If you’ve been keeping up with Scaled Agile, you’re probably well-aware of SAFe 4.0’s retirement back in September of 2019. SAFe 4.0 and its focus on Technical Agility has served us well through several updates. However, SAFe’s 5.0 marks the framework’s turn toward Business Agility, and if the change seems drastic, that’s because it is.
All new competencies were written or rewritten in order to fit a quickly changing market. Where 4.0 once focused on a company’s technical procedures, 5.0 incorporates Organizational Agility and Continuous Learning Culture as well as new approaches to customer service and problem-solving such as Customer Centricity and Design Thinking in order to help organizations match the market’s demands.
This new and nimble approach includes a lot of changes, and though this article won’t be covering all of them, it will provide some basic information on 3 key concepts and competencies that set SAFe 5.0 apart from its predecessor.
Business Agility
Organizational Agility
Continuous Learning Culture
1. Business Agility (1)
Business agility is a means of competing in a quickly changing market through innovative business solutions and cross-departmental solution delivery. In a market characterized by disruption, quick product deployment and intense competition, the ability to adapt is paramount to any organization’s success.
Due to business agility’s importance, all new concepts and competencies have been introduced in order to cultivate it within the 5.0 framework.
2. Organizational Agility (1)
Organizational Agility is the way in which Lean & Agile Teams develop business strategies & procedures to adapt to new opportunities. Organization Agility relies upon “Lean-Thinking People & Agile Teams” who are involved in solution delivery, “Lean Business Operations”, which are operations based around lean principles intended to map and improve business procedures, and “Strategy Agility”, the ability of an enterprise to alter their strategy in response to a changing market.
3. Continuous Learning Culture (1)
Continuous Learning Culture is the development of values and practices within an organization that encourage all its members to continually increase their knowledge, competence, performance, and innovation. This culture helps increase innovative output while strengthening the quality of an organization’s workforce, thus making it easier for the entire enterprise to adapt.
Though this is only a peek at what’s new with SAFe 5.0, it is an exciting one. The move towards Business Agility is one we should all be making and SAFe 5.0 takes good ideas and turns them into smart, clear steps toward developing a Lean & adaptable enterprise.
(1) SAFe 5.0 | Scaled Agile