How to win with SAFe® flow accelerators by delivering value faster

“The people who plan the work do the work” is the unwritten rule of the Scaled Agile Framework.

Yet, this can be easier said than done when we’re looking at multiple teams of people needing to plan together.

Add in the complexities of large enterprises that face their own unique challenges - ranging from product development to budget to implementing feedback to final delivery - and suddenly the idea of how to bring teams together for planning can feel harder again.

If you’re familiar with the Scaled Agile Framework, you will already be aware SAFe is designed to facilitate better collaboration and communication between multiple cross-functional groups. The core way to do this with SAFe is Program Increment or PI Planning (Planning Interval Planning in SAFe 6.0)

A plan can take on so many different forms - even just between teams - but with SAFe it is easier to see what ‘good’ looks like when it comes to efficient PI Planning.

The SAFe program board or ART planning board (SAFe 6.0), is a critical tool and output of PI Planning. It is a visual summary of features or goals, cross-team dependencies, and other factors that impact their delivery. Not only does this help with transparency, but it also increases flexibility that, in turn, helps minimize delays and unhealthy dependencies.

What is often overlooked is that PI Planning plays a crucial role in setting teams or the entire program up for success - including implementing other SAFe ceremonies or events.

In this article, we’ll discuss everything you need to know about program boards, including why they’re important in the planning process and how larger teams can use them in PI Planning and beyond.

We’ll also explore exactly how Easy Agile Programs digitises the SAFe program board, not only allowing the people who plan the work to do the work, but also allowing you to plan the work in the environment where the work gets done - in Jira.

NB: while the program board is referred to as 'ART Planning Board' in the updated 6.0 version of the Scaled Agile Framework, it is the same artefact and plays the same role in PI Planning and beyond.

What is a program board?

What does your teams plan or schedule typically look like?

Would it indicate to you what work was being done? Who was doing it? Perhaps even an indication of when they would and any key deadlines these teams are working towards?

The headline here is that a program board is all of this, but also more.

The program board is a visualization of the work being committed to during the Program Increment / Planning Interval or PI. It is simultaneously the facilitator of planning as well as the plan itself.

A typical idea of a program board - especially for collocated PI Planning sessions - is literally a physical board on a wall.
It would show:

• Columns: marking the iterations for the increment
• Rows: representing different teams within that increment
• Sticky notes: describing the features that teams are working on or used to indicate milestones that they’re working towards
• Strings: between these features to indicate if there are any dependencies

But how does a program board help the planning process?

A program board facilitates better team collaboration because it streamlines project communication and planning, while also ensuring better communication between the involved teams.

Moreover, program boards help define the responsibility of each team involved in making the idea a reality, which in turn, helps to streamline the process as a whole.

During PI Planning, the program board supports teams to visualize and manage dependencies across the PI; giving them greater clarity of the work in detail, how the work relates to what the business is trying to achieve and to each other, what tasks need to be done, and crucially, whether there are any issues that may cause delays.

A program board is simultaneously the facilitator of planning as well as the plan itself.

To understand how program boards help with the planning process, let’s go over the different components found on them.

How to set up your SAFe program board for successful PI planning

According to Scaled Agile, there are two primary outputs of PI Planning:

1. Committed PI Objectives
2. Program board - with new feature delivery dates, dependencies among teams and relevant Milestones

So if you’re following SAFe and doing PI Planning you should finish PI Planning with a program board.

During PI Planning, not only do teams discuss and define the features and dependencies, but they also establish milestones across the PI.

This is where a digitised PI Planning tool can really benefit remote or hybrid teams doing PI Planning - the same information is planned in the same place.

Here are a few tips to help you create a SAFe program board.

1. Setting up the board itself

Not to be underestimated, the bare bones of the program board need to be set up.

There are two key elements here:

• Sprint or iteration columns:
  • The right number based on how many iterations/sprints will be in your PI, including a final one for iteration planning
• Rows or swimlanes:
  • One for milestones/events - typically the first
  • One for each team
  • May also have a swimlane for shared services, suppliers or other teams not in the Agile Release Train (ART)

Here is what this may look like:

If you were at this stage of your program board in Easy Agile Programs, your board would look like this:

In Easy Agile Programs, each team represented in a dedicated swimlane represents an agile board in Jira. So the issues that you will be scheduling for this team in sprints during PI Planning and beyond, will be reflected on their agile board and vice versa.

The start and end date for the PI and the number and length of your sprints can all be edited to suit your organisation’s workflows.

When you are in editing mode and are ready to schedule features, the shared team features swimlane also appears at the top to visually indicate if there is work to be scheduled across multiple teams.

2. Start with features and milestones

During PI Planning, Product Management shares the product/solution vision and this commonly also means the next top 10 upcoming features for the teams to take into the PI from the backlog. (We know from our customers that sometimes this can be a lot more!)

We also want to start by knowing which milestones we are working towards. Often these can represent product release dates, external deliverables or deadlines like preparing a demo or showcase for a trade show, marketing launches or events. Having these visualized on the program board helps teams to easily see what they are working towards, but also to inform prioritization of the specific features needed to help meet delivery of that milestone.

If you are working with a physical or simple digital program board, features and Milestones are represented by ‘sticky notes’ - placed in the appropriate swimlane and/or colour to indicate this information as well as the team responsible for it and the time frame:

So what does this look like in Easy Agile Programs at this point?

Milestones are highly visual

• Milestones can be customised to indicate start/end date and colour. They run across all team swimlanes so teams can easily see how their work relates to an upcoming deliverable or event.
• Milestones still have a dedicated place at the top of the program board but this can be collapsed if desired

Features are native Jira issues

• Features in Easy Agile Programs are native Jira issues, commonly epics. You can easily click on the issue key from the program board to see more information via the issue view.
• Features can be easily scheduled from the backlog into a swimlane through drag and drop, or created via the program board. To indicate when a feature is intended to start and be completed, simply drag and drop the edge of the issue:

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3. Identify dependencies

With the features done, the next thing that teams should look for is dependencies. Remember the strings we mentioned before?

Dependencies between features and teams are represented with string on a program board when it’s on a wall or lines between those features in a digital tool.

Sticky notes in a different colour, like red, indicate a significant dependency. For example that feature may have more than one feature relying on it to go to schedule.

To explain this, let’s consider an example.

Imagine Team X realizes they cannot develop a feature until Team Y develops an API thanks to the program board. So, what both teams can do is talk to each other and come up with a solution that works for everybody, leading to better collaboration among the teams.

After an agreement is reached, a dependency will then be placed on the board so everyone has the same understanding about the dependency, and how it’ll be resolved. A piece of string will be attached to each card to demonstrate this:

The nature of dependencies mean that something is required to be completed in order for something else to be done.

To be able to more easily see when dependencies are scheduled, Easy Agile Programs has a traffic light system of red, orange and green dependencies to indicate dependency health.

Dependency health is represented as follows:

• A red line indicates the dependant issue is scheduled in a sprint after the dependency (conflict)
• An orange line indicates the dependant and dependency are scheduled in the same sprint (a risk)
• A green line indicates the dependant issue is scheduled in a sprint before its dependency (healthy)
• A black line indicates the dependency exists with issues outside of the current view. Whether this is the current Agile Release Train / Program, or with a future or past increment.

This easily indicates to a Release Train Engineer or a Program Manager where they ought to focus and to be able to address any scheduling issues during planning.

Easy Agile Programs also allows you to visualize dependencies between issues within and across teams from the Team Planning Board. This provides a really focussed view of the work for a particular team for the PI, and how that work relates to other teams:

Program boards are needed for better collaboration

The power of the program board lies in having a single view of what a collection of teams are committing to - together - and exactly how that work relates to each other. It helps organize planning sessions by summarizing future dependencies across all teams and sprints. As a result, scrum masters, release train engineers, product managers and business owners can easily identify and prioritize cross-team conversations that matter the most.

Running a scaled planning session or PI Planning ceremony, especially for the first time, can be daunting.

But if you’re successful in developing a solid program board as part of your PI planning process, you won't have to worry about chasing down your co-worker or team member to meet deadlines. The key here is to make sure you’ve scheduled the most important features to take into the PI, identified cross-team dependencies, and have visualised any milestones or deadlines to ensure they can be realistically achieved.

The program board can become more impactful though, when it is more than just a plan. Building a program board in an online tool with the added capability of it representing the actual work that’s planned to be done means that it has a life beyond PI Planning; it becomes the living document of the teams progress and a means to identify when there are any blockers to that progress.

In order for agile teams to be agile and continuously and iteratively deliver value, they need to be equipped with a program board that can help them respond to any changes so that they can plan for success but also progress towards it.

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Many organizations struggle to manage large-scale projects. SAFe can help.

SAFe gives you the framework and training that you need to make a sustainable change on a large scale. If you want to change on a small team level, department level, or across the enterprise, SAFe shows you how.

There are many benefits to implementing SAFe. But what exactly is it, and how can you use SAFe to help create a lean enterprise?

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SAFe background

SAFe is the acronym for “Scaled Agile Framework.” As agile focuses on small-scale continuous improvement, SAFe uses its philosophy at an enterprise level.

SAFe increases business agility, resulting in flexible and responsive teams for large organizations. SAFe uses its own set of values along with Lean-Agile principles.

This agile framework started when software systems expert Dean Leffingwell became frustrated with traditional work processes in the software industry. He developed the SAFe method to help change work processes that reaped results.

You can use this framework to instill a Lean-Agile mindset on a large scale. It focuses on constant improvements. As a result, enterprises improve work performance and productivity.

You can access training through Scaled Agile Inc. to scale work and improve performance in your enterprise.

Implementing SAFe at the team, program level, or enterprise is completely doable.

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SAFe values

The Scaled Agile Framework uses four core values:

1. Alignment of business decisions with the business vision, strategy, implementation and goals on a small to large scale.
2. Built-in quality to produce desirable outcomes that create success.
3. Transparency: Good decisions can only be made when comprehensive information is available.
4. Program execution that links back to strategy and vision

By applying these values, teams and organizations increase engagement by making it clear what they expect of agile team behaviors and actions.

When everyone works together and understands their responsibilities, the chance of success increases dramatically. SAFe encourages openness and engagement in meeting individual and team responsibilities. So, if an individual or team hits a roadblock, they communicate to find joint solutions to problems.

At scale, organizations use Lean-Agile methodology to:

• Drive the on-time delivery of software development products
• Support quality product deliverables
• Increase stakeholder engagement and satisfaction
• Streamline performance based on regular, predictable schedules

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What is agile?

SAFe applies the agile methodology to larger teams. So, let's cover what agile means.

Agile methodology focuses on flexibility, collaboration, and value delivery. It means constantly adapting, or iterating, a product based on changing user and stakeholder needs. Agile teams rapidly respond to change and quickly adapt, whether they use Scrum or Kanban.

Every iteration has a set timebox. Team members use these increments to support streamlined workflows. They create, test, and deliver outcomes that work better than traditional work processes.

What is Lean?

Lean methodology also plays a role in SAFe.

The Lean method has its roots in the auto industry. Ford motors, Toyota expanded on Ford's methodology to further minimize waste and deliver value. Now, Lean has a more comprehensive set of principles with practical applications.

Lean highlights the importance of reviewing value streams to improve efficiency and create more customer value.

When you use Lean principles, teams create more value, higher performance, and increased productivity. In other words, Lean supports business agility.

SAFe incorporates this Lean method of work. So, you can also apply SAFe to lean portfolio management (LPM) and many other areas of the organization.

SAFe Agile principles

The SAFe Agile framework also focuses on 10 SAFe principles. These principles help link performance, quality, and profits.

1. “Take an economic view.”
2. “Apply systems thinking.”
3. “Assume variability; preserve options.” This means no one solution is correct, so teams should keep an open mind when discussing work approaches.
4. “Build rapidly in increments to hasten learning cycles.”
5. “Create milestones on objective analysis of working systems.”
6. “Envision and restrict WIP, limit work batch sizes, and control queue lengths.” Any stoppages and problems lengthen the time to market, increase the use of scarce resources and reduce potential profits. In short, “time is money.”
7. “Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning.”
8. Encourage the innate motivation of knowledge within Scrum teams
9. Spread the decision-making process
10. Organize goals and work around the value that it creates

What is SAFe’s big picture?

If you’re having a tough time trying to visualize SAFe, let’s look at the big picture. Whereas the typical agile team is smale, SAFe offers a way to scale agile methodologies to larger organizations. It focuses on cross-team collaboration and motivates everyone to adopt a Lean mindset.

This means streamlined work processes and a clearer understanding of which processes create value. It also encourages larger teams to constantly adapt  and improve.

The framework shows how strategic planning can transform into practical work execution. Agile teams use the Agile Release Train (ART) to collaborate at each level of work to make this happen. SAFe also offers training to become a Release Train Engineer to support change.

At each level, the framework also indicates the SAFe principles that teams must use. By using these principles, they achieve value creation via coordination and a flexible workflow.

Create and visualise dependences within a single team or between teams

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The benefits of implementing SAFe

Leaders and employees can see the SAFe roadmap and workflow. They can also see the large-scale impact on business agility.

Some of the benefits of implementing SAFe include:

• Improving systems thinking across the organization
• Improving value streams and quality outcomes
• Increasing productivity
• Developing team environments through lean thinking
• Decreasing time-to-market
• Creating specific methods to achieve goals
• Generating transparency that clarifies roles, responsibilities, and action
• Removing silos and aligning smaller teams with the greater whole of the organization
• Increasing business agility to meet overall organizational goals

SAFe Agile certification

You can take advantage of certified SAFe Agile training courses to upskill your agile teams. Scaled Agile Inc. offers various training courses to manage Agile transformation.

SAFe training courses can help you implement SAFe methodology, lead SAFe teams as a SAFe Scrum Master, and manage Lean portfolios in SAFe.

SAFe + Jira = Success

Combine SAFe and Jira, and you have a comprehensive framework for success. After starting with SAFe, enterprises report significant, quantifiable improvements in implementing strategies.

Check out Easy Agile Programs for Jira. This app helps align teams at scale with its Program Roadmap. Viewing dependencies and other milestones at the ART level. Try it for free.

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Do your teams have a clear understanding of what needs to be done – and why?

One of the keys to being agile is to focus on the work that matters. This means working on projects that add value to the business and contribute to performance. But for many organizations, teams can get caught up on the latest feature or development, without understanding how that relates to the bigger picture of what the business cares about.

To keep your team focused on what they have set out to achieve in order to deliver value and achieve business outcomes, setting smart PI Objectives is essential. We look at why they’re so important, what makes a good PI objective, and how you can use them in your organization.

At a glance:

• PI objectives help teams understand how what they’re doing matters to the business.
• Good PI objectives are SMART – specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound.
• Linking features to PI objectives within the same tool makes it easier for teams and stakeholders to see how work is achieving business objectives.

What are PI objectives?

When an agile team gets together for a PI planning session, there are two key outputs:

1. The Program Board (ART Planning Board in SAFe 6.0) covers big picture information such as features, dependencies between teams, and milestones. A feature is an agreed upon piece of work identified as being important to meeting business needs. For software development teams, this might be a new product feature. For marketing teams, it might be a website refresh or an advertising campaign.
2. PI objectives link the scheduled features to broader business objectives and value. This helps align work that needs to be done with broader business goals. They are then broken down into committed and uncommitted objectives.
   1. Committed objectives are those the team is confident they can deliver within the Program Increment. These objectives have been committed by the team through a confidence vote.
   2. Uncommitted objectives are those the team have low confidence in delivering but can help to build a buffer into the PI. This is because while the outcome of these objectives may not be certain, they are included in the teams capacity and plan for the PI should capacity remain after delivering on committed objectives.

The benefits of having smart PI objectives

PI objectives link what teams are working on to what the business cares about. They create alignment with business objectives by clearly connecting features to business value. As a result, teams know how their work is adding value.

Smart PI objectives provide a framework for this. They help build trust, create a shared language, and provide a clear direction. Everyone in the team can then understand what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and why it’s important.

Without smart PI objectives in place, teams can spend time on tasks that aren’t adding value to the business and impact agility.

PI objectives are essential to your ability to measure success. Completing features alone isn't enough - they must drive a business outcome. They help get teams clear on why the work they do matters and define what success looks like.

What makes a good PI objective?

We’ve talked about why PI objectives are so critical, and now we’ll explain what makes a good PI objective.

Good PI objectives:

• Allow the business to see deliverables in a set timeframe
• Provide clarity on how scheduled work  fits into the big picture
• Enhance communication between teams and stakeholders
• Include no more than 7 to 10 objectives in total
• Aligns with what the business cares about
• Are clear on why it’s important and what it will deliver
• Are understood by anyone who picks them up

Are SMART – that is, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timebound

PI objectives need to be SMART

Using the SMART goal-setting framework to write your PI objectives helps keep your objectives clear and concise. Under this framework, your PI objective needs to be:

• Specific – Clearly and explicitly state the intended outcome of your objective.
• Measurable – Describe what your team needs to do to achieve the objective and how they will quantify success. Stakeholder feedback should form part of this.
• Achievable – Ensure the objective is realistic and within your team’s control and influence.
• Relevant – Align the objective with overall business objectives.
• Timebound – Set an appropriate timeframe to achieve the objective within the PI.

Team PI objectiveEnsure Easy Agile server customers have a seamless option to migrate to cloud by implementing JCMA and site import/export by the end of Q3.

Tips for writing SMART (and smart) PI objectives

Typically, many teams will run PI planning sessions in one tool, and then use another tool (like Confluence) to record PI objectives.

But separating PI objectives from the planning sessions makes it hard for the team and stakeholders to see how the work is shifting the dial for the business.

With the Easy Agile Programs, you can directly link your features to your objectives within the same tool. You're also able to describe the objective within Easy Agile Programs and assign business value:

By connecting features to PI objectives within the same tool, teams and business stakeholders gain clear visibility of work. They can see how their work is helping to achieve business objectives.

Learn more

Using the SMART framework to define PI objectives helps your teams focus on the right work. They align projects with broader business goals while providing a shared understanding across teams. By working towards the same purpose, they help keep your teams and organization productive and agile.

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