“SAFe ist not save” – what does that mean?

SAFe is one of the most famous frameworks of how to make companies agile.

It's about generating flow & it is a production system. It was very useful in the beginning, because companies were able to bring a state of flow into the team.

BUT if you know about Theory of Constraints, then you know that an organization should have a constraint and should be UNDERloaded instead of overloaded.

SAFe uses the idea of a team to make projects and portfolios, which does not work long term because the characteristics of the system are changing.

❌ So in the SAFe system, everyone is working 100 % all the time.

❌ And if this is the case, you cannot see the constraint.

Consequence:

SAFe will fail with projects on team level. Customer deadlines will not be met, trust is lost and the whole lean-agile way of work comes under even more stress.

So it is really important to understand, accept and use Little’s and Goldratt’s laws.

If you do it this way, you focus on and manage FLOW, not deadlines.

How to get #FLOW when I have SAFe? – It is similar to an extension to what you have (SAFe, DevOps, Scrum, other forms of work organization) – very much like a rocket booster. Attach and get to higher orbit – and stay there for good.