Two years with SAFe — this is what stands out.
A carrot-chocolate-cream-cheese-blueberry-lemon-candy-crust-frozen-meat cake.
I remember how the pieces in the Tetris puzzle all came together after reading Henrik Kniberg's booklet "Scrum and XP from the trenches" in 2007. The year after, I took a Scrum Master certification from Ken Schwaber. For me, Scrum was the Rosetta Stone that helped me put what I already learned into a structure. For a team.
When it comes to working with many teams, I have never had the same "aha" experience. It is like the pieces in the Tetris don't fit together. For governance or scaling, I have worked with Prince2, Rational Unified Process, and LeSS. But none helped me solve the puzzle.
For the last two years, I have worked as a Lean-Agile Leader and Business Owner in a large SAFe implementation. I still haven't found what I am looking for. I have seen some impediments, though.
Let me introduce you to my very personal top three obstacles experiencing SAFe:
- SAFe is impossible to grasp
- Promotes hierarchy and unnecessary coordination
- Roles, roles, and more roles
There are more impressions, of course, but these have created the most headaches for me. Would you…
