Hi Folks,

On April 26 I joined Andrew Leff, Chris Murman, and Troy Lightfoot from Agile Uprising for an episode of their “Business Agility” podcast. They asked terrific questions and our conversation covered a range of topics—here’s a preview of what we discussed.

• Our reaction at Scaled Agile, Inc. to the coronavirus crisis. I shared how it accelerated our roadmap, what it was like to do all-remote PI Planning, and the next phase of our work to meet customer demands.
• Strategic agility. When you know what’s in your backlog, your commitments in the PI, and how work flows and gets done, then it’s easier to pivot and change.
• How to help enterprises define business value. Are you doing the work that matters most, or just the work you had planned? The conversations you have around assigning business value are more important than any metric.
• Framework changes with 5.0. Our SPC(T) community and our customers played a key role in this update, articulating a clear demand for agility beyond software and product development.
• Scrum vs. XP. Modern software requires methodologies that can handle complexity and SAFe takes an agnostic approach, borrowing the best of each. Plus: I reveal the clever nickname that my team shot down. 
• Introducing Lean Portfolio Management. For years people weren’t ready for LPM; now they recognize it as a valuable way to talk about strategy. But first they do need to understand the taxonomy of epics, value streams, etc. 
• Responding to critics. We try to be the adults in the room and use criticisms as opportunities to improve; we ignore the arrows in our backs as long as SAFe continues to drive success for our customers. 

You can listen to the entire podcast, here.

Stay SAFe,

—Dean