Hi Folks,

We are excited to announce a significant update to SAFe Metrics.

As we are all experiencing, Business Agility sets new performance standards for organizations, requiring fast, effective response to emerging business opportunities. This mandates changes to what we measure, how we measure, and what to do with the data we receive. It is a critical enabler for continuously improving business performance.

To support this goal, we have refactored, refined and extended our approach to metrics into three measurement domains, Outcomes, Flow and Competency. This provide a comprehensive, scalable, and yet simple measurement model which is applicable at every level of a SAFe Enterprise, as the figure below illustrates.

The three measurement domains are as follows:

Outcomes: Do our solutions meet the needs of our customers and the business?

Flow: How efficient is the organization at delivering value to the customer?

Competency: How proficient is the organization in the practices that enable business agility?

Within each of the measurement domains are a set of specific metrics appropriate for measuring teams, ARTs, Solution Trains and entire SAFe Portfolios.

It is also important to highlight that the flow measurement domain has been heavily influenced by the work of Mik Kersten. His Flow Framework provides five metrics that can be used to measure different aspects of flow. As SAFe is a flow-based system, each of these metrics is directly applicable and are now incorporated into the SAFe body of knowledge. Additionally, SAFe includes Flow Predictability to measure how Teams, ARTs, and Solution Trains are delivering against their planned objectives.

Along with describing the metrics within each of these three measurement domains, the article also outlines some common success patterns for effective measurement, along with pitfalls to be aware of.

The updated article is available here.

Enjoy and Measure SAFely!

Andy