Hi Folks,

It probably goes without saying that the release of SAFe 5.0 was a pretty big deal. Expanding from technical agility to Business Agility was no small feat. It required the addition of new competencies for Organizational Agility and Continuous Learning Culture.

All the competency articles were either written from scratch or largely rewritten and ‘mob reviewed’ by the entire Framework team. 30 – 40 other articles were written, rewritten, or extensively edited. 80 more articles were touched up to align with the latest thinking.

Thankfully, Customer Centricity and Design Thinking have now been directly incorporated into the heart of the continuous delivery pipeline (personally, I couldn’t be happier about that; it’s been on our backlog for some time).

Also, the release was nearly simultaneous with the release of some of our best new IP in two new courses, Lean Portfolio Management and Agile Product Management.

Clearly the hypothesis behind SAFe 5.0 was directed at the broader market need for true Business Agility,  so we’ve been paying very close attention to how the new Framework is being received. Did we make the right move? Below is a sampling of the feedback on SAFe 5.0.

The thing we’re so excited about in SAFe 5.0 is that design thinking and customer centricity are in the framework now.
—Carmen Farenthold, Director of Sales Technologies at PepsiCo

SAFe 5.0 is a monumental release that I am convinced will be key in helping countless enterprise organizations succeed in their shift from project to product.
—Mik Kersten, CEO, Tasktop, Author, Project to Product

Where we saw a real opportunity is actually in the non-technical stuff.
—Tim Jackson, Lead Agile Coach at British Airways

I tip my hat to Scaled Agile – they listened to their customers, recognized this need, and responded. The overarching theme of SAFe 5.0 (for all the complexity it introduces systematically) is straightforward: ‘This stuff is working, and we’re figuring out how to do it more and better than before.
—Rich Weller, Program and Portfolio Management Solution Specialist, PCubed

In addition, this was a major upgrade for our SAFe^® Program Consultants (SPCs). As of now, over 3,000 SPCs have updated their skills and credentials to SAFe 5.0 and another 3,000 or so more are in process. They are now ready and willing to help enterprises with this next stage of their Lean-Agile evolution.

Finally, a note of continued thanks to all those who are traveling with us on this journey of higher individual and team empowerment, and better business results, together.

Stay SAFe!
—Dean, Richard, Inbar, Harry, Steve, Luke, Andy and the entire Scaled Agile team