CASE STUDY:
Big IT Shop, Down Under

While the name of the enterprise cannot currently be disclosed, this five-part case study by SPC Mark Richards from Australia is loaded with practical tips, implementation guidance, and extensions (and one pretty big exception) to typical SAFe. (Important Note: in this case study, they don’t actually time box the work into PSIs; it’s a more continuous, rolling-wave look at about the next 10 weeks of work. It has some advantages over PSI planning, in that it’s more continuous flow and features don’t have to be forced to be split into PSI cycles; simply, it’s a more Continuous Delivery (or at least continuous development flow) model. But it has some disadvantages and some restricted contexts too, many of which are compensated for with alternative cadence and synchronization practices.)

Here are the first four parts, a work in process, in chronological order.

Part 1: Scaled Agile Framework Applied 1/5: Introduction and Context

Part 2: Scaled Agile Framework Applied 2/5: Demand Management and the Portfolio Kanban

Part 3: Scaled Agile Framework Applied 3/5: Program Level Pipeline Management and the Program Kanban

Part 4: Scaled Agile Framework Applied 4/5: In-Play Work and the Program Level Feature Wall

Part 5: Scaled Agile Framework Applied 5/5: Conclusion. (Read this post to see key lessons learned and quantitative results).

  • Average delivery cycle time down from 12 months to 3 months
  • Frequency of delivery increased from quarterly to fortnightly
  • Cost to deliver down 50%
  • 100% of projects delivered on time and on budget
  • Happy project sponsors (NPS 29)
  • Happy teams (Team NPS 43)

Mark, those are fantastic results and they couldn’t have done it without you. Great job!