“We collaborate more than ever with our customers by involving them in planning as much as we can. And we deliver frequent demos—even beyond customers’ expectations. Our customers have found communication to be more effective since the SAFe implementation.”

—Sam Wu, Agile Head Coach and Training Director, Cerno

As the practice of SAFe expands across the globe, we pay close attention to potential cultural or language barriers that might prove challenging. Much like aviation, SAFe is based on an English language standard. While we’re increasing our translation offerings, those who don’t speak or read English still have some additional complexity to work through while learning how to practice SAFe and adopt the Lean-Agile mindset.

That’s why we’re genuinely excited to announce our first case study from China. It proves that, with the right approach, language and cultural differences do not need to impede the transformation journey.

This study is from Cerno, a custom software factory that delivers technologies such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, open source software, and IoT solutions for a diverse range of clients, from logistics to government. Through adopting SAFe, Cerno set out to increase the speed of delivery, reduce defects, and improve the quality of its solutions, with the ultimate objective of being more client-focused.

From the get-go, Cerno did a lot of things right, including following the SAFe Implementation Roadmap and getting help from an experienced Scaled Agile Partner. Their efforts have paid off in a big way:

• Delivery cycle time dropped from 3½ weeks to two weeks, or 58 percent
• The average offline time for a new production environment release decreased from 3½ hours to half an hour
• The rate of release failure went down from 0.6 times on average per release to 0
• The interface automation level increased from zero to 70 percent
• Reported defects decreased from 13 times per release to five
• Most importantly, Cerno realized its goal of becoming a more customer-centric organization

Read the full story here—it includes a downloadable Chinese translation.

A huge thanks to the teams at Cerno and everyone who supported this story, including:

• Liu Yilei, VP, Cerno
• Sam Wu, Agile Head Coach and Training Director, Cerno
• James Li, Principal Consultant, Aura
• Jack Xu, Senior Consultant, Aura
• Marsha Xue, Great China Business Development, Scaled Agile, Inc.

For those of you who are working in non-English environments, we provide the SAFe glossary in 12 languages, including Chinese.

And if you haven’t already, be sure visit our customer stories page for a treasure trove of SAFe stories from 60 companies across all geographies and industries.

Stay SAFe,
—Dean