The Three Phases of RTE Maturity

Your company has finally committed to practicing Scrum. WOOT!! 🎉 The promised land is laid out before you — self-organizing teams, sustainable delivery pace, and autonomy to do the right thing for the product and the team. You can't wait to get started! (Spoiler alert: There's an agile release train in your future.)

That was three months ago. Today, your product development organization is a hot mess. Teams are delivering the wrong work at the right time. Code is stuck on a shelf waiting for another team to deliver a dependency. And upper management is thinking about pulling the plug and going back to the older waterfall days.

If you work in a large organization with 50+ software developers and engineers, Scrum can be a tough nut to crack. The larger the organization, the more likely you'll have cross-team dependencies, scheduling conflicts, and challenges creating transparency between the business, product, and engineering teams. But fear not...

SAFe to the rescue! SAFe is short for scaled agile framework. Intended to help large companies implement Scrum, SAFe provides a framework for coordinating work across many Scrum teams.

Part of the SAFe framework is the concept of an agile release train (ART). If you're not familiar with ARTs, you're in the right place. We'll explain what an ART is, why it helps large companies deliver software solutions more efficiently, and how you can start an ART at your company.

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So, what is an agile release train?

First, let's explain the train metaphor. A train goes down the tracks intending to reach a specific destination. Along the way, the train may stop at multiple depots and add new cargo or passengers. Your software solution is the train tracks. Team contributions to that solution are the new cargo you pick up at the depots. And, the destination is the business value delivered to your users. Simple enough, huh?

ARTs help a group of teams stay aligned on the business purpose of their work and coordinate the delivery of solutions. Your teams are probably organized by function or value stream. An ART identifies the input and timing of each team's contributions that help achieve the business objective for the value stream. Think of it as cross-functional coordination on steroids.

Here are some basic requirements for an ART:

• The schedule is fixed so the scope is variable. But don't panic — once your teams have a consistent velocity, confidence in the scope will increase.
• All teams must be on the same sprint and release cadence.
• Each team follows the values and principles in the Agile Manifesto.
• ARTs participate in planning events for program increments (PIs) and inspect and adapt (I&A) ceremonies, which are similar to retrospectives and system demos.
• Innovation and planning (IP) iterations must be regularly scheduled between program increments. This provides your large team of individual agile teams time to innovate, update infrastructure, or indulge in some specialized training or a hot tech conference. IP iterations also offer a nice buffer in case your PI gets behind schedule.

If your organization is large enough, you may need multiple agile release trains focused on independent value streams. If that's the case, you may need an additional level of coordination found in a solution train. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Principles of an agile release train

An Agile Release Train (ART) takes its cues from the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) to ensure that multiple agile teams can align and collaborate seamlessly. Here are the core principles that guide an Agile Release Train:

Fixed schedule

ARTs adhere to a predefined schedule to deliver work consistently. This schedule is organized through Program Increments (PIs), which are typically 12 weeks long. The fixed cadence helps teams plan and deliver work efficiently.

Bi-weekly cadence

Much like individual agile teams work in sprints, ARTs operate in two-week segments known as system increments. This regular rhythm facilitates continuous progress and rapid feedback cycles.

Known velocity

The train's capacity to produce work in a given PI—referred to as velocity—is derived from historical performance data. By dividing projects into smaller tasks, teams can prioritize and deliver essential features more effectively.

Develop on cadence, release on demand

While development follows a rigid schedule, the release date is flexible and depends on project completion. This approach allows teams to continuously provide value to customers without being restricted by fixed release dates.

Program increment planning

PI planning is a cornerstone event where all agile teams within the ART come together, usually in person, to establish strategic objectives for the upcoming increment. This collaborative planning ensures everyone is aligned and working towards common goals.

Innovation and planning

At the end of each PI, teams participate in an innovation and planning (IP) event. This period is dedicated to planning the next increment, engaging in educational activities, and addressing infrastructure needs.

Inspect and adapt

To foster continuous improvement, ARTs hold an inspect and adapt (IA) event at the end of every PI. Teams assess their progress and identify areas for improvement through a problem-solving workshop, ensuring that they are always refining their processes and delivering better results.

Roles in a SAFe agile release train

Generally, teams use an ART in a Scrum environment, but, SAFe and agile release train concepts can apply to any agile methodology, including extreme programming (XP), Lean, or Kanban. Regardless of your chosen agile methodology, there are specific roles required to run an ART.

Agile teams

You can't have an ART without agile teams. Thank you, Captain Obvious. 🙄

One difference between SAFe and traditional Scrum is that ARTs allow you to operate with teams dedicated to a specific function, like frontend or backend development, quality assurance, DevOps, security, and business or product functions. ART itself is cross-functional so your teams don't have to be.

Each team is required to have a Scrum Master and Product Owner, just like in Scrum.

Release train engineers (RTEs)

Like Scrum Masters help their team members follow Scrum principles and best practices, release train engineers are servant leaders who do the same for the agile release train. RTEs help ensure the proper execution of program increments, remove blockers, manage risk, and work with the teams on improvements.

Release train engineers typically report to an Agile Management Office, or in the case of Lean, the portfolio management team.

Product managers

While some traditional Scrum teams use both product managers and product owners, SAFe operates at such a scale that both roles are required. The product manager drives the vision, roadmap, and feature backlog while the product owner is responsible for defining the PI objective with the team and executing the functionality.

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System architects

Again, due to the scale at which SAFe teams operate, a system architect is required to design the high-level structure of the overall system, determine how each piece fits into the puzzle, and create stable integration points to bring data and processes into a centralized ERP.

Business owners

The business owners are responsible for achieving business outcomes like revenue or customer acquisition goals. As the primary stakeholder for ARTS, business owners operate at a strategic level and will participate in vision, roadmap, and program increment discussions. Their job is to ensure products are built to meet specific business objectives.

Customers

Customers are the ultimate economic buyers or value users of the solution. Their feedback and needs are critical to the success of the ART.

System teams

System teams typically assist in building and maintaining development, continuous integration, and test environments. They play a crucial role in ensuring that the infrastructure supports the ART effectively.

Shared services

Shared services include specialists necessary for the success of an ART but who cannot be dedicated to a specific train. These often include data security experts, information architects, site reliability engineers (SRE), database administrators (DBAs), and many more.

Get started with your agile release train

So, you're ready to jump on the ART! Great! Let's walk through the steps to get you started on your journey.

1. Start with training

Don't skimp on this one. You likely started your agile practices with some training. Do the same here. All the hard work and best intentions in the world can't help you if you don't have a solid understanding of the basics.

Along with training teams, you'll also want to train your leadership teams and executives. Just like when your company adopted agile principles, you'll want to make sure you have buy-in, an understanding of how agile release trains work, and the roles required to support them.

2. Identify your value streams

There are two types of value streams in SAFe: operational and development. An operational value stream focuses on delivering the value to end-users that was created by the development value stream. An example might be fulfilling an order from an eCommerce website.

A development value stream focuses on developing the business solution, like building that eCommerce website.

Identifying your value streams is important before selecting individuals and teams to work on the value stream and filling the additional roles required for the ART. Once the players have been chosen, you're ready to start planning.

3. Prepare the program increment backlog

It's time to refine your program backlog and get ready for PI planning. Planning and refining are best when you can meet face-to-face, but sometimes in large organizations, that's impossible. If you have a distributed team, make sure you have a good backlog tool like Jira to help facilitate virtual meetings.

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Create your user stories at the program level to fit in a two-week timebox and plan your initial release. Until your teams have established a predictable velocity, leave some wiggle room in the iteration.

4. Start the program increment

Now, it's Scrum as usual. You have your sprint ready to go — just execute it like normal. At the end of the sprint, you can add your teams' contribution to the release train.

5. Rinse and repeat

Agile release trains are a continuous, iterative delivery mechanism. Just like traditional Scrum, your teams will build, release, learn, and then start building again. Don't forget to schedule an innovation and planning iteration to give the team a break from the train and time to improve their systems or their team.

Are you ready to jump on board?

SAFe and agile release trains help teams maintain agile development practices as they scale up in size. What may look complicated at first glance is actually a well-orchestrated process designed for team synchronization according to business value streams.

Use the Scrum knowledge you have within the individual teams, and then train in SAFe practices and get prepared to build your first agile release train. You'll learn by doing but save yourself and your company some headaches and money and invest in training first.

We've linked to some great learning articles throughout this piece, but here are a few more to help you jumpstart your SAFe learning:

• The Ultimate Guide to PI Planning [2021 SAFe Edition]
• SAFe Program Board 101: Everything You Need To Know
• Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) 5.0 — The Easy Agile Review
• Streamline your workflows with better PI Planning software
• How to prepare for distributed PI Planning

Good luck on your agile journey and stay SAFe! (Too corny??🤦🏽‍♀️)

Scrum teams create release plans to support successful product releases. This helps them maintain their focus on the product vision and feature deliverables.

Here, we’ll explore agile release planning, why it’s important, and best practices to ensure successful releases.

What is agile release planning?

Because software projects are unpredictable, release planning helps team members prioritize their workflow. A release plan focuses on getting specific product features ready for the market. It should examine the product scope, the release date for feature completion, and the resources needed for each release.

The development team uses feedback from earlier product iterations to guide their planning. Product owners and Scrum teams meet to discuss the agile release plan, ensuring everyone understands the required product functionality and the effort needed for each increment.

Instead of planning for a significant product release, teams divide the project scope into short sprints. Many Scrum teams use Jira to help them visualize their sprints and track project status in real time.

Why is release planning important?

Agile release planning is critical for several reasons:

• Strategic alignment: It helps align development activities with broader business goals and customer expectations, so the highest-value features are delivered first
• Predictability: A clear release plan creates predictability, setting realistic expectations for stakeholders and improving overall project transparency
• Risk management: Identifying potential risks and dependencies early helps the team proactively address them, reducing the likelihood of significant delays or setbacks
• Improved collaboration: It promotes collaboration among team members and stakeholders, encouraging clear communication and a shared understanding of project goals
• Separation from product roadmaps: While a product roadmap provides a high-level strategy for the product, a release plan focuses on execution. Understanding this distinction helps teams use both tools effectively.

Project release planning helps software development teams plan, direct, and release each project in increments to serve the customer experience. Teams often use this methodology for short sprints of product development.

Release planning provides agile and Scrum teams with a solid direction to complete their projects. Team members also use this opportunity to use sprint feedback to create increments that align with the next release’s project roadmap.

Getting the product plan together

Release planning seems complex, but with some foresight, it can be simple. Let’s review each part of the process.

1. Who leads the release plan?

Typically, the product development team takes its lead from the Scrum master or the product owner. During the meeting, this leader will raise questions about the product backlog to ensure that sprint discussions align with the final product.

All the product stakeholders should participate in the release plan to ensure their feedback is taken into consideration. Without input from everyone involved in the product development, the team risks missing out on vital information to keep the product roadmap on track.

2. Agile release plan aspects

While the release plan is meant to be agile, it also follows a strict process to ensure that teams keep the product roadmap in sight.

Agile teams take all the sprint planning discussions and evaluate these to detail new product deliverables. Although most organizations will use various approaches in their release planning process, each sprint review should include the following aspects:

• The agreed product development releases at each stage of the sprint
• A direction for each new product release
• Specific current and future iterations due in each upcoming release
• What features and functionality should accompany the iteration
• Specific task requirements for each feature delivery to meet the release goal

By going through an in-depth release planning process, software development teams harness the value of these sprint meetings. The ability to rapidly change direction as necessary ensures the team releases the best possible product.

This constant iteration in each sprint review is also valuable in the dynamic environment of product development.

This level of planning, combined with an iterative schedule to account for the dynamic nature of software, is what makes Agile product development so valuable.

3. Sprint meeting discussions

Sprint meeting discussions revolve around user stories, product backlog, and product backlog items. Scrum release planning also considers other issues such as dependencies and product functionality. Other aspects that the team speaks about involve the next release and the number of sprints they must complete and deliver.

Essentially, team members must keep the product vision in mind for effective release planning. This vision helps team members isolate minimum market sprint feature batches and their release dates.

Sprint meeting discussions should include:

• Release plan prioritization of impending new product features and functionality
• Evaluation and inclusion of stakeholder feedback for each sprint
• Detailed descriptions of sprint deliverables and whether these fall into the category of product short-term increments or major longer-term releases
• Which product version will be ready for release and the ideal sequence of product releases to achieve each release goal

Development teams build several product versions. After creating these versions, they prioritize them to release the most important ones to users.

Part of the purpose of release planning is to ensure that all stakeholders are on the same product development page. Another element of these sprint planning meetings is to drive ownership and acceptance of the product vision.

Development of the release plan

There are four steps that software development teams follow to create their product plan.

1. Creating the vision

First, you need to define the vision for the product. Creating a clear vision produces a roadmap for the team to follow in each consecutive sprint. This vision should align with market demand and the product owner’s goals.

It also encourages team members to sift through which features they should prioritize. Similarly, the product roadmap helps teams evaluate the resources they need during the sprint review. Product planning also enables teams to be flexible. Planning reviews ensure direction changes to accommodate ongoing increments to achieve overall release goals.

2. Prioritization of the product backlog

After defining the vision, team members focus on prioritizing features in the product backlog. Here, stakeholder inputs must align with the vision to successfully implement user stories. User stories are vital to the process as they provide the background for detailing product features or functionality.

The product manager provides the team with direction at this stage to outline a viable release plan. This release plan must include the product release goals, release dates, and prioritization of user stories.

3. Set the Scrum planning meeting

The next step in the planning meeting is for the stakeholders to review the plan. Team members now have the chance to adjust deliverables in line with the vision.

Everyone must agree to the release plan at this stage before they can move forward to the next release.

Meeting agenda

Setting up a meeting agenda helps manage the release plan. The essential elements of the agenda for the Scrum framework include:

1. Product plan assessment

The Scrum team reviews the product roadmap to ensure that everyone accepts the product vision and goals.

2. Architecture evaluation

With each release, the Scrum team and product owner evaluate the previous sprint’s architecture. They examine the technical details of the product development and discuss any potential problems that can impact the product release.

Scrum teams go over the scope and estimates of their release plan. Team members determine whether their planning includes the risk of technical debt and if they can complete certain task aspects, such as documenting their work to meet deadlines. Stakeholders also review dependencies that can influence the product versions’ functionality.

3. Velocity and iteration assessment

Scrum teams go over previous iterations to review their velocity estimates. They align their estimates with the suggested iteration schedule to ensure they cover all vital elements.

The product manager controls this assessment to ensure points are assigned to user stories. Assessing user stories and assigning points demonstrate the level of effort the team must invest in each iteration. The total number of story points then represents the estimation of release dates for each sprint release.

An iteration schedule is built by the agile team to determine their velocity for the current and subsequent sprints during this assessment.

The team creates the release scope, which includes all the necessary releases. The Scrum master assigns work to each team member, and all the stakeholders agree to the plan before moving to the next step.

4. Agreement on the definition of done

The team members must now discuss what will qualify as the definition of done for each feature release. Team members must consider whether their evaluation of user stories meets all the product owner's acceptance criteria for release. Once they can prove the acceptance criteria are met in their assessment, they will know that a release completion is valid.

The definition of done must confirm that team members have completed all their assigned tasks for the user story. Team members must also record each task so that the product owner can assess their work.

5. Populate the product release schedule

The project manager can now populate and complete the release plan schedule. All stakeholders should be able to access the calendar to track progress. This release plan schedule helps everyone stay focused on product deliverables and release dates.

Best practices for agile release planning

To make your agile release planning effective, follow these key best practices:

• Set a clear product vision: Define a clear, shared vision that aligns with your customers’ needs and business goals. This helps guide your team's priorities and decision-making throughout the project.
• Prioritize features by customer value: Clearly identify and prioritize features that provide the greatest value to your customers and the organization. This helps your team stay focused on delivering impactful results.
• Regularly review and adapt your goals: Agile release plans aren’t set in stone. Regular check-ins ensure that goals remain relevant as priorities shift based on customer feedback, business needs, or market changes.
• Clarify roles and responsibilities: Make sure everyone on the team understands their role and what’s expected of them. Clear roles enhance accountability and help prevent misunderstandings or duplicated effort.
• Define a 'Definition of Done': Establish clear acceptance criteria for what constitutes a completed feature or release. This ensures technical and functional completeness before deployment.
• Integrate DevOps practices: Aligning agile release planning with DevOps methodologies enhances collaboration between development and operations teams, improving deployment frequency and reliability.
• Plan small, incremental releases: Break down large product releases into smaller increments. This approach lets your team deliver frequent updates, gather user feedback early, and adapt quickly to customer demands.

Get help with your release planning

Agile release planning is a vital part of the software development team’s success. Create a comprehensive agile release plan for minor or major releases, and you make your life simpler for an upcoming release. Focusing on the release plan calendar helps keep product owners and team members aware of the overall product vision.

At Easy Agile, we offer tools that support agile release planning directly within Jira. Easy Agile TeamRhythm supports collaborative release planning in Jira. The highly-visual story map format transforms the flat Jira backlog into a meaningful picture of work, making it easier to manage your backlog and plan your release.

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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