Design and the Scaled Agile Framework… Maybe you’ve heard about SAFe. Maybe others have told you it’s a terrible, scary-looking, confusing diagram of how corporations try to “do agile.” Or maybe you’ve experienced the scrum-of-scrums-from-hell where no one knows what’s really going on, what the product you’re all working on is really supposed be, or why you’re even doing it in the first place. So you might be skittish about talking about it altogether! We’ll use story telling from our internal XD practice, shining a light on what we’ve found that works and what doesn’t. We’ll share our stories about XD allies and stakeholder management nightmares that lead us to key insights. We’ll also share our hopes, visions, and plans for how we want to activate design thinking throughout our organization by creating meaningful experiences of design in addition to meaningful experiences.

1. THE
SCALED AGILE FRAMEWORK
MIGHT BE
HANG ONTO YOUR HATSGOOD FOR DESIGN

2. Jen Fabrizi
Design Director, Strategy & Research
Travelers
River Brandon
Design Director, Design System Product Owner
Travelers
DISCLAIMER: The opinions and views expressed in this presentation are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of Travelers.
Not EXPERTS

3. WHY ARE WE HERE?

4. #OwnTheFramework

5. WHAT IS SAFe?

6. RUN AWAY

7. LOL, AMIRITE?

8. BACK TO BASICS

9. LEAN, AGILE, LEAN UX
• Dedicated, accountable, cross-functional teams
• Collaborative, iterative, responsive
• User-centric, hypothesis-driven, measurable
• Continuous, on-demand, value-oriented

10. • Manage across portfolios and orgs
• Create and sustain platforms
• Use Kanban and Scrum for
different needs, and stay in sync
SAFe CAN HELP US

11. IF IT’S NOT LEAN,
IF IT’S NOT AGILE,
IT’S NOT SAFe

12. RIDING THE
RELEASE TRAIN
Busting design myths in Scaled Agile

13. “WE’RE AGILE.”*
MYTH #1
* EXCEPT FOR UX

14. “WHERE’S THE UX?”

15. BEWARE
THE TRAP OF
“SHARED SERVICES”

16. YOU’RE ON THE TEAM

17. HANG YOUR HAT ON…

18. FOR THE
INTE-GREAT-ER
GOOD

19. FUNNEL RESEARCH ANALYSIS
PORTFOLIO
BACKLOG IMPLEMENTING DONE
PORTFOLIO KANBAN
WE HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT
ALL BIG IDEAS
WELCOME
DESIGN HAPPENS HERE!
FUNNEL ANALYSIS BACKLOG IMPLEMENTING VALIDATING DEPLOYING
PROGRAM KANBAN
DESIGN HAPPENS HERE!

20. A HYPOTHESIS IS WORTH A THOUSAND REQUIREMENTS

21. LAYING DOWN TRACKS
ENABLERS
EPICS FEATURES STORIES> >

22. TYPES OF ENABLERS
Exploration
Enablers
Architecture
Enablers
Infrastructure
Enablers
Compliance
Enablers

23. FUNNEL RESEARCH ANALYSIS
PORTFOLIO
BACKLOG IMPLEMENTING DONE
PORTFOLIO KANBAN
EXPLORATION ENABLERS
• Support research and
prototyping to understand
user needs and explore
solution options
• Can be epics, features, or
stories
• Are managed through the
portfolio and program
Kanbans
FUNNEL RESEARCH ANALYSIS
PORTFOLIO
BACKLOG IMPLEMENTING DONE
PORTFOLIO KANBAN
FUNNEL ANALYSIS BACKLOG
IMPLEMENTIN
G VALIDATING DEPLOYING
PROGRAM KANBAN

24. BEHAVIORS & ATTITUDES
• Make it your job to learn SAFe
• Collaborate to define how much is
enough
• Listen, empathize, act

25. DESIGN ON DEMAND
MYTH #2

26. ORDER’S UP!

27. REQUIREMENTS ARCHITECTURE DESIGN BUILD TEST RELEASE MEASURE
REQ
UIRE
MEN
TS
ARC
HITE
CTU
RE
DESI
GN
BUIL
D
TEST
RELE
ASE
MEA
SUR
E
FASTER, WATERFALL!
#Tragile
REQ
UIRE
MEN
TS
ARC
HITE
CTU
RE
DESI
GN
BUIL
D
TEST
RELE
ASE
MEA
SUR
E
REQ
UIRE
MEN
TS
ARC
HITE
CTU
RE
DESI
GN
BUIL
D
TEST
RELE
ASE
MEA
SUR
E
#WaterScrumFall #WaterFail

28. #KillHandoffs

29. Hang your hat on…

30. XD IT
PM
ZONE OF HAPPINESS
GREAT EXPERIENCES
NOT MADE HERE
AWESOME
RESULTS

31. #Besties
DESIGN AND PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

32. INVITE EVERYONE

33. MAKE THE SOLUTION
MAKE THE DECISIONS
CO-CREATE
DOCUMENT DECISIONS

34. #ShowYourWork

35. BEHAVIORS & ATTITUDES
• Step into the void
• Address fears
• Practice confidence and authority

36. MACHINE FOR DELIVERY
MYTH #3

37. TOILING IN THE
FEATURE FACTORY

38. GIVE WORK MEANING
WORK IS SOCIAL
MAKE WORK HUMAN

39. Real
World
Information
FeedbackDecision Mental
Model
Decision-Making
Rules
DOUBLE-LOOP LEARNING

40. HANG YOUR HAT ON…

41. CONTINUOUS DELIVERY PIPELINE
Hypothesize Build Measure
Learn
Continuous
Exploration
Continuous
Integration
Continuous
Deployment

42. IDEAS CAN COME
FROM ANYWHERE
INNOVATION
1% INSPIRATION,
99% PERSPIRATION
RELAX, WE HAVE
TIME FOR THAT

43. BEHAVIORS & ATTITUDES
• Treat design work like it’s
knowledge management
• Get your head out of your laptop
• Show, don’t tell

44. DESIGN IS DIFFERENT
MYTH #4

45. I’M SPECIAL!

46. THE DESIGN
OF EXPERIENCE

47. THE
DESIGNOF
EXPERIENCE

48. HANG YOUR HAT ON…

49. Culture of shared
responsibility
Lean flow to
accelerate delivery
The UX is
what we make
together
Recovery enables
low-risk releases
Automation of
continuous delivery
pipeline
Measure everything
SAFe DevOps
Design work
is part of making
the solution
Common design
toolchain and cycles of
activity
Resilient design
enables learning
and adjusting
UX OKRs
SAFe
DesignOps

50. DESIGN STAFFING
PORTFOLIO
Epic Owners
PROGRAM (RELEASE TRAIN) SCRUM TEAM
Product MgmtSys Arch
RTE
Product OwnerDev Team
Scrum Master
Enterprise Arch
Lean Portfolio
Mgmt

51. DESIGN STAFFING
PORTFOLIO PROGRAM (RELEASE TRAIN) SCRUM TEAM
Product MgmtSys Arch
RTE
Product OwnerDev Team
Scrum Master
Epic Owners Enterprise Arch
Lean Portfolio
Mgmt

52. Epic Owners Enterprise Arch
Lean Portfolio
Mgmt
DESIGN STAFFING
PORTFOLIO PROGRAM (RELEASE TRAIN) SCRUM TEAM
Product MgmtSys Arch
RTE
Product OwnerDev Team
Scrum Master
Design Strategy & Research
1+ PER PORTFOLIO
Design Lead and Researcher
1 EACH
Product/UI Designers
1 PER SCRUM TEAM*
DMO
Design Management Office
PEOPLE - PROCESS - TOOLS

53. Epic Owners Enterprise Arch
Lean Portfolio
Mgmt
PORTFOLIO PROGRAM (RELEASE TRAIN) SCRUM TEAM
Product MgmtSys Arch
RTE
Product OwnerDev Team
Scrum Master
#SpheresOfInfluence #YMMV

54. BEHAVIORS & ATTITUDES
• Take design seriously
• Be business-minded
• Share ownership

55. IN SUMMARY
• Embrace SAFe but don’t drink the KoolAid
• Some flaws with SAFe are inherent in the framework
• Some flaws with SAFe are because of a mismatch
between representations and intent
• Some flaws with SAFe are due to immaturity with the
framework and how it’s being used

56. #OwnTheFramework#LikeABoss

57. QUESTIONS?

58. @jenniferfabrizi
womentalkdesign.com/jennifer-fabrizi/
@rvr
rvr.design

59. Scaled Agile Framework
Scaled Agile Framework
Scaled Agile Incorporated
SAFe certification and training
Agile Methods
Agile Alliance
Lean UX
Lean UX Book
Lean UX and the SAFe PI Life Cycle
REFERENCES
L.A.F.A.B.L.E
Mountain Goat Software Blog
Design studio image
Courtesy of Dark Horse GmbH
Animated GIFs
https://giphy.com/