Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Vocabulary
Iteration Review
A cadence-based event, where each team inspects the increment at the end of every Iteration to assess progress, and then adjusts its backlog for the next iteration. During this conversation, discuss: - Did we meet iteration goals? - Story by story review - How we're doing in the Program Increment - Review of PI objectives - Review remaining PI scope and reprioritize if necessary
Program Increment (PI) Planning
A cadence-based, face-to-face event that serves as the heartbeat of the Agile Release Train (ART), aligning all the teams on the ART to a shared mission and Vision.
Lean Governance
A collaboration between Enterprise Executives, Business Owners and stakeholders, Agile Project Management Office, and Lean Portfolio Management to output: * KPI's * Reporting * Compliance * Epic criteria
Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
A competency describes how an enterprise implements Lean approaches to strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance.
The Lean-Agile Leadership
A competency that describes how leaders can drive and sustain organizational change and operational excellence by empowering individuals and teams to reach their highest potential. They do this by learning, exhibiting, teaching, and coaching SAFe's Lean-Agile mindset, values, principles, and practices.
DevOps and Release on Demand
A competency which describes how implementing a mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices as well as a continuous delivery pipeline provides the enterprise with the capability to release value, in whole or in part, at any time necessary to meet market and customer demand.
Business Solutions and Lean Systems Engineering
A competency which describes how to apply Lean-Agile principles and practices to the specification, development, deployment, and evolution of large, complex software applications and cyber-physical systems.
Epic
A container for a Solution development initiative large enough to require analysis, the definition of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and financial approval before implementation. Implementation occurs over multiple Program Increments (PIs) and follows the Lean startup 'build-measure-learn' cycle. This initiative includes a Lean Business Case and is considered complete when Success Criteria are met. Epic estimates are generated by rolling up feature estimates.
Backlog Refinement
A continuous effort to preview and elaboration of upcoming stories, allowing teams time to "sleep on" new stories prior to Iteration Planning. This provides time to identify and resolve dependencies for the next iteration and creates a strong process foundation for test automation and Acceptance Test-Driven Development.
Agile Team
A cross-functional group of 5 to 11 people who have the responsibility to define, build, test, and where applicable deploy, some element of Solution value—all in a short Iteration timebox. Specifically, this group incorporates the Dev Team, Scrum Master, and Product Owner roles.
Vision
A description of the future state of the Solution under development. It reflects Customer and stakeholder needs, as well as the Feature and Capabilities, proposed to meet those needs.
Lean User Experience (Lean UX)
A design, a mindset, a culture, and a process that embraces Lean-Agile methods. It implements functionality in minimum viable increments and determines success by measuring results against a benefit hypothesis.
Iteration Goals
A high-level summary of the business and technical goals that the Agile Team agrees to accomplish in an Iteration. They are vital to coordinating an Agile Release Train (ART) as a self-organizing, self-managing team of teams. Serves three purposes: 1. Align team members to a common purpose 2. Align Program Teams to common PI Objectives 3. Provide continuous management information
Capabilities
A higher-level solution behavior that typically spans multiple ARTs. Each is sized and split into multiple features to facilitate their implementation in a single PI.
SAFe for Lean Enterprises
A knowledge base of proven, integrated principles, practices, and competencies for Lean, Agile, and DevOps.
ScrumXP
A lightweight process to deliver value for cross-functional, self-organized teams within SAFe. It combines the power of Scrum project management practices with Extreme Programming (XP) practices.
Agile Release Train (ART)
A long-lived team of Agile teams, which, along with other stakeholders, incrementally develops, delivers, and where applicable operates, one or more solutions in a value stream.
Product Owner (PO)
A member of the Agile Team responsible for defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog to streamline the execution of program priorities while maintaining the conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components for the team.
Team Kanban
A method that helps teams facilitate the flow of value by visualizing workflow, establishing Work In Process (WIP) limits, measuring throughput, and continuously improving their process.
Program and Solution Kanban
A method to visualize and manage the flow of Features and Capabilities from ideation to analysis, implementation, and release through the Continuous Delivery Pipeline.
DevOps
A mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices. It provides communication, integration, automation, and close cooperation among all the people needed to plan, develop, test, deploy, release, and maintain a Solution. Uses the CALMR approach: * Culture of Shared Responsibility * Automation of Continuous Delivery Pipeline * Lean flow accelerates delivery * Measurement of everything * Recovery enables low risk releases
Set-Based Design (SBD)
A practice that keeps requirements and design options flexible for as long as possible during the development process. Instead of choosing a single point solution upfront, this practice identifies and simultaneously explores multiple options, eliminating poorer choices over time. It enhances flexibility in the design process by committing to technical solutions only after validating assumptions, which produces better economic results.
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)
A prioritization model used to sequence jobs (eg., Features, Capabilities, and Epics) to produce maximum economic benefit. In SAFe, this prioritization model is estimated as the Cost of Delay (CoD) divided by job size.
ART Sync
A regular forum for programs to coordinate dependencies. This occurs via two avenues: 1. Scrum of Scrums 2. PO Sync
Iteration Retrospective (or Retrospective / Retro)
A regular meeting where Agile Team members discuss the results of the Iteration, review their practices, and identify ways to improve. * Choose 1-2 things that can be done better and target them for the next iteration * Enter improvement items into the Team Backlog
Solution Architect/Engineer
A role operating individually or on a small team that defines a shared technical and architectural vision for the Solution under development. They participate in determining the system, subsystems, and interfaces, validate technology assumptions and evaluate alternatives while working closely with the Agile Release Train (ARTs) and Solution Train.
Roadmap
A schedule of events and Milestones that communicate planned Solution deliverables over a planning horizon.
Release Train Engineer (RTE)
A servant leader and coach for the Agile Release Train (ART). The RTE's major responsibilities are to facilitate the ART events and processes and assist the teams in delivering value. RTEs communicate with stakeholders, escalate impediments, help manage risk, and drive relentless improvement.
Feature
A service that fulfills a stakeholder need. Each one includes a benefit hypothesis and acceptance criteria, and is sized or split as necessary to be delivered by a single Agile Release Train (ART) in a Program Increment (PI).
Economic Framework
A set of decision guidelines that align everyone with the financial objectives of the Solution and informs the economic decision-making process.
Lean Budgets
A set of funding and governance practices that increase development throughput by decreasing funding overhead and friction while maintaining financial and fitness-for-use governance.
SAFe for Government
A set of success patterns that help public sector organizations implement Lean-Agile practices in a government context.
Agile Architecture
A set of values and practices that support the active evolution of the design and architecture of a system while implementing new system capabilities.
System Demo
A significant event that provides an integrated view of new Features for the most recent Iteration delivered by all the teams in the Agile Release Train (ART). Each work item shown gives ART stakeholders an objective measure of progress during a Program Increment (PI). All work items are shown from the staging environment or the nearest proxy.
Inspect & Adapt (I&A)
A significant event, held at the end of each Program Increment (PI), where: * The current state of the Solution is demonstrated and evaluated by the train. * Quantitative measurements are shared. * Teams then reflect and identify improvement backlog items via a structured, problem-solving workshop.
Business Owners
A small group of stakeholders who have the primary business and technical responsibility for governance, compliance, and return on investment (ROI) for a Solution developed by an Agile Release Train (ART). They are key stakeholders on the ART who must evaluate fitness for use and actively participate in certain ART events.
System Team
A specialized Agile Team that assists in building and supporting the Agile development environment, typically including development and maintenance of the toolchain that supports the Continuous Delivery Pipeline. This team may also support the integration of assets from Agile teams, perform end-to-end Solution testing where necessary, and assists with deployment and Release on Demand.
Compliance
A strategy and a set of activities and artifacts that allow teams to apply Lean-Agile development methods to build systems that have the highest possible quality, while simultaneously assuring they meet any regulatory, industry, or other relevant standards.
Gemba walks
A strategy used by developers to observe how customers / stakeholders execute the steps and specific activities in their operational value streams.
Dev Team
A subset of the Agile Team. It consists of dedicated professionals who can develop, test, and deploy a Story, Feature, or component. This subset typically includes software developers and testers, engineers, and other dedicated specialists required to complete a vertical slice of functionality.
Program Increment (PI) Objectives
A summary of the business and technical goals that an Agile Team or train intends to achieve in the upcoming Program Increment (PI).
Feature Toggle
A technique to facilitate dark launches by implementing toggles in the code, which enables switching between old and new functionality. Must be removed after product verification.
Lean Enterprise
A thriving digital age business that delivers competitive systems and solutions to its customers in the shortest sustainable lead time.
Program Increment (PI)
A timebox during which an Agile Release Train (ART) delivers incremental value in the form of working, tested software and systems. PIs are typically 8 - 12 weeks long. The most common pattern for a PI is four development Iterations, followed by one Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration.
Portfolio Canvas
A type of Business Model Canvas that has been adapted to charter and describe the structure and purpose of a SAFe portfolio. Portfolio Kanban The Portfolio Kanban is a mechanism used to visualize, manage, and analyze the prioritization and flow of portfolio Epics from ideation to implementation and completion.
Elicitation
A variety of structured techniques that Product Management and Product Owner professionals use to generate input and prioritize user needs. These include research methods such as interviews and surveys, brainstorming and idea reduction, questionnaires, and competitive analysis. Other techniques include requirements workshops, user experience mock-ups, user personas, review of customer requests, and use-case modeling.
Metrics
Agreed-upon measures used to evaluate how well the organization is progressing toward the portfolio, large solution, program, and team's business and technical objectives.
Extreme Programming (XP)
An agile software development framework that aims to produce higher quality software, and higher quality of life for the development team. It is the most specific of the agile frameworks regarding appropriate engineering practices for software development.
Develop on Cadence
An essential method for managing the inherent variability of systems development in a flow-based system, by making sure important events and activities occur on a regular, predictable schedule.
Iteration Planning
An event where all team members determine how much of the Team Backlog they can commit to delivering during an upcoming Iteration. The team summarizes the work as a set of committed Iteration Goals.
Definition of Done
An important way of ensuring increment of value can be considered complete and providing a level of standardization across all Agile Teams. Each team, train, and enterprise should build their own guidelines, but they usually share a core set of items.
Supplier
An internal or external organization that develops and delivers components, subsystems, or services that help Solution Trains and Agile Release Trains provide Solutions to their Customers.
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
Applies the power of Agile, along with the contemporary knowledge found in systems thinking and Lean product development to help businesses address the significant challenges of developing and delivering enterprise-class software and systems in the shortest sustainable lead time. It is an online freely revealed knowledge base of proven success patterns for implementing Lean-Agile software and systems at enterprise scale. It synchronizes alignment, collaboration, and delivery for a large number of teams.
Acceptance Criteria
At the feature or story level, used to provide the details of the Story from a testing point of view. These are created by the Agile Team and the PO (at the story level) and used for verification when the work is completed.
SAFe Program Consultants (SPCs)
Certified change agents who combine their technical knowledge of SAFe with an intrinsic motivation to improve the company's software and systems development processes. They play a critical role in successfully implementing SAFe. These people come from numerous internal or external roles, including business and technology leaders, portfolio/program/project managers, process leads, architects, analysts, and consultants.
Product Management
Collectively have content authority for the Program Backlog. They are responsible for identifying Customer needs, prioritizing Features, guiding the work through the Program Kanban and developing the program Vision and Roadmap. This role also participates heavily in metrics and the Inspect & Adapt event.
SAFe Implementation Roadmap
Consists of an overview graphic and a 12-article series that describes a strategy and an ordered set of activities that have proven to be effective in successfully implementing SAFe.
Architectural Runway
Consists of the existing code, components, and technical infrastructure needed to implement near-term features without excessive redesign and delay.
Portfolio Level
Contains the principles, practices, and roles needed to initiate and govern a set of development Value Streams. This is where strategy and investment funding are defined for value streams and their Solutions. This level also provides Agile portfolio operations and Lean governance for the people and resources needed to deliver solutions.
Program Level
Contains the roles and activities needed to continuously deliver solutions via an Agile Release Train (ART).
Team Level
Contains the roles, activities, events, and processes which Agile Teams build and deliver value in the context of the Agile Release Train (ART).
Large Solution Level
Contains the roles, artifacts, and processes needed to build large and complex solutions.
Foundation
Contains the supporting principles, values, mindset, implementation guidance, and leadership roles needed to deliver value successfully at scale.
Team Backlog
Contains user and enabler Stories that originate from the Program Backlog, as well as stories that arise locally from the team's local context. It may include other work items as well, representing all the things a team needs to do to advance their portion of the system.
Nonfunctional Requirements (NFRs)
Define system attributes such as security, reliability, performance, maintainability, scalability, and usability. They serve as constraints or restrictions on the design of the system across the different backlogs. Associated with backlogs at all levels of SAFe (Team, Program, Large Solution, Portfolio)
Lean Budget Guardrails
Describe budgetary, governance and spending policies and practices for the lean budgets allocated to a specific portfolio.
Team and Technical Agility Competency
Describes the critical skills and Lean-Agile principles and practices that are needed to create high-performing Agile teams who create high-quality, well designed technical solutions.
Strategic Themes
Differentiating business objectives that connect a portfolio to the strategy of the Enterprise. They influence portfolio strategy and provide business context for portfolio decision-making.
Solution
Each Value Stream Produces one or more of these, which are comprised of products, services, or systems delivered to the Customer, whether internal or external to the Enterprise. This is the end result of all roles, activities, and other components of SAFe - to continually deliver products or services of value to the customer.
Pre- and Post-Program Increment (PI) Planning
Events that are used to prepare for, and follow up after, PI Planning for Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and Suppliers in a Solution Train.
Product Owner Sync
Facilitated by the Release Train Engineer or Product Management, attended by Product Managers and Product Owners and other select team members or Subject Matter Experts as necessary. Provides visibility for progress, scope, and priority adjustments.
Scrum of Scrums
Facilitated by the Release Train Engineer, attended by Scrum Masters and other select team members or Subject Matter Experts as necessary. Provides visibility for progress and impediments.
Capacity Allocation
Helps to balance the need for business features/capacities with the need to continuously invest in the architectural runway by deciding how much of the total effort can e used for each type of activity during the comping PI.
Iteration Execution
How Agile Teams manage their work throughout the Iteration timebox, resulting in a high-quality, working, tested system increment.
Solution Context
Identifies critical aspects of the operational environment for a Solution. It provides an essential understanding of requirements, usage, installation, operation, and support of the solution itself. Heavily influences opportunities and constraints for releasing on demand.
Full SAFe configuration
Includes all Five Core Competencies of the Lean Enterprise. It is the most comprehensive version of the Framework and supports enterprises that build and maintain a portfolio of large and complex solutions.
Large Solution Level SAFe configuration
Introduces the Business Solutions and Lean Systems Engineering competency, which supports those building the largest and most complex solutions that require multiple Agile Release Trains and Suppliers, but do not require portfolio-level considerations.
Lean-Agile Principles
Nine immutable, underlying principles upon which SAFe is based. These tenets and economic concepts inspire and inform the roles and practices of SAFe. 1. Take an economic view 2. Apply systems thinking 3. Assume variability; preserve options 4. Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles 5. Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems 6. Visualize and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths 7. Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning 8. Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers 9. Decentralize decision-making
User Stories
Not requirements, but rather an actionable and negotiable expression of intent and the needs of customers, and/or to build infrastructure. Tracked via the Team Kanban and sourced from any of: 1. Program Backlog 2. Team Context 2. Other stakeholders (other team dependencies, commitments, spikes, or research)
Innovation and Planning Iteration
Occurs every PI and serves multiple purposes: 1. It acts as an estimating buffer for meeting PI objectives 2. Provides dedicated time for innovation, hackthons, or spikes for next PI 3. Allows time for continuing education 4. Makes space for PI planning 5. Reserves time for Inspect and Adapt (I&A) events. Can also allow time for validation of work being shipped.
Communities of Practice (CoPs)
Organized groups of people who have a common interest in a specific technical or business domain. They collaborate regularly to share information, improve their skills, and actively work on advancing the general knowledge of the domain.
Built-in Quality
Practices that ensure each Solution element, at every increment, meets appropriate quality standards throughout development.
Value Stream Coordination
Provides guidance to manage dependencies and exploit the opportunities in a portfolio.
Portfolio SAFe configuration
Provides the Lean Portfolio Management competency which aligns portfolio execution to enterprise strategy. It organizes development around the flow of value through one or more value streams.
A/B Testing
Refers to a step in the Lean UX process. A form of statistical hypothesis comparing two samples, which acknowledges that user preferences are unknowable in advance. This concept also relates to: * Principle #3 - Assume variability; preserve options * Set-Based Design
Usage analytics
Refers to a step in the Lean UX process. Lean-Agile teams build these right into their applications, which helps validate initial use and provides the application telemetry needed to support a Continuous Delivery model. Application telemetry offers constant operational and user feedback from the deployed system.
User surveys
Refers to a step in the Lean UX process. When direct observation isn't possible, a simple end-user questionnaire can obtain fast feedback.
Observation
Refers to a step in the Lean UX process. Wherever possible, directly monitor the actual usage of the system, it's an opportunity to understand the user's context and behaviors.
Value Stream
Represents the series of steps that an organization uses to build Solutions that provide a continuous flow of value to a customer. Each one builds and supports one or more solutions.
Scrum Master
Servant leaders and coaches for an Agile Team. They help educate the team in Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Kanban, and SAFe, ensuring that the agreed Agile process is being followed. They also help remove impediments and foster an environment for high-performing team dynamics, continuous flow, and relentless improvement.
Stories (Or user stories)
Short descriptions of a small piece of desired functionality, written in the user's language. Agile Teams implement small, vertical slices of system functionality and are sized so they can be completed in a single Iteration.
Essential SAFe Configuration
The basic building block for all SAFe configurations and is the simplest starting point for implementation. It provides the Lean-Agile Leadership competency, the Team and Technical Agility competency, and the DevOps and Release on Demand competency.
Iteration
The basic building block of Agile development. A standard, fixed-length timebox, where Agile Teams deliver incremental value in the form of working, tested software and systems. The recommended duration of the timebox is two weeks. However, one to four weeks is acceptable, depending on the business context.
Enterprise
The business entity to which each SAFe portfolio belongs.
Lean-Agile Mindset
The combination of beliefs, assumptions, and actions of SAFe leaders and practitioners who embrace the concepts of the Agile Manifesto and Lean thinking. It's the personal, intellectual, and leadership foundation for adopting and applying SAFe principles and practices.
Portfolio Backlog
The highest-level repository of work items in SAFe. It provides a holding area for upcoming business and enabler Epics intended to create and evolve a comprehensive set of Solutions.
Solution Backlog
The holding area for upcoming Capabilities and Enablers, each of which can span multiple ARTs and is intended to advance the Solution and build its architectural runway.
Program Backlog
The holding area for upcoming Features, which are intended to address user needs and deliver business benefits for a single Agile Release Train (ART). It also contains the enabler features necessary to build the Architectural Runway.
Daily Stand Up
The key to team synchronization and self-organization. Not a daily status meeting for management, but a team tool to: * Share information about progress * Coordinate activities * Raise blocking issues * Understand if iteration goals + commitments can be met
Release on Demand
The last stage of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline and the process by which new functionality is deployed into production and released immediately or incrementally to Customers based on demand.
Solution Train
The organizational construct used to build large and complex Solutions that require the coordination of multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs), as well as the contributions of Suppliers. It aligns ARTs with a shared business and technology mission using the solution Vision, Backlog, and Roadmap, and an aligned Program Increment (PI).
Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE)
The practice of developing a set of related system models that help define, design, and document a system under development. These models provide an efficient way to explore, update, and communicate system aspects to stakeholders, while significantly reducing or eliminating dependence on traditional documents.
Continuous Integration (CI)
The process of taking features from the Program Backlog and developing, testing, integrating, and validating them in a staging environment where they are ready for deployment and release.
Continuous Deployment (CD)
The process that fosters innovation and builds alignment on what should be built by continually exploring market and Customer needs, and defining a Vision, Roadmap, and set of Features for a Solution that addresses those needs.
Continuous Exploration (CE)
The process that fosters innovation and builds alignment on what should be built by continually exploring market and Customer needs, and defining a Vision, Roadmap, and set of Features for a Solution that addresses those needs.
Solution Intent
The repository for storing, managing, and communicating the knowledge of current and intended/future Solution behavior. Where required, this includes both fixed and variable specifications and designs; reference to applicable standards, system models, and functional and nonfunctional tests; and traceability. Framed by Product and Solution Management, along with a Solution Architect + Systems Engineering. Attempts to answer + understand the relationship between these two questions: 1. What exactly is this thing we are building? 2. How are we going to build it? Purposes: * Provides a single source of truth regarding the intended and actual behavior of the solution * Records and communicates requirements, design, and system architecture decisions * Facilitates further exploration and analysis activities * Aligns the Customer, Dev Team, and Suppliers to a common mission and purpose * Supports Compliance and contractual obligations
Shared Services
The specialty roles, people, and services required for the success of an Agile Release Train (ART) or Solution Train, but that cannot be dedicated full-time.
Customers
The ultimate buyer of every Solution. They are an integral part of the Lean-Agile development process and the Value Stream and have specific responsibilities in SAFe.
Continuous Delivery Pipeline (or 'the 'pipeline')
The workflows, activities, and automation needed to shepherd a new piece of functionality all the way from ideation to an on-demand release of value to the end user.
Core Values
These represent the fundamental beliefs that are key to SAFe's effectiveness. These guiding principles help dictate behavior and action for everyone who participates in a SAFe portfolio. Those principles are: 1. Alignment 2. Built-in quality 3. Transparency 4. Program execution
Solution Management
This group has content authority for the Solution Backlog. They work with customers to understand their needs, prioritize Capabilities, create the Solution vision and roadmap, define requirements, and guide work through the Solution Kanban.
Enterprise Architect
This role promotes adaptive design, and engineering practices and drives architectural initiatives for the portfolio. Enterprise Architects also facilitate the reuse of ideas, components, services, and proven patterns across various solutions in a portfolio.
Trade studies
Used by Product Management and Product Owners to determine the most practical characteristics of a solution. They review numerous solutions to a technical problem, as well as vendor-provided products and services that address the subject area or an adjacent need. Solution alternatives are then evaluated against the benefit hypothesis to determine which ones are the most effective for a particular context.
Milestones
Used to track progress toward a specific goal or event. There are three types in SAFe: Program Increment (PI), fixed-date, and learning. Referenced in SAFe Lean-Agile Principle #5, where these should be based on objective evaluation of working systems.
Solution Demo
Where the results of development efforts from the Solution Train are integrated, evaluated, and made visible to Customers and other stakeholders.
Spanning Palette
Within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) diagram, an area containing various roles and artifacts that may apply to one or more specific team, program, large solution, or portfolio contexts.
Enablers
Work items that support the activities needed to extend the Architectural Runway to provide future business functionality. These include exploration, infrastructure, compliance, and architecture development. They are captured in the various backlogs and occur at all levels of the Framework.