One key area that informs SAFe (the Scaled Agile Framework) is system thinking. System Thinking takes a wholistic approach towards Solutions Development. System thinking advocates that all aspects of a system: its environment, its design, its deployment, and its maintenance should be factored in as we, as leaders, make decisions.
Optimizing a Component does not Optimize the System
As we have oftentimes pursued software development in hopes of implementing a solution, we have oftentimes worked in silos. That is, oftentimes the teams that are executing are not collaborating with one another and thus inefficiencies are created. SAFe advocates that we should not overlook the interconnections that exists amongst the teams to optimize what we are ultimately trying to deliver (i.e. the solutions).
SAFe advocates that by working in a systematic manner, it allows for better execution whereby there is greater oversight. Per the image below, and to quote the theorist W. Edwards Deming, “a system must be managed, it will not manage itself. Left to themselves, components become selfish, independent profit centers and thus destroy the system. The secret is cooperation between components toward[s] the aim of the organization.”
What Edwards Deming is implying in the above image is that components, that is, Agile Teams, are the ones that need to be working in a systematic manner. SAFe advocates that as Agile Teams execute, they should be doing so systematically in a manner called an Agile Release Train (ART). An Agile Release Train consists of several Agile Teams working together as they partake in solution delivery. As they work together, they are collaborating and from these collaborations, it culminates into greater overall solution creation.
Conclusion
Historically, and based upon traditional project management (Waterfall), there has been the presumption that by optimizing the component (i.e. the Team), it leads greater productivity. This is somewhat antiquated as we grow and mature however as an Enterprise. As we become larger, as an Enterprise, SAFe advocates that system thinking should be encouraged whereby there is a need to think beyond the team and to conceptualize a new way of working. In this new way of working, the team is merely a part to a greater whole, the greater whole being the system itself. Subsequently, SAFe advocates that leaders should embrace and envision solution delivery differently. Along those lines, solution delivery is one that should now be done systematically, and, by doing so, it allows for solution delivery that is more so conducive to the customer and to the enterprise itself.
