Brief about Lean-Agile Mindset
The SAFe Lean-Agile Mindset is a collection of SAFe leaders' and practitioners' ideas, perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors that incorporate the principles of the Agile Manifesto and Lean thinking. It serves as the cognitive, interpersonal, and leadership underpinning for embracing and implementing SAFe concepts and practices. SAFe is based on four fields of expertise: Lean, Agile, DevOps, and systems thinking. In reality, the origins of SAFe were to provide the company with direction on how to implement the ideas and practices of Lean and Agile in the leading companies in the industry. To drive the organizational transformation necessary to implement Lean and Agile at scale throughout the whole company, executives must have a wider and deeper Lean-Agile mindset.
The SAFe Lean-Agile Mindset is the foundation of a new management strategy and a strengthened business culture that encourages Business Agility. It equips executives with the skills they need to carry out a successful and effective SAFe transition by assisting people and the entire company in reaching their objectives.
Lean is all about keeping value while making less effort. It is a long-term business method that concentrates on production and manufacturing in order to increase customer value yet minimize resource expense. It considers the entire system, not just the development team, and focuses on how the company delivers value. The following are the key elements of the Lean-Agile mindset:
- Respect for people and culture
The people in an enterprise are the ones who perform all of the work. This is why it is vital for a company to truly appreciate its culture. It is vital for business development to modify the culture. Additionally, respect must not be confined to the organization's own personnel but should be offered to different stakeholders as well. When working with internationally diverse teams, timezone, cultural variances must be acknowledged when undertaking PI planning.
A Lean-Agile strategy does not execute or conduct actual work on its own, but people must. Respecting culture and people is a fundamental human requirement. People are encouraged to adapt and enhance their habits when they are treated with dignity. Management encourages people to adapt, and it may guide them toward more efficient ways of functioning. Individuals and teams, on the other hand, gain problem-solving and introspection skills and are held responsible for making necessary adjustments.
A creative culture, characterized by a pleasant, safe, and performance-centric workplace, is the motivating factor behind this new behavior. To achieve this culture, the organization and its executives must first transform. Respect for people and culture expands to interactions with Vendors, colleagues, consumers, and the greater society that surrounds the business. When there is a pressing need for good change, culture may be transformed. First, comprehend and apply the SAFe principles and ideas. Second, provide successful results. The culture will evolve organically throughout time.
- Flow
Flow is defined as moving smoothly or continually in a stream or current. For SAFe to be effective, the value or objective to be supplied ought to be constant, and it should respond quickly to input and make adjustments as needed. Early feedback and adjustment are aided by continuous flow.
The way to implement SAFe successfully is to generate a constant flow of work that facilitates progressive value delivery dependent on continuous feedback and modification. Continuous flow offers quicker and sustainable value delivery, robust Built-In Quality practices, never-ending refinement, and evidence-based administration focused on the solution's functional components. Flow concepts are a fundamental component of the Lean-Agile mindset. Addressing the whole Development Value Stream, visualizing and restricting work in process (WIP), lowering batch sizes, and regulating queue lengths are all examples.
Furthermore, Lean focuses on detecting and eliminating delays and wastage on a constant basis. The transition from a start-stop-start style of Project Management method to an Agile product management strategy linked with a long-lived developmental value chain is a vital step that enterprises must take to accomplish flow. By embracing new ideas, resources, and procedures, Lean-Agile concepts improve knowledge of the system development process. They may be used by leaders and executives to transition from a phased strategy to a DevOps methodology with a Continuous Delivery Pipeline that expands flow throughout the whole value delivery process.
- Innovation
Flow establishes a strong platform for value delivery. However, with no innovation, both the product and the process will continue to diminish. Flow undoubtedly aids in the achievement of the ultimate aim. But how can we be certain that Flow is impactful? This is when creativity comes into play. Lean-Agile Leaders participate in the various activities to endorse this essential component of the SAFe House of Lean. They hire, train, and advise employees who are interested in entrepreneurship and innovation. They explore outside the office and into the real world, where value is generated and things are made and consumed (known as gemba). They allow individuals time and space to be imaginative in order to support meaningful innovation. This is uncommon in the context of 100% usage and regular firefighting. One such potential is SAFe's Innovation and Planning Iteration. They often use Prolonged exploration, which is the practice of continually researching the market and user demands, receiving quick feedback on tests, and developing a Strategy, Agenda, and features that will drive the most promising ideas to reality. They assess the innovation with clients, then flip without pity or remorse when the thesis must be changed. They combine the highest strategic planning with natural team-based discoveries to generate a complementary "innovation riptide" that drives a surge of new goods, solutions, and skills.
- Relentless Improvement
The fourth pillar is a relentless improvement, which fosters learning and progress via continual reflection and process improvements. A persistent perception of competitive peril motivates the organization to actively explore improvement chances. Leaders and teams indulge in some activities for achieving this goal, such as optimizing the organization and the developmental process in a complete sense, rather than the pieces; reinforcing the problem-solving attitude across the organization, where everyone is encouraged to participate in everyday job improvements; reflecting at important achievements to publicly identify and fix process flaws at all ranks; applying Lean methods and approaches to quickly identify the fact-based root cause of inefficiencies and implement effective remedies.
The focus of enterprises should be on constant learning via reflection and adaptability. Leaders should examine the facts before acting. Identify the core cause of the difficulties you're having and start working on remedies straight away. Fix it right away.
- Foundation – Leadership
The cornerstone of Lean is leadership, which is a powerful catalyst of team performance. Leaders are directly answerable for the effective implementation of the Lean-Agile methodology. Such a role cannot be transferred to working groups, direct reports, Program Management Office (PMO), Lean-Agile champions, consultants, process teams, or any other party. Leaders must thus be taught in such new and creative ways of working, as well as demonstrate the values and practices of Lean-Agile leadership. Leaders, executives, and administrators in the company should be held accountable for the effective implementation of the Lean-Agile mentality. As a result, in order to be successful, leaders must master these innovative approaches.
Lean is not the same as Agile in terms of leadership. Agile was created as a collaborative method for a small band of cross-functional, devoted workers who were motivated, competent, and required to generate working functionality in a brief span of time. Management was not included in this description. In a business, however, isolating management from the style of working does not sustain. Managers in Lean, on the other hand, are leaders who accept the Lean ideals, are knowledgeable in the core techniques, and promote these practices to others. They remove obstructions proactively and play an active role in promoting organizational transformation and supporting continuous improvement.
Conclusion
These principles are carried out by Lean-Agile Teams of 5 to10 individuals who are cross-functional, disciplined, and self-managing in style. The Agile Release Train includes these teams. The advantages of implementing a Lean-Agile mindset produce great leaders that inspire every member of the team. In each iteration, these executives guarantee that every team member has the capacity and power to design, develop, test, and deliver. All members have the same goal and work together to achieve success in whatever manner they can. Creativity and innovation are welcomed and promoted. Most significantly, it encourages the development of trust-based relationships. Reliability amongst team members and sustaining trust with the client in order to provide timely and high-quality software delivery is present.
Teams embrace the two parts of the Lean-Agile mindset across robust, innovative product development: conceptualizing Lean and adopting Agility. Agile and Lean are analogous to noodles and tomato sauce. In essence, transitioning to a Lean-Agile development approach will undoubtedly be a significant adjustment. Practices change, but so does the whole belief system, including fundamental values, culture, and leadership ideologies. Agile is a consequence and implementation of Lean philosophy, not a rival. Both techniques are united in their pursuit of trust. They urge team members to take responsibility for their tasks. Employing a Lean-Agile attitude encourages teams to be disciplined and self-healing, to collaborate and solve issues, and to create something that can be consistently proven to clients.
References
- https://www.scaledagileframework.com/lean-agile-mindset/
- https://medium.com/@Yodiz/how-having-a-lean-agile-mindset-benefits-agile-teams-e05cd28d1959
- https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/safe-45-reference/9780134892917/ch003.xhtml
- https://www.singlemindconsulting.com/blog/the-4-minute-guide-to-understanding-a-lean-agile-mindset/
