What’s New in SAFe® 6.0?

Thriving in the Digital Age with Business Agility

SAFe: Past, Present, and Future

2011 Field experience at enterprise scale 2023…

SAFe 1.0 SAFe 3.0

SAFe 4.0
SAFe 2.0 SAFe 4. SAFe 4.6 SAFe 5, 5.1
LSE 5
SAFe 6.0

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 Why SAFe 6.0?

 SAFe has become integral for

adapting to change, building
resiliency, and thriving as a
modern, digital business.
 Meeting the new realities of
the marketplace requires
SAFe to evolve continuously.
While we’ll never lose sight of
SAFe’s core benefits, our
guidance continually
improves to address new and
emerging challenges.

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Six themes of SAFe 6.0

1 Strengthening the foundation for Business Agility

2 Empowering teams and clarifying responsibilities

3 Accelerating value flow

4 Enhancing Business Agility with SAFe across the business

5 Building the future with AI, Big Data and Cloud

6 Delivering better outcomes with measure and grow and OKRs

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Say hello to SAFe 6.0!

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 1
Strengthening the
Foundation for
Business Agility

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Business Agility Value Stream gets a promotion
Establishing true business agility requires flow to be cultivated and accelerated through
the entire Business Agility Value Stream (BAVS), from sensing an emerging opportunity to
delivering the right solution.

This agility requires all functions, processes, activities, teams, and events from end to end to be aligned and optimized for maximum
speed and quality.

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SAFe Foundation

 The Continuous Learning Culture (CLC) competency was added to the foundation, making it part of
all SAFe configurations.

 CLC represents a more modern approach to managing organizations. In this paradigm, organizations
evolve into adaptive engines of change to thrive, powered by a fast and effective learning culture.

 The SPC icon was redesigned to emphasize its role in coaching

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Updated SAFe Lean-Agile Mindset

Agile Values

We are uncovering better ways of developing

software by doing it and helping others do it.

Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right,

we value the items on the left more.
agilemanifesto.org

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Updated SAFe Core Values
Alignment Transparency
Communicate the vision, mission, and strategy Create a trust-based environment
Connect strategy to execution Communicate directly, openly, and honestly
Speak with a common language Turn mistakes into learning moments
Constantly check for understanding Visualize work
Understand your customer Provide ready access to needed information

Respect for People Relentless Improvement

Hold precious what it is to be human Create a constant sense of urgency
Value diversity of people and opinions Build a problem-solving culture
Grow people through coaching and mentoring Reflect and adapt frequently
Your customer is whoever consumes your work Let facts guide improvements
Build long-term partnerships based on mutual benefit Provide time and space for innovation

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 Updated SAFe Principle #6

#1 Take an economic view

 SAFe Principle #6 was changed to ‘Make
value flow without Interruptions’ and is #2 Apply systems thinking
better aligned with the five principles of
Lean Thinking. #3 Assume variability; preserve options

 It highlights the eight common properties #4 Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles
of a flow-based system and provides
specific accelerators for eliminating #5 Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems
impediments to flow (more on this later)
#6 Make value flow without interruptions

#7 Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning

#8 Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers

#9 Decentralize decision-making

#10 Organize around value

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Revised Implementation Roadmap

1. Waterfall / Ad Hoc Agile step was removed since SAFe adoption

does not always begin with one of these two starting points.

2. SAFe Executive Workshop toolkit was added to the

‘Go SAFe’ step.

3. Leading in the Digital Age, a program that equips leaders with

the knowledge and skills to support their Agile Teams and manage
change effectively, was added to
the roadmap.

4. Organize Around Value was renamed from Identify ARTs and Value

Streams to reflect its purpose and connection to Principle #10.

5. SAFe Value Stream and ART identification workshop toolkit was

added to the ‘Organize Around Value’ step.

6. Enhance the Portfolio was renamed. It was previously called Extend

to the Portfolio. This updated step recommends that organizations
start exploring some LPM practices earlier in their journey.

7. Accelerate emphasizes that the transformation journey is never-

ending and a brand new article provides guidance for creating a
Continuous Learning Culture and amplifying the benefits of applying
the 5 Lean Thinking principles across the Enterprise

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SAFe Practice Consultants (SPCs)

 Formerly known as SAFe Program Consultants,

SPCs provide coaching for many of the practices
and critical moves described in the SAFe
Implementation Roadmap

 SPCs work beyond the roadmap as a group of

change agents with unrelenting energy, bringing
business agility to the organization over time
through executing the areas of responsibilities

 The name change is part of phasing out the

term ‘program’

 Responsibility wheel tracks to

“Implementing SAFe”

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 2
Empowering Teams
and Clarifying
Responsibilities

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Updated role articles and responsibility wheels
Epic Owners Enterprise Architects Solution Train Engineer
New role articles for:
 Agile Release Train
 Agile Teams
 Business Owners
 Enterprise Architect
 Epic Owners
 LACE
Business Owners Product Management Release Train Engineer
 Product Owner
 Product Management
 Release Train Engineer
 SAFe Practice Consultant
 Scrum Master/Team Coach
 Solution Management
 Solution Train Engineer System Architect Product Owner Agile Teams
 System Architect
 System Team

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 Example: Agile Release Train (ART)

 The ultimate purpose of an ARTs is to

deliver effective solutions to customers.
It’s fundamental for establishing a fast
flow of solution features.

 Understanding the ARTs responsibilities

is critical for success. A ‘responsibility
wheel’ was created to clarify the ARTs
duties at-a-glance

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Scrum Master / Team Coach

 Introduced a new, broader Scrum

Master / Team Coach role whose
focus extends to optimizing flow,
building high performing teams, and
supporting organizational agility

 Organizations can use either Scrum

Master or Team Coach role names,
whichever best fits their
organization’s context.

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Key collaborations for four of the content authority roles

 Converting ideas into a steady System Architect Solution Architect

stream of valuable products and
services is a complex endeavor

 Requires ongoing coordination

and communication

 Four role articles with content

authority were updated

 Figures describes and visualizes Product Management Solution Management

the collaborative partnerships
needed to enable quick and
efficient product development flow

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 3
Accelerating
Value Flow

#6

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 Eight properties of a flow-based system

#6

 Flow occurs when there is a

smooth, linear, and fast movement
of work product through the steps
in a value stream

 Flow properties describe the

elements that always exist in a
flow system

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 Eight flow accelerators

#1 Visualize and Limit WIP #2 Address Bottlenecks #3 Minimize Handoffs and

Dependencies
#6

 Every accelerator
offers an opportunity
to optimize each #4 Get Faster Feedback #5 Work in Smaller Batches #6 Reduce Queue Length
flow property

 This is the topic of the

updated Principle #6 -
Make value flow #8 Remediate Legacy Policies
#7 Optimize Time ‘In the Zone’
without interruptions and Practices

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Accelerators apply differently to each SAFe level

 Four new articles, Team Flow,

ART Flow, Solution Train Flow,
and Portfolio Flow, describe
applying the eight flow accelerators

 Each article offers techniques

for addressing, optimizing, and
debugging issues with achieving
continuous value flow at that
specific level

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SAFe Team Kanban

 A method that helps Agile Teams

facilitate visualize flow, establish
WIP limits, deliver value
continuously, measure flow, and
improve their process

 Renamed Kanban icon to ‘SAFe

Team Kanban’ and explained how
to apply Kanban for Agile Teams on
an ART

 Teams can use SAFe Scrum,

SAFe Team Kanban method
SAFe Team Kanban, or a hybrid to
their liking

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 SAFe Scrum

 SAFe ScrumXP has been renamed to

SAFe Scrum, and the XP-inspired
practices were moved into Built-in
Quality and other articles

 The icons for Plan (Iteration Planning),

Review (Iteration Review), Retro
(Iteration Retrospective), and Execution
were removed from BP but can be
accessed from the new Scrum article

 The new SAFe Scrum article includes

SAFe Scrum cycle
enhanced guidance for Scrum teams
and includes a Kanban system to
manage backlog

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Applying Kanban in SAFe - Extended Guidance
What is a Kanban board? Identifying steps in the Development Value Stream

Integrate
Design
SME Code Done
Define Test
Review

Identifying Kanban Classes of Service Understanding how the Enterprise Kanban works

3 4 2 | 4 6 6
Integrating
Funnel Defining Ready Building Validating Done
and testing
In
progress Ready
Fixed
Standar DateExpedite
Fixed date

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Built-in Quality supports flow

 Totally new model starts with

Basic Agile Quality Practices that
apply universally:
 Shift learning left
 Pairing and peer review
 Collective ownership and
T-shaped skills
 Artifact standards and
definition of done
 Workflow automation

 Builds on that foundation with

specific quality practices for
each domain

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Value Stream Management gets a promotion

 VSM was previously an extended guidance article. It has been added to the Portfolio Level to emphasize it as a
SAFe Portfolio responsibility.
 It anchors flow.

 The article was enhanced to provide new guidance about the people that manage the value stream.

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From PMO to VMO
The Value Management Office (VMO) supports portfolio flow, and its responsibilities include:

► Helping define the scope of the portfolio

► Supporting improvement to value delivery flow
► Facilitating strategy formulation and helping communicate
strategic themes
► Facilitating the Portfolio Sync
► Collaborating with the LACE to develop, harvest, and apply
successful ART execution patterns across the portfolio
► Facilitating Lean budgeting and governance
► Fostering decentralized PI Planning and operational
excellence
► Fostering more Agile contracts and leaner supplier and
Customer partnerships
12-28
 4
Enhancing Business
Agility with SAFe
across the Business

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Extended SAFe Business & Technology Patterns

 SAFe moves beyond IT and Dev Extended SAFe Business and Technology Patterns

 A Lean-Agile transformation will

touch every part of
the organization. As one part
accelerates, it reveals
bottlenecks in the others

 The updated Business and

Technology article highlights
Extended SAFe Business and
Technology Patterns

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SAFe Beyond IT Home Page

The SAFe Beyond IT home page provides access to articles about real-world business agility experiences in Operational
Value Streams. Contributed and written by SAFe professionals, they describe their successes and challenges in
extending Lean, Agile, and SAFe practices to Finance, Marketing, Human Resources, Legal, Operations, and other
functions beyond IT.

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 5
Building the Future
with AI, Big Data,
and Cloud

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Building the future with AI, Big Data, Cloud

 AI can revolutionize solutions developed by SAFe

organizations. Has the potential to dramatically
AI
influence the operational and business models of
enterprises as well

 Big data is a portfolio concern as it requires

vision, investment, centralization, and governance
Big Data at the highest levels in the organization

 Cloud increases product development speed

and agility
Cloud

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Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term used to describe a wide range of smart machines
capable of performing tasks that typically require human intelligence.

 The new guidance describes how to apply AI in

the enterprise and how SAFe can accelerate the The three primary ways to apply AI in an organization
successful adoption of this advanced technology

 Key topics covered include:

• AI as a Competitive Advantage
• Applying AI to Achieve Better Business Results
• Understanding the Fundamental Types of AI

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Big Data

The roles and practices required to collect, manage, normalize and deliver large and useful
datasets to enterprise stakeholders so that they can be used to achieve business agility.

 Data has become critically important across the

entire enterprise. Big Data products support all parts of the enterprise

 It influences business decisions, helps create

better products, improves product development,
and drives operational efficiencies.

 This new guidance describes data’s critical

role in the enterprise, the DataOps process to
manage and deliver extensive volumes of data,
and how to apply DataOps in SAFe.

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Cloud

Enterprises are increasingly turning to the cloud to create the agility they need to
survive and thrive in the digital age.
 Migrating enterprise systems from on-
premises to the cloud must also include The cloud accelerates the development value stream
automating and accelerating value-
generating activities across the
organization.

 Topics in this article include:

• Aligning the cloud to value
• Cloud for Infrastructure and Operations
• Cloud for DevOps
• Cloud for AI

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 6
Delivering Better
Outcomes with
Measure and Grow
and OKRs

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Metrics is now Measure & Grow
Measure
.
& Grow is the new name for SAFe’s metrics model. It is a comprehensive, yet simple, approach
for measuring progress toward business agility, built around three measurement domains:

 Outcomes: Do our solutions meet the needs of our customers and the business?
 Flow: How efficient is the organization at delivering value to the customer?
 Competency: How proficient is the organization in the practices that enable business agility?

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SAFe highlights three primary key use cases for applying OKRs

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Use case 1: Enhance alignment across a SAFe portfolio
OKRs can work together to provide alignment and transparency at multiple levels

 The work to achieve a particular

strategic theme will differ for each
value stream

 It can be helpful to create specific OKRs

for each value stream that aligns with
the portfolio’s strategic themes

 For large value streams, it may be

helpful to create a set of OKRs that
define the goals for each specific ART

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Use case 2: Define business outcomes for Lean business
cases

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Use case 3: Set improvement goals for the transformation
Apply OKRs to establish outcome objectives for the SAFe transformation itself. This can include
a hierarchy of outcomes, as shown in the figure below:

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 Other Important • SAFe backlogs
Changes
• Spanning Palette
• Enterprise Solution Delivery
• Terminology changes

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All SAFe Backlogs are managed with Kanban

 Each backlog highlighted on the Big Picture

was merged with its associated Kanban article
to simplify guidance and emphasize flow

 Removed the vertical Kanban label from all

backlogs to reduce visual clutter

 The Backlog state was replaced by Ready to

reduce confusion between the process state
and actual backlog

 For Scrum, a separate Kanban system

manages the Iteration Backlog and uses the
‘Iteration Backlog’ state for work that is ready
Backlog

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Spanning palette changes

 Added OKRs to the palette

 The Milestones icon was removed, and its

content was merged into the new Roadmap
article.

 Added AI (Artificial Intelligence), which was

previously an extended guidance article

 Lean UX was moved to the body of the BP

 Measure & Grow article combines the

content from the previous metrics and
measure and grow articles. The icon was
renamed accordingly.

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Enterprise Solution Delivery
 Updated Enterprise Solution Delivery best practices
 New Pre-Plan describes the Solution Train activities necessary to prepare ARTs for PI
Planning
 New Coordinate and Deliver describes the practices necessary to deliver large solutions
across multiple ARTs and suppliers in a Solution Train

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Program Terminology has been phased-out

 Program is often associated From To

with traditional project and Agile Program Management Office Value Management Office
program management. Program Backlog ART Backlog
Program Board ART Planning Board
 Program Increment is now PI Program Epic ART Epic
(Planning Interval) Program Execution ART Execution
Program Increment Planning Interval
Program Kanban ART Kanban
Program PI Objectives ART PI Objectives
Program Predictability Measure ART Predictability Measure
Program Risks ART PI Risks
SAFe Program Consultant SAFe Practice Consultants (SPCs)

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Standardize Solution Terminology

 Solution Train artifacts and events From To

were standardized for consistency Solution Arch/Eng Solution Architect

Solution Backlog Solution Train Backlog

 Solution Arch/Eng was replaced by
Solution Architect (same for Solution Board Solution Train Planning Board

Sys Arch/Eng) Solution Epic Solution Train Epic

Solution Kanban Solution Train Kanban

Solution PI Objectives Solution Train PI Objectives

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Other Terminology Changes

 Changed DSU and SoS to be consistent From To

with other similar SAFe’s events: Daily Standup Team Sync
• PO Sync
Lean Systems And
• ART Sync Lean Systems Engineering
Solution Engineering
• Architect Sync
• Portfolio Sync Scrum of Scrums Coach Sync

 Sync better reflects that these events are ScrumXP SAFe Scrum

primarily for coordination not status reporting

 Scrum Master can be called a Team Coach or

Scrum Master depending on context

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