It’s impossible not to know about Agile development nowadays. Heaven forbid someone catches you unaware—it’s practically a career-ending move. I’m joking, of course, but the fact remains: every developer and manager in IT can talk at length about how they’ve implemented Scrum, Kanban, sprints, and plenty of other fancy terms in their teams. However, in practice, it turns out that very few people actually know how to make all this work properly (and the author of these lines harbors no illusions about his own expertise, even though I’ve been working in this field for a long time). While these methodologies have been actively used for many years, it eventually became clear that in their pure form, they work well for small teams, but when applied to projects with a large number of participants, the results are less impressive. That’s when the next wave of development began, as people started thinking and experimenting with how to scale these practices.
A lot of new methodologies emerged—some faded away, while others developed through trial and error and found their use. Among them are Scrum of Scrums, LeSS, and SAFe, though there are many others as well. It’s hard to say which one is clearly the best, but SAFe has recently gained a lot of followers and seems to be leading the pack statistically. At some point, I couldn’t ignore it because every methodology has its advantages. Even if it doesn’t fully take root for you or your team, you can always borrow some elements, implement them first, then move on to the next… and so on, as long as it genuinely improves quality, transparency, and, of course, the final result.
SAFe stands for Scaled Agile Framework and was originally created by Dean Leffingwell as a foundation of Agile practices designed to implement Agile methodologies in large teams (50 people and up, though the official documentation cites numbers as high as 20,000 employees, and there’s nothing stopping you from using these approaches in even larger organizations).
As a thoughtfully designed knowledge base, the framework is presented on its official website: https://www.scaledagileframework.com/. All articles can be read directly there. However, I was particularly interested in the structured approach as envisioned by the authors of the framework—how they want to present and “sell” it. Besides, I always find it more convenient to read in book form. So, I decided to begin my deep dive (having already been somewhat familiar with various parts of it) by starting with the book. I picked up SAFe 4.0, though the framework has continued to evolve, with versions 4.5 and 5.0 (since 2020) being released. However, the newer versions don’t introduce drastic changes—they mainly refine, improve, and enhance what’s already there. For general understanding, version 4.0 is not significantly different from 4.5 or 5.0 (especially since the details are always available on the website, which is kept up-to-date).
SAFe’s description isn’t just about methodologies but also about the principles underlying them. The book pays particular attention to this, starting with “preparing” future evangelists of the new direction: what the Lean-Agile mindset is, what it means to be a leader in this field, and the principles of SAFe upon which all approaches are built.
The framework itself is divided into four types. The core approaches are covered by Essential SAFe, while Large Solution SAFe is used for larger projects. Portfolio SAFe manages portfolios, and Full SAFe aims to “rule them all.” The book methodically explores all the components of Full SAFe, starting with the basics from Essential and gradually progressing into more complex territory.
Although the content is essentially a collection of articles compiled into a specific structure, the way it is presented—from foundational concepts to broader applications—creates a cohesive narrative with logical transitions between sections.
It’s pointless to argue about the basic principles—they are essentially slightly evolved Agile principles, spiced up with some philosophical musings about “what kind of leader is needed for Agile methodologies to work.”
The framework itself can be divided into two parts:
- Tools
- Organizational approaches
SAFe introduces a variety of tools, many of which weren’t specifically created for SAFe but are actively used within it. These tools are sound and practical, often finding successful applications even outside of SAFe. For example, one such tool is the WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) task prioritization approach. It’s incredibly versatile and can be effectively applied in its original form or adapted for various types of tasks.
The organizational approaches, in my view, are largely a logical evolution of other Agile practices specifically in the context of scaling. There’s no “magic” here—most of these ideas are things you could arrive at on your own. However, the authors of SAFe have skillfully compiled these concepts into a comprehensive methodology. And, like Scrum, SAFe has its specific roles. Often, these are simply scaled-up versions of their smaller-scale Scrum counterparts: instead of a Product Owner, there’s an entire Product Management team; instead of a Scrum Master, there’s a Release Train Engineer (RTE), and so on.
But, like any methodology, SAFe doesn’t work right out of the box. It’s not enough to just read a smart book and expect everything to magically fall into place. For success, it’s crucial to start applying it wisely in practice, retraining both teams and leaders to think differently. This is why the SAFe community offers a vast array of training sessions and certifications for various SAFe roles.
So, what’s the verdict? The book provides an understanding of what SAFe is, its foundations, and its goals. However, as a book, it’s incredibly tedious and heavy to read. Much of the material is too superficial. Yes, it describes approaches, roles, interconnections, and even sample agendas for large meetings. But it’s all at a fairly obvious level—like “do things well, and things will go well.” Most of this could be condensed into a short overview article, something like the following one in Russian: “Обзор Essential SAFe: про методологию человеческим языком”.
When you reach the last part of the book, which should theoretically be the most useful and interesting—on implementing SAFe in real conditions—it becomes downright disappointing. To me, it came across as vague and wordy, filled with blatant advertising for their paid certifications and licensing. The message seems to be, “Oh, it’s complicated, so pay us lots of money, and we’ll explain everything to you.” A good methodology should sell itself, but here it’s more like “buy our trainers, and they’ll teach you at great expense so that you can then teach others at great expense” (how can one not think of pyramid schemes?).
That said, I’ll reiterate that there are many useful elements in the methodology, which I myself use in one way or another. But in the form of overly superficial and “fluffy” content, this book failed to sell me on SAFe. That’s why I was very disappointed with the book as an “introduction to SAFe.”
My rating: 2/5
