Why SAFe is a successful Product

While many Agile practitioners believe SAFe is not Agile, it is still a go-to choice for many big organizations.

There is a constant discussion among the Agile world about why SAFe is not agile, or it helps achieve nothing in terms of agility, value to the organization; however, the fact is that it is the most popular scaling agile framework, and even with so many critiques what is causing organizations to adopt SAFe.

If we look at SAFe as a product, it would be easier to understand why SAFe is a successful product.

1) Understanding Market Needs

When Agile momentum was started, organizations don’t want to miss the train. While they wanted to catch the train, they really don’t want to change how they travel. Agile was a new way of working, which require a lot of cultural and mindset change, which is hard, and SAFe provided them a way for self-gratification of being called Agile while not need to change anything at the core and changing, renaming existing process was good enough for them to be called an Agile Organization.

2) Frequent Releases

SAFe is doing frequent releases to its framework to add more functionality with all kinds of readymade customization options. So rather than making a real change, organizations can choose which suits them based on their current status and label them Agile.

3) Distribution Network/ Availability

SAFe has focused on creating a good distribution network in terms of trainers, resources. Becoming a SAFe trainer is comparatively easy than other scrum trainer certifications, which helped SAFe attract a significant trainer community. In turn, organizations found it easily accessible to train their employees due to a good network.

4) Low Cost of called Agile (Trying to avoid J-curve)

As SAFe meets where the organization is comfortably sitting, without a major change in the way it is working, migration to the SAFe process is comparatively easy, and organizations rarely see “J-Curve” challenge with transformations.

5) Detailed Documentation

SAFe provides good documentation of its framework with all details about how each process should be performed. For organizations expecting readymade Agile solutions, this is an encyclopedia of Agile(pun intended). Organizations can get all their queries answered on the SAFE website.

6) Multifunctional

This is a perfect sales pitch. If you don’t like “A,” try “B.” It has created easy-to-use variations for all different needs, making it easier to understand and follow for different organization scenarios.

To sum it up

In the end, frameworks are also products, which helps solve some problem. For Agile frameworks, the market need seems quite different, where users want to be called Agilist without changing its flow. SAFe tried to solve this favorably and become most talked about Agile Framework(either for or Against 😊)