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Scrum as defined in SAFe

Last post 01:56 pm March 3, 2021 by Fredrik Vestin
2 replies
08:55 pm March 1, 2021

Hi!

I have done some reading on the SAFe and the references to Scrum and the associated roles, events and artifacts are described extensively troughout the SAFe documentation. However, what is described is not really Scrum as defined in the scrum guide IMO. 

Do the SAFe people believe that what they are describing is actually Scrum or are they deliberately adding/removing things from the Scrum framework? If so, is that allowed? 

To be clear. I have never used SAFe. I only know what I have read.

 


12:04 am March 2, 2021

I'd agree that what is described in SAFe is not Scrum as it's defined in the Scrum Guide. They do call the team-level process framework "ScrumXP", but I see only tangential relationships between either Scrum or XP in the detailed description. Some of the descriptions of cross-team dependency management, large solution or portfolio, and enterprise practices aren't the best choices for supporting either Scrum or XP at the team level, either.

I can't speak to if the maintainers of SAFe think that they are describing something consistent with Scrum, but adding or removing things from the Scrum framework is allowed. However, as the Scrum Guide says "implementing only parts of Scrum is possible, the result is not Scrum." There are plenty of reasons why a team may change a core part of Scrum and make a process that is highly effective for them, but continuing to call that Scrum doesn't do anyone much good and only serves to confuse people or make it more difficult to have a conversation about the way of working with others.

Personally, I would prefer it if SAFe scrubbed references to "Scrum" and "Scrum Master" from their framework. They could point to the Scrum Guide as a useful reference if they wanted to, but I don't see any way to avoid confusion if someone talks about Scrum as it's defined by SAFe versus Scrum as it's defined in the Scrum Guide without qualifying it.


12:24 pm March 2, 2021

Hi Thomas!

I very much agree with what you're saying. It's unfortunate that Scrum terminology is used when there clearly are so many deviations from both principles and definition. 

I found that there is actually an initiative to remove Scrum from SAFe.

http://remove-scrum-from-safe.tilda.ws/


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