The document discusses how the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) can help enterprises overcome challenges of multi-speed IT environments through effective release management. SAFe uses Agile Release Trains (ARTs) consisting of multiple Agile teams working together on integrated software releases. Effective release management is needed to coordinate dependencies between multiple ARTs. Plutora Release management software provides metrics and dashboards to improve visibility across ARTs and ensure high quality, on-time software deliveries that realize the full benefits of SAFe.

1. Achieve the
Full Potential
of SAFe with
Effective Release
Management
Enterprise software teams often operate at different speeds
depending on the application and infrastructure.
Some teams use Agile, others use Waterfall, and still other teams
use a combination of the two. This multi-speed IT adds to the
complexity of enterprise releases. IT teams can cope by using
the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) coupled with effective
release management.

2. They are nimble and dynamic enough to
rapidly create software from the ground up or
quickly iterate and deploy new features onto
an existing platform.
Not so in most enterprises.
When development teams in an enterprise create applications,
they might find themselves interacting with systems of record.
Agile does not play nicely with these systems.
This bodes ill for applications whose shiny frontends conceal a
backend that resembles MS DOS. Agile teams working on the
newer component will create at their usual breakneck speed,
while the teams that are assigned to the older systems will plug
away at Waterfall speed.
Creating features for systems of record will take a long time, and
integrating those features will take longer still. In the meantime,
the Agile teams who’ve already finished their portion of the work
will be left sitting on their hands.
That’s multi-speed IT in a nutshell.
At enterprise scale, there’s a lot that goes into managing all of
this to ensure smooth software delivery.
For dev teams that are working with
entirely new technology, Agile is king.

3. As an enterprise company battling with multi-speed IT, you don’t want to
lose the advantages of Agile. The Scaled Agile Framework or SAFe can
help you overcome that challenge.
Note: SAFe and Scaled Agile Framework are registered trademarks of Scaled Agile, Inc.
What’s the best way
to solve it?

4. What is it?
According to Scaled Agile, the company that
designed the framework, SAFe empowers
complex organizations to achieve the benefits
of Lean-Agile software and systems
development at scale.
Launched in 2011, SAFe has helped hundreds
of the world’s largest organizations achieve:
• Faster time-to-market.
• Dramatic increases in productivity
and quality.
• More motivated and engaged employees.
How it works
The intention of SAFe is to make up for the
shortcomings of Agile that emerge when
dealing with legacy software.
Its key functional unit, the Agile Release
Train (ART), enforces a holistic approach.
Instead of isolated teams working on
individual features, each train works together
to create a working, integrated piece of
software.
ARTs are typically made of up five to twelve
Agile teams. Each ART knows the start date
of their project. They know the release date,
and they know how much work and which
specific goals they need to hit in between
those two dates.
This is a ten-week increment by default. At
the end, the train delivers production
software with integrated features—a
Program Increment (PI).
Along the train’s journey, there are several
different “stations,” representing, for example,
system integration testing, user acceptance
testing, and staging. If a team’s feature isn’t
ready by the time they arrive at one of these
stations, then they don’t get to stay on the
train. Their feature will not get included in the
PI and will have to wait until the next
increment is delivered.
In SAFe, a feature is done when it is
written, tested, and proven to work in
production. By delaying features that
don’t meet this definition, SAFe
ensures that trains deliver PIs with
consistent levels of quality across
the board.
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

5. With manual data collection there’s a big
opportunity for error and uncertainty to creep
into the development process. In the
worst-case scenario, individual teams within
an ART may lose sight of application quality.
Agile Release Trains require
effective release management
Managing a single train may be relatively easy, but this single
train may have dependencies which connect to other ongoing
projects. That’s why, to achieve even greater efficiencies, SAFe
requires coordinated release management where multiple
projects and multiple trains are involved.
Multiple ARTs are managed via vast Portfolio Epics: design
documents that capture the entire scope and scale of a
particular project. But customer expectations are a moving
target — the scope and scale of a Portfolio Epic may diverge
from the finished production software.
Due to the sheer scale of an Epic, it may be difficult to assess
how progress is being made on the development of its
capabilities or features. Thus, SAFe instructs Epic Owners to
assess progress based on certain metrics, such as feature cycle
time, team self-assessments, releases per year, and so on.
Epic Owners might stumble in the collection and
interpretation of these metrics. Attempts to coordinate the
efforts of multiple ARTs and assess their progress usually
take the form of a massive two-day meeting. Individual
Release Train Engineers will come forward with
self-reported quality and deliverable metrics. Methods for
capturing and storing these metrics might include
whiteboards and spreadsheets. This is inadequate for
complete visibility.

6. Reap the benefits
of SAFe with
Plutora Release
Plutora allows Release Train Engineers or
RTEs to sense problems within the release
and correct them before they become
irreversible.
Teams using Plutora Release will benefit from a real-time status and
risk profile of the project. Live visibility drives collaboration and prevents
problems from occurring, particularly when there are dependencies
within the project.
Plutora Release provides several dashboards that display metrics from
within trains, and across each train, allowing each stakeholder to have a
detailed view of metrics across the entire project. This results in a
higher-quality PI overall, which arrives with more of its features intact,
further solidifying productivity gains from SAFe.
When used in conjunction with Plutora Environments, Plutora Release
can be set up to “gate” features that enter a PI and Plutora
Environments can ensure that environment conflicts and contention are
avoided, ensuring that releases pass through the correct quality
processes with the highest level of quality.
Features that don’t pass testing can be removed from the PI to reduce
schedule risk. RTEs can trace the ripple effect of change across the ART
and auto-sync updated scope to dev tools to keep teams aligned.
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7. SAFe represents an amazing way for enterprises to adopt the speed and high-quality output of Agile, even if
they don’t happen to be dealing with green-field projects. Release management aligns with SAFe in a way that
delivers improved visibility and governance. This allows SAFe to fully live up to its potential as a design
philosophy that solves multi-speed IT and helps deliver business-critical objectives.