As you may know by now, SAFe for Lean Enterprises (SAFe 5) is the world’s leading framework for business agility. SAFe integrates the power of Lean, Agile, and DevOps into a comprehensive operating system that helps enterprises to excel.
But what is worthy of knowing is that - SAFe is highly Configurable and Scalable and allows each organization to adapt the framework to its own business needs. Based on the complexity of the products being built and delivered with small to medium to large numbers of teams, the organizations can choose from “four out-of-the-box configurations” that SAFe provides.
SAFe is also known as the Engaging Framework.
In addition to the 4 Configurations, SAFe provides 7 Core Competencies and 21 dimensions that enable Business agility. They are shown below:
While you can read more about these competencies by going to this webpage from the Scaled Agile website (and go to the Overview tab) - what is noteworthy is to understand the fine detail behind this picture.
If you zoom out - to the left of the picture, we see three elements with the light gray background; to the right side, we see three elements in the light beige color background, and at the bottom, we see an element in white background. Finally, we see a circular element in the center of the picture.
Here is an easy way to look at it --- Ready!
The gray color side with the 3 elements represents those that are tactical and executable in nature. Meaning those that involve hands-on work for product delivery, and depending on the size and complexity of the products and solutions being built, you have to have Team and technical agility >> Scale up to Agile Product Delivery which further gets scaled up to Enterprise solution delivery.
Now onto the right side of the picture, the light beige color side with its 3 elements represents the organisation's strategic side. Whether it is small - medium or large size, these competencies are essential to achieve substantial tangible and long term benefits towards business agility.
The bottom white-colored element is foundational in nature which means - Leadership is Key for your organizational success.
Having understood these competencies, It is critical to realize that “Customer Centricity” is at the center of the organizational universe. Without customer centricity, organizations do perish sooner or later.
Now coming to the question at hand.
DO WE NEED ALL THE SEVEN COMPETENCIES FOR MY ORGANIZATION?
- 1. Well, I would say - that depends on your organization and the complexity of the product being built, along with the number of teams you have.