“Can we do 100% Scrum and SAFe simultaneously?” 🤔
This question emerged during a recent Scrum.org Professional Scrum Master Advanced training in Germany 🇩🇪. Some time ago, the company started an Agile transformation and hired me to learn more about Scrum and how it could benefit them.
As part of the training, we used an exercise to clarify the roles of the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developers.
The steps of the exercise are:
👉 Form small groups and give everyone cards containing the work and tasks necessary to do Scrum.
👉 Connect the cards with tasks to the roles (SM, PO, Dev, etc) based on a Professional Scrum environment — the way Scrum is intended according to the Scrum Guide
👉 Determine how Scrum is used in your organization. Place dots on the cards that — in your experience — are managed differently.
👉 Discuss the differences, how they impact Scrum, and, more importantly, the underlying values and principles.
During the debrief, many participants noticed that most of the cards related to the Product Owner contained dots. Meaning that someone else is responsible for this work. For example, the Product Owner is NOT responsible for the product budget, roadmap, return on investment, etc. This can result in a powerless Product Owner, dependencies, and bottlenecks. ❌
At this moment, someone shared that they’re also experimenting with SAFe, and the Product Manager is doing most of the Product Owner’s work.
AHA… 😃
They decided to pick the parts from SAFe that they considered valuable. Interestingly, they chose not to use RTEs because they expected Scrum Masters to step up and broaden their responsibilities. But because of the product’s complexity, they wanted a Product Manager (bigger picture) and a Product Owner (close to the team, more detailed work).
During the remainder of the training, we frequently discussed the possibilities of doing 100% Scrum and SAFe simultaneously.
My answer to this question is: you can’t. ❌
You can’t do 100% Scrum and SAFe simultaneously. It requires tradeoffs.
Does this mean it’s wrong? Not necessarily. I’ll be the last to claim you always need to do 100% Scrum, and despite not being a SAFe supporter, I also don’t despise it. I can see the value of SAFe for some organizations.
I would encourage mindfulness of the tradeoffs’ consequences. What is the impact, and is it worth doing or causing damage? 🤷♀️
In this example, the organization is doing just fine. They’re on a journey, running various experiments to see what works for their context. They don’t limit themselves to one framework or method and are open-minded to see what benefits them. Awesome. 😎
How would you answer this question?
What is your experience?