. two years ago as their first-ever Chief Customer Learning Officer. As CCLO, I have the privilege to lead the design and development of our learning solutions, including our courseware and certifications. With decades of experience and a passion for modern learning, my journey has been about understanding how people learn and grow in their careers, and how they develop the skills and competencies to thrive in their roles. I see firsthand how the learning landscape is evolving, and I’m committed to creating innovative solutions that empower Agile professionals to continuously learn, adapt, and succeed in their organizations.
Evolution of Learning in the Agile Landscape
Over time, the way we engage with learning has shifted dramatically. The rapid expansion of remote work and digital transformation has created an opportunity to rethink how we deliver training. Instead of intensive, back-to-back full-day classes, we’ve moved toward more interactive and modular experiences. This includes our SAFe Micro-credentials, where professionals not only learn about Lean-Agile competencies but also apply them in real-world contexts, enabling them to truly master these skills.
From the outset, Scaled Agile has been dedicated to training change leaders and providing them with the necessary tools to drive Agile transformations. This remains a foundational part of our mission, and we continue to equip professionals with the skills and insights they need to lead effectively. Today, we are expanding that focus by providing more opportunities for Agile professionals to deepen their knowledge and expertise throughout their careers, allowing them to not only develop personally but also drive tangible business outcomes within their organizations.
Expanding Our Focus on Continuous Learning
One of the most common questions we hear from our learners is: “What’s next?” How does someone transition from understanding their role to thriving in it? In response, we are expanding our focus to emphasize continuous learning and development. This approach is designed to help Agile professionals build the mastery necessary to excel in their roles, while also contributing significantly to their organizations by driving better outcomes and fostering an environment of innovation and efficiency.
Continuous learning offers numerous benefits. It bridges skills gaps, enhances capabilities, and ensures that Agile practices are not only adopted but sustained within organizations. Change management is more than just implementing a transformation—it’s about maintaining and nurturing that change over time. By investing in ongoing learning, organizations create a culture where individuals and teams feel empowered to make informed decisions, solve complex problems, and adapt to evolving challenges.
Continuous learning is a catalyst for building an Agile culture and mindset. It helps teams achieve a “flow of work,” meaning they can complete tasks more efficiently, reduce bottlenecks, and deliver value more effectively. This flow creates a dynamic environment where innovation thrives, and work progresses with fewer interruptions, enabling professionals to meet goals and deliver high-quality results.
Introducing Advanced Certification Paths
After interviewing hundreds of Agile professionals and gathering insights from our extensive network of experts, we’ve designed the Advanced Certification Paths. These paths are tailored to develop role proficiency and ensure Agile professionals have the tools to succeed on the job. Each path combines live training and e-learning, delivered in flexible formats that suit different learning preferences. It culminates in a Learning Lab, a cohort-based experience where learners apply their knowledge in real-world case studies, receive coaching, and learn from their peers.
Completing an Advanced Certification Path means more than earning an Advanced Role Certification—it provides access to a broader Community of Practice, where professionals with shared experiences can learn from one another.
These paths help professionals deepen their expertise and can act as a bridge between existing SAFe® certifications. For example, the Advanced Scrum Master Certification Path can be a natural next step for a certified SAFe® Scrum Master or even a standalone option for experienced Scrum Masters. It’s also a valuable stepping stone toward more advanced certifications, such as the Release Train Engineer role. When you look at all the courses we offer, they collectively form a comprehensive career track, guiding Agile professionals throughout their journey.
Looking to the Future
Our vision for continuous learning and development extends beyond our current offerings. We aim to provide diverse learning opportunities, catering to different preferences, challenges, and contexts. We plan to introduce core curricula along with electives, allowing learners to specialize in areas that matter most to them. Additionally, we believe that maintaining an active certification should emphasize ongoing learning and development. This is why we’re exploring Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to help professionals stay current and relevant in their roles.
I’m incredibly excited about this next phase for Scaled Agile, where modular, hyper-relevant learning content becomes the norm. Our goal is clear: to empower Agile professionals to achieve certifications and drive real value for their organizations while advancing their own careers.
“Working for an organization that practices SAFe means employees can be confident that their code will get to production and that their SAFe training will secure them transportable skills that add value to their career paths.”
—Paul Gampe, CTO, PCCW Global
Challenge:
Console Connect needed to deliver positive and on-time outcomes for its customers and partners and amplify its ability to attract talented technologists to the business.
Industry:
Telecommunications
Results:
Improved business goal setting and ability to measure business value
Achieved 98%+ of the committed PI objectives
Reduced the number of lower business value objectives to allow time for innovation
Established positive and transparent relationships with partners
Attracted and trained new staff in a competitive market
Console Connect by PCCW Global: Improving Business Relationships and Attracting Top Talent with SAFe®
Introduction
PCCW Global is a leading telecommunications provider, offering flexible and scalable next-generation network solutions on a global scale combined with local, on-the-ground knowledge.
A product of PCCW, Console Connect is a platform that allows businesses to easily connect to public and private clouds, applications, and enterprise sites. It makes connecting clouds, networks, and business-critical partners and applications easy and secure. A leader in the Asia-Pacific Region, Console Connect by PCCW Global is globally accessible, offering best-in-class connections in Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa.
Breaking out of silos and finding common ground
When CTO Paul Gampe joined PCCW Global overseeing Console Connect in 2017, they had recently acquired several start-ups and development organizations. But they were struggling with a backlog of 50 unfinished projects, some of which had been running for five years and had no expected delivery date. The business was frustrated by the slow progress, and the IT team was overwhelmed.
In December 2017, Gampe toured the Console Connect facilities worldwide to meet the Corporate Services, IT and IP Engineering teams that he would lead. He spotted a trend in the challenges they faced.
“I began to sense the traditional silos and a disconnect between the business and the technical community in the company—issues that the Scaled Agile Framework is often used to identify and dissolve,” Gampe says.
Business agility with SAFe
Having seen the success of an Agile approach in his previous role, Gampe knew the benefits an Agile way of working would bring to the organization. After analyzing various frameworks and with the full support of the executive leadership of Console Connect, Gampe recommended the organization adopt SAFe® in early 2018 and engaged Pretty Agile to assist.
The technical leadership team flew from Greece, the US, Hong Kong and all around the world to Brisbane, Australia for training.
Pretty Agile CEO and Managing Director, Em Campbell-Pretty, has been impressed by the executive buy-in at PCCW. “When I look back over the organizations we work with, the organizations where I get the CEO and their leadership team in the room for two days for a Leading SAFe® class are the organizations that really get some momentum,” she explains. About six months later, the Console Connect Senior Management Team, including the CEO, gathered in Singapore for a two-day Leading SAFe® class followed by a Value Stream Identification Workshop.
Global communications start with human connection
One of Gampe’s favorite SAFe training memories was when he and Console Connect Head of Product and Innovation, Jordick Wong, hugged each other after a breakthrough moment during PI Plan acceptance. But it wasn’t always like that.
Console Connect made an early decision during a workshop to identify value streams for product offerings that they would focus on transforming while simultaneously switching to an Agile way of working. This choice presented a lot of challenges. “The biggest challenge that we faced wasn’t just trying to connect an engineering mindset with a network engineering mindset. It was coming up with a common language to help everybody in the organization begin to understand what we’re going to do when we’re going to do it,” says Gampe.
Bringing together the business and technology leadership teams to commit to a plan at each PI Planning session has been a crucial factor in driving this internal alignment and has led to a radical shift in the way the team builds applications.
“The first change we noticed was moving from component teams to feature teams. This shift allowed us to speak more clearly about the resource requirements to deliver a feature,” Gampe says. While it was challenging for the software community to make that transition, it has been very valuable for the business. “The business didn’t need to understand the complexity of our application architecture; they just articulated what they needed to get done. And we couldn’t have done that without a SAFe approach.”
Training partners in SAFe practices
In the past, PCCW would end up in heated debates with partners around the agreed scope of work and delivery times. But that’s no longer a problem. In addition to leveraging SAFe for internal software development, Console Connect now asks all its technology partners to train in SAFe, participate in the PI Planning, and get involved in the Agile Release Trains (ARTs). This approach addresses the challenges around timing and scope for fixed-contract projects. The overall response has been overwhelmingly positive, with increased clarity driven by:
Organization-wide discussions—PCCW and their technology partners meet to discuss programming and planning and to map clear objectives, roles, and responsibilities.
Ownership and accountability of tasks—Dependencies between PCCW and the partner are mapped out on a Program Board. Where an initiative is dependent on a task outside of the ART, a Release Train Engineer (RTE) owns this risk.
Education—In the early stages of the engagement, there is a lot of restructuring of contractual relationships and discussion of the guidelines for engagement as Console Connect educates their technology partners around SAFe.
Together, these changes have led to increased confidence in the shared ability to deliver the outcomes required.
Accelerating updates to new technology
Today, SAFe helps Console Connect not only work more efficiently with partner companies, but they use the Framework to speed the adoption of new technologies. A recent example is their partnership with BMC Software. Console Connect wanted to work with BMC to update their IT Service Management Suite to the next generation, cloud-based BMC Helix ITSM. Console Connect utilized SAFe to work with BMC more effectively and deliver an outcome which delighted both Console Connect and BMC.
Gampe explains: “Because many of these on-premises systems have deep integrations and lots of customizations, we asked BMC to become a member of our Agile Release Train and plan and act with us as if they were a feature team.” He says the benefit was that as BMC attended the planning sessions, they saw the resolution of dependencies and the detailed planning activity and could participate in the draft planning. “They saw management accept the plans and prioritize the Program Increment (PI) objectives,” Gampe explains.
“By joining us in our SAFe approach, BMC understood the cadence they’d need to demonstrate at the end of each iteration. As a result, our confidence that the budget would align with the allocation and the delivery would be achieved within the set time frame was completely justified.”
Attracting and retaining top talent with SAFe
Like most organizations that rely heavily on technical expertise, Console Connect is constantly looking for more software development resources. They use SAFe as a means to attract the best talent, with their Agile training and environment ensuring that they have a steady flow of quality job applicants.
“The Agile way of working contributes to how efficient an employee can be,” says Gampe. “Working for an organization that practices SAFe means employees can be confident that their code will get to production and that their SAFe training will secure them transportable skills that add value to their career paths.”
Gampe calls out several standout SAFe attributes that help Console Connect attract and engage talented resources, specifically the publicly available content and global availability of training and support. “With SAFe,” he says, “I can provide a publicly available link for a product manager’s job description and know that a product manager in Greece or the US can read that content without any paywall or barrier. And the breadth of SAFe’s coverage means I can get people trained irrespective of their geography. These are significant advantages over the other Agile frameworks I considered.”
SAFe has also positively impacted employee retention, with staff able to demonstrate their work and interact with all levels of the organization. “The CRO, the CFO, and other senior executives now participate with our junior developers or senior architects every 90 days. The closed feedback loop has enriched the relationship for the development community and their understanding of the business, and vice versa,” says Gampe.
Console Connect and SAFe at a glance
Six ARTs designed to support the systems associated with the ways that they deliver value
An Agile Program Management Office, which is home to their Lean-Agile Centre of Excellence (LACE)
An inter-ART dependency process, with a solution manager who coordinates activities across ARTs if required
piplanning.io leveraged to plan and execute their PI
SAFe has helped Console Connect evolve from its traditional ways of working with employees, partners, and customers. Now, staff attraction and training levels are at an all-time high, relationships with partners and project outcomes are transparent, positive and less stressful, and SAFe is a key selling point for Console Connect initiatives.
Started using SAFe in 2017 with customer-facing domains, then scaled and expanded to the portfolio level
Has 1,000 tech experts worldwide working in 6 tech hubs, producing 169 global products
Key Outcomes:
Six years ago, they had one or two product rollouts a year in just a couple of markets. In 2022, they were able to introduce roughly 40 products in 34 markets.
In 2022, reached €130 billion portfolio: €58 billion in new business and €27 billion in revenue
Faster application-to-payout times: Reduced time for customers applying for financing from several days to minutes. In China, for example, customers can apply and receive payment in 2.3 minutes.
Moving away from waterfall methods and adopting SAFe, they were able to launch better technology, better operating systems, AI and face recognition, integrate different data sources, and utilize better risk models.
Customer focus: Responded to customer apprehension about electric cars and fear of not having enough range by introducing rental and subscription models. This way, customers can become more familiar with the electric offerings and the charging ecosystem before buying.
Increased digitization and automation rate to 90 percent. SAFe allowed Mercedes-Benz to achieve the shift from hardware to software, master the electrification of vehicles, meet requirements for zero emission, and adapt to environmental, geopolitical, and consumer demands.
Created a culture of collaboration. Instead of relying solely on roles like RTE, Scrum Master, and Product Owner, Mercedes-Benz Mobility fosters a culture that prioritizes diversity and uses the best skill sets.
Join our virtual event on Wednesday, March 15, at 12:00 PM MDT/6:00 PM GMT to see the full launch and learn what it means for your organization. Sign up to receive a reminder one hour before the event to ensure you don’t miss it.
This interactive session walks through updates with the Scaled Agile Product team to cover the following releases: Updated SASM Course Role-Based Home Page PI Planning in Collaborate Collaborate Improvements PI Event Facilitator Guides (ART & Team Events)
“e-Prescribing is probably the biggest example of a SAFe outcome for Fred IT. It was a real shake-up, quite transformative for our whole industry. And we were the leaders and able to pull it off!”
—Zoe Walters, Product Manager
Challenge:
Siloed development and a need to meet rapidly changing demands proved challenging for a business whose product suite is an end-to-end solution.
Industry:
Pharmaceutical, IT
Results:
Faster time-to-market
Predictability improved to 82%
Bugs decreased by 50%
Backlog reduced from 160 support items to under 20
Improved top-down engagement with the stakeholders
Best Practices:
Train leadership – Fred IT trained the executive leadership team first, which helped drive complete business transformation
Train extensively – most people within the company have completed an average of two courses, including everyone in the leadership team, all the way to the CEO
Get expert help – Pretty Agile had an engagement with Fred that went beyond initial training. Their consultants were embedded to support continuous improvement and provide team guidance through more advanced practices up to PI6 results
Fred IT Group is Australia’s largest provider of pharmacy IT solutions servicing more than 3000 pharmacies. The company was launched out of a deep commitment to the role of technological leadership in improving patient outcomes whilst making it easier and more efficient for health professionals to run their businesses.
Building an end-to-end solution in a siloed work culture
Over the years, Fred IT used a mix of Agile and Waterfall methodologies. However, neither approach addressed the need to respond quickly to continually changing demands or the siloed development approach across their teams.
“If you were in a team for a specific product, there was limited cross-over and discussion with other teams. Sharing of knowledge across products was ad-hoc and team members were often only expected to be skilled on one product,” says Fred IT product manager, Zoe Walters.
This was a problem for a business whose product suite is an end-to-end solution. “All of the products in our suite are fully integrated,” says Walters. “But our approach made it difficult to do this well. For example, a dispensary and back-office product might have the same reports. But, because they were developed in isolation, they were inconsistent in looks and the data captured and reported on. It was the same company, solution and report—but two different outputs.”
To transform their way of working and harmonize the development of their product suite, Fred decided to adopt SAFe®.
Training leaders first leads to early wins
With the help of Scaled Agile Transformation Partner, Pretty Agile, Fred started training people in 2018 with a goal of launching SAFe in 2019. The new initiative primarily included people from Product and Engineering, with HR, Finance, Security, and Infrastructure teams supporting the operational and strategic work. They decided to train leadership first, and then move to development teams. This approach quickly paid off. “Getting the executive leadership team in a Leading SAFe® class was regarded as a key success factor for Fred and is one of those things that made a difference to them,” says Pretty Agile founder, Em Campbell-Pretty.
“Getting the executive leadership team in a Leading SAFe® class was regarded as a key success factor for Fred and is one of those things that made a difference to them.”
Em Campbell-Pretty, Founder, pretty agile
As soon as the teams began planning and collaborating through SAFe practices, the organization experienced a noticeable difference. “The impact on prioritization was a massive eye-opener,” observed Walters. “It no longer became a matter of who screamed loudest determining what got done first, but making better decisions based on business value and impact based on the effort required. We knew in theory that it would happen, but to see it happen in reality was interesting. It became clear what needed to happen first, and made us examine the business reasoning behind it, and document and capture features and expected outcomes so we had a yardstick to measure what we’d achieved.”
One method that Fred IT uses in this decision-making process is to assess each feature/epic against the strategic investment, tech debt, maintenance, and other costs to the business. They then decide how they want to distribute that work across each PI. These guardrails allow the Lean Portfolio Manager (LPM) to manage the train capacity dedicated to each area.
Taking the market lead in times of COVID
Adopting SAFe made a business-critical difference for Fred when COVID-19 hit Australia. Due to government mandates, citizens could not visit their doctors, so the pressure was on Fred to quickly deliver an e-Prescription solution
“COVID fast-tracked the forward momentum of the Australian e-Health industry,” says Walters. “Critically, conversations we’d been having about moving from paper prescriptions to electronic scripts for several years became concrete projects that needed to be delivered urgently.”
Already mid-way through launching a new dispense product, Fred needed to pivot its attention to successfully delivering a second product which would result in significant changes in deadlines.
“We had plans and extensive roadmaps for the dispense product in place, and the teams were already locked in,” says Walters. “But with SAFe, we could quickly and effectively change tack to deliver the e-Prescription product, despite the huge list of requirements.”
“SAFe enabled us to estimate the effort and time required, form teams, align them to the work, show the business how we’d achieve delivery, and then go ahead,” added Walters. “Using our previous approach, we’d have had no capability or ability to manage that. Instead, we would have just had a pile of work to chip away at—and hope for the best.”
“SAFe enabled us to estimate the effort and time required, form teams, align them to the work, show the business how we’d achieve delivery, and then go ahead.”
Zoe Walters, Product Manager
Practicing SAFe, the organization became more efficient and effective. They improved planning and road mapping with the Program Increment (PI) cycles and had transparency across the teams. Walters added, “As a result, they were able to plan and deliver last-minute changes to requirements and meet those fast-tracked milestones. So, it enabled us to get two different sustainable products up and running fast!”
Significant business outcomes
Fred has realized myriad benefits from adopting the SAFe way of working, from product development and delivery to cultural shifts:
Faster time-to-market: “e-Prescribing is probably the biggest example of a SAFe outcome for Fred IT,” says Walters. “It was a real shake-up, quite transformative for our whole industry. And we were the leaders and able to pull it off! Perhaps we could have done it without SAFe, but it would have been high risk, and supporting and maintaining the system would have been difficult. But with SAFe, we succeeded.”
Predictability: After several PIs, Fred achieved an average of 82% predictability on features and enablers.
Improvements in quality: SAFe introduced a big shift in the ownership of quality. Prior to SAFe, one person with a quality assurance title would attempt to address quality issues at the end of the development cycle. With SAFe, the entire team took ownership, and quality became embedded in the process. That approach paid off. Based on customer feedback, the quality of Fred’s products has dramatically improved and introduced bugs have dropped more than 50%.
Backlog reduction: Fred’s support backlog has also been significantly impacted. “We had an overall backlog of around 160 support items that needed to be reduced, and that number just never seemed to go down,” says Walters. “After a few PIs, the backlog dropped to under 20. It was a massive reduction.”
Cultural Shifts: “Since adopting SAFe, I feel like Fred’s a more collaborative place than before,” says Walters. “Our teams are more integrated, and there are stronger relationships between them because they’re part of every activity and process. We are sharing more, so we all know more about what’s happening across the business – and with more transparency. People are putting up their hands to help get projects across the line. We’ve become more understanding and supportive. That has been a big step forward for us as a company.”
“We’ve become more understanding and supportive. That has been a big step forward for us as a company.”
Zoe Walters, Product Manager
A transformative way of working
The SAFe way of working has significantly impacted the way Fred’s teams communicate, and it has improved their ability to adapt and pivot, manage quality standards, and coordinate the flow of work.
“Every single person at Fred IT who is using the SAFe way of working agrees that the transparency of the work and the ability to adapt quickly to changes in the market and be more agile is certainly tenfold,” says Walters.
“The difference now is that we have regular stand-ups together and can coordinate work across the board. So, for example, if we need a field change on Fred Dispense and the back-office report, the conversation is out in the open and can be planned and coordinated. It’s a massive improvement on past processes.”
The new visibility and transparency are also having an effect on future development work. Many of Fred’s government initiatives involve two different products, and one team might start before the other. With SAFe, the first team now shares all their learnings with the next team before they start. It allows for a much smoother approach and typically helps the teams avoid any potential issues.
“We now have predictability of our estimates,” says Walters. “We know how fast work can be achieved, which we didn’t know before. Previously we could only estimate delivery/release dates and resource requirements.
“SAFe was also a big shift in the team ownership of quality. Rather it being the responsibility of one person who landed the quality assurance title, it became embedded in the process – and has become a focus.
“Having SAFe processes in place means that everyone now knows what will happen each week, each month, and in each cycle.”
Summary
With the help of SAFe, Fred IT successfully overcame the challenges associated with developing a critical, time-sensitive end-to-end ePrescription solution, despite existing commitments. Previously siloed teams worked together with transparency and collaboration, and the product was successfully delivered despite significantly abbreviated timelines and a plethora of on-the-go changes to requirements.
Says Walters, “The enthusiasm for SAFe training is such that most people average a minimum of two courses. Tom Boswell, Enterprise Agile Coach and Release Train Engineer, added, “We’re very proud of where we got to with SAFe training. All of our leadership team—right up to the CEO—trained, which is unusual in my experience. It shows that they understood the value of investing in SAFe. We now have the capabilities to provide SAFe training and certification internally but continue to be supported by Pretty Agile for advanced courses.”
PI Planning at Fred ITKaizen dragon at Fred IT PI Planning
How the legendary automotive brand approached Lean-Agile Transformation by building the Digital Product Organization
Share:
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 “Porsche Takt” 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
“We wanted to experiment and demonstrate Agile principles and practices across domains. By empowering each business domain, acknowledging specific contexts in domains, fostering sharing, and ‘try and learn,’ SAFe has helped us get on the right track to success.”
—Claire Charbit, Program Management NWOW Agile Adoption, Air France-KLM
Challenge:
Air France – KLM sought to scale Agile practices companywide to improve time to market and efficiency, but must contend with specific contexts and regulations in the different businesses of the airlines.
Industry:
Transportation, Aviation
Results:
SAFe teams released 17 times in the live environment in seven months compared to every six months previously
On average, SAFe teams release 20% more effectively than waterfall teams
The company gained 20% market share in the small and medium logistics market alone
On one offering, the company exceeded expectation by 25%
Air France – KLM is more intimate with its clients
Best Practices:
Focus on Transversal Topics for a sustainable adoption – “From day one, make them part of the adoption,” Moreau says. These topics affect all domains.
Let domains and teams define objectives – Teams are more committed and empowered if they set their own goals
Train continuously – The Core Team regularly holds Agile Booster workshops to help with specific adoption challenges such as how to deal with conflicting priorities from both airlines, and what does it mean to have an Agile mindset?
Introduction
One of Europe’s largest passenger airline groups, Air France – KLM operates up to 2,200 flights daily and carries over 93 million passengers annually. The company’s five airlines—Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Transavia, HOP! Air France and Joon—cover 320 destinations across 114 countries.
In a highly competitive industry, where information systems can be strategic competitive assets, Air France – KLM set out to reduce its time-to-market with business applications. To do so, the company decided to improve the business/IT collaboration by breaking down silos and expanding Lean-Agile practices.
“Before, in moving from waterfall to Agile, we were not able to make the leap on a broader scale,” says Edwin Borst, Program Management NWOW #agile Adoption, Air France – KLM.
Achieving its goals would require bringing together diverse cultures at French and Dutch offices, as well as contending with diverse contexts, operational constraints or regulations across the different business domains.
An Agile Adoption Empowering Business Domains and Teams
After the successful launch of three ARTs in the Commercial Digital business domain in the late summer of 2016, the company decided to leverage this success and create a broader-scale adoption. Pieter Bootsma, Executive Vice-President of Commercial Strategy at Air France – KLM, noted: “We can all benefit from Agile in the whole group and not only at Commercial Digital.” So, in late 2016, the company chose to foster and accelerate the adoption and scaling of Agile practices.
Prior to launching the broad SAFe adoption, a small group of transformation leaders spent several months defining the scope of the deployment, the way the adoption would be conducted, and preparing for the adoption of SAFe on a larger scale. The leaders decided to adopt Lean-Agile principles and values in the way the program would be set up and run. The goal: demonstrate the mindset and practices, and see the benefits of this approach in a Change Management context.
Empower each business domain via its own self-organized, multidisciplinary, “Agile adoption team”
Deliver the change in short cycles, enabling experimentation and quick adaptation
Start small with minimum viable products (MVPs)
Share and learn from each others’ domains
Differentiate and adapt to each domain’s specifications and context
In late 2016, the company chose the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) to foster and accelerate the adoption and scaling of Agile practices across the various business domains.
“In order to manage our Agile adoption program across 11 business domains within Air France – KLM, we formed an Agile Release Plane (ARP, modified to fit the industry), inspired by SAFe,” says Didier Lavielle, Program Management NWOW #agile Adoption, Air France – KLM. “SAFe gives us the framework we have been missing while at the same time empowering each business domain to define their own way to reach their goals.”
Each business domain (Commercial, Cargo, Flight and Ground Operations, Engineering & Maintenance, Finance, Human Resources) joined the ART with its own change team—named Agile Adoption Team—and self-organized as a product team. As a mix of IT and business, the Adoption Team defines the specific objectives, approach, and steps to take in its domain: people to train, Agile product teams to form, coaching needed, communication plan, monitoring progress, and more.
The company formed “Transversal Tracks,” (groups that tie into all business domains), which joined the ART: Human Resources (e.g. role description, training, and coaching), Finance and Portfolio Management (IT investment processes), Tooling and Capabilities, Communication, and “IT Readiness.” This setup brought value to the 11 domains by not having to reinvent the wheel and ensured consistency in harmonized solutions.
Air France – KLM engaged with BlinkLane Consulting for guidance and training. Around 150 team members in the Agile Adoption ART, from the various business domains and Transversal Track teams, attended Introduction to Agile training, with about 50% of them taking the Leading SAFe course.
Some of the Transversal tracks went through specially designed workshops regarding Lean Budgeting, Agile KPIs & Reporting, and Agile HR, for instance. Those supporting the various adoption teams either attended the SAFe Scrum Master training or were already certified SPCs. So far, more than 300 colleagues from the Adoption ART and from the regular ARTs have followed the Leading SAFe training.
Aligning the Stakeholders on a “Definition of Awesome”
Prior to kickoff, all business domains and Transversal Track groups aligned on a common definition of awesome with four themes:
Agile Enterprise – In the Air France – KLM enterprise, the autonomous, stable, and cross-functional teams are the cornerstones of the organization for driving innovation and continuous improvement. The Transversal processes support and stimulate an Agile way of working and mindset at all levels. This allows the company to focus on continuously maximizing quality and delivering value to the customer.
Value Creation – The Agile adoption aims to create more value—for customers and employees. Quality as well as effectiveness go up. The company succeeds by driving down the time-to-market, and increasing the Net Promotor Score.
Leadership – Air France – KLM develops servant leaders who empower Agile teams and value streams. They engender trust, work with a clear purpose, and provide direction to all levels of the Agile Enterprise. They are recognized for their Agile leadership, enabling others to succeed and drive the organization for continuous improvement. They focus on goals instead of tasks.
Employee Engagement – The organization is recognized as a best place to work. As a result, it attracts talented people. It works closely with customers. People feel responsible and autonomous for their products and results. Employee satisfaction is high and demonstrated by EPS (active promotors).
Big-Room Kickoff in Paris: PI Planning Event #1
The company officially kicked off the Air France – KLM New Ways of Working #agile ART at the first PI planning event in March 2017 in Paris. The Release Train Engineer (RTE), Odile Moreau from BlinkLane, was part of a small group of transformation leaders called The Core Team. The team, which includes three from Air France – KLM and three from BlinkLane, helps foster the adoption and structure; organize the program and its events; support the domains and the Transversal tracks; and monitor the progress and the results.
The five Transversal tracks, 11 business domain adoption teams, and the Core Team formed the ART, with 150 people. The company’s group CIO, Jean-Christophe Lalanne, and Commercial Strategy EVP, Pieter Bootsma, attended as executive sponsors and set the tone for the importance of the initiative.
At the first PI event, Air France – KLM introduced a logo created specifically for the program, which added strategic emphasis.
Team members from France and the Netherlands came together, bringing distinctive cultures and very diverse states of Agile: some were new to Agile principles and some brought several years of experience
“Although this approach and the PI Planning event was new for most people, everyone was really driven and motivated to share experiences, learn from each other, try and experiment, and work toward results,” Lavielle says.
Yet despite that excitement, many were hesitant to break out of their own groups and talk with those they had never met. Thus transformation leaders requested that anyone adding yarn to the program board—indicating dependencies—discuss it directly with the individuals involved.
As the first PI progressed, teams achieved about 60 percent of their stated objectives, on average. In leading up to the second PI, they applied the lessons learned and set more accurate, quantifiable objectives.
At the start of the second PI, Air France – KLM began a new practice of having each business domain and Transversal Track share its business results with the entire group as a PI begins. At the same time, this served as an opportunity to Inspect and Adapt what worked and what didn’t.
By the third PI, in the fall of 2017, Air France – KLM had grown to 208 product teams and eight ARTs across Commercial Digital, Cargo, Commercial, and AF Flight Ops. The KLM HR division and the AF Ground Services have both organized Value Stream workshops to either launch new trains or reorganize their current Agile teams into an ART. The same applies to Digital Commercial. Following on the continuous Inspect & Adapt, Commercial Digital will also reorganize its current ARPs to allow for more alignment on the business objectives and improve its delivery model.
Lessons Learned and Best Practices
Along the way, they learned a number of lessons to improve their efforts going forward:
Have an approach for dealing with the diversity across domains, both in their Agile maturity and in their specific context and constraints (operational, security, and regulations)
Establish strong ownership in each business domain via an individual adoption team
Since most of the dependencies lie between Transversal Tracks (HR or Finance impediments) and business domains, co-create solutions for Transversal topics that facilitate exchanges and encourage learning from each other
Actively address the challenge of changing the managerial mindset and leadership styles
Understand that setting realistic goals for the next 15 weeks will be difficult for most, as is learning to set smaller, more realistic goals
Encourage individuals to ask for help from someone in a Transversal Track or the Core Team
Ensure that the team members who are not 100% dedicated and co-located commit to objectives and organize in a way to still be able to work together and produce results
Ask for regular feedback to respond to uncertainties and come up with valuable results
Leave personal egos at the door and achieve common objectives
Investing in Role-Based Training
Where it can, the company trains with the SAFe curriculum. All RTEs go through SAFe Release Train Engineer training. Scrum Masters with the PSM certification are offered the SAFe for Scrum Master training and certification when joining an ARP. The same applies for Product Owner. Team members also attend SAFe for Teams when they join an ARP. Additionally, the company developed training and workshops for Lean Budgeting, using the Weighted Shortest Job First, and other practical guidelines.
A community of 40 coaches support the effort at various levels: teams, domain, adoption, and enterprise. This community is growing in maturity and results. In the third PI, the company will focus on internalization and growth of the coaches, ensuring a more sustainable and economical support for the Agile community.
Results: 20% More Effective Delivery
Since deploying SAFe, Air France – KLM notes greater collaboration between business domains and Transversal Tracks. Within three months, their efforts began paying off in business results in the Cargo group:
Time-to-market – Each ART team delivers on its promises every three weeks. Since moving to SAFe, the company released 17 times in the live environment in seven months compared to every six months previously.
Quality – Of the 17 releases, the company had to delay just one due to a major incident
Productivity – SAFe teams deliver, on average, more than 20% more effectively than waterfall teams
Adaptability – With a PI cycle of 12 weeks, Air France – KLM has been able to pivot its vision three times in the past year, allowing the company to tap into new business opportunities much more quickly and easily
Market share – The company gained 20% market share in the small and medium logistics market alone with this flexibility
Predictability – The velocity of ARTs builds in more predictability and enables teams to take ownership and show greater craftsmanship. Team stability is also an important success factor in results
Business value – On one offering, the company exceeded expectation by 25%
Employee satisfaction – PI Planning results in better transparency and autonomy for the teams. Seeing the vision in the Cargo group encourages team members to contribute to the business value and increases their work satisfaction, as well as collaboration between business and IT
Customer satisfaction – Air France – KLM is more intimate with its clients. All Product Owners from the business side have a greater understanding of the demand. Going live with small changes and new functionality every three weeks gives them a faster feedback loop and more rapid pivoting, enabling groups to deliver greater value in its IT solutions
Air France – KLM looks forward to seeing ever-greater progress as it moves toward DevOps, allowing the ARTs to deliver end-to-end with an integrated team.
“We have started experimenting more with weighted shortest job first (WSJF) in our priority at the Features level,” Moreau says. “We also want to harness the work with Portfolio Management and Lean budgeting.”
