Is SAFe safe for your organization? I don’t know.

If your definition of safe, is like “no one has even been fired for choosing IBM”, SAFe may be safe. Though, you really need to consider, will it help your organization improve? I hoped that Scrum would help the world discover iterative and incremental engineering practices and principles. It seems to me, it has failed. Maybe SAFe can be different; I don’t know.

I have not spent any time looking into SAFe. I cannot make an informed opinion. I would make my opinion based on the message of SAFe and how it is being adopted. Generally, I am critical of what most Agile adoptions have become, Agile in name only (AINO). AINO adoptions leave developers feeling like they are being micromanaged and pressured to do poor work.

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Why do engineers dislike Agile?

Being one of the people that participated in the creation of the Agile Manifesto, I find myself very disappointed by the reaction of engineers to the question “Are you practicing Agile?” Their shoulders drop. They start to slowly shake their heads. They mumble; they grumble. They tell me agile is horrible. I ask why. Reasons I head most often are:
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Planning Poker Party (The Companion Games)

High-Low Story Showdown, Deal and Slide, Developer Guts, and Customer Guts

It’s sprint zero and you have a stack of stories needing their first estimate? You need an initial release plan. What should you do? It’s kind of hard to start on day one with Planning Poker. There is a missing baseline to estimate against.
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Coaching ramblings from China

I’m just completing my fourth trip to China to coach Chinese engineers in TDD. I’ve learned a few things, I hope, about coaching people who don’t speak my language as a first language. I also had occasion to use what little I know on the subject while at the Scrum gathering in Shanghai, the first in China. Before I get into that, let me tell you about my adventure getting the the Scrum gathering.
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Story Points win Over Ideal Days

Should a team use story points or ideal days for estimation. Story points have clear advantages.

An ideal day is this thing that never happens. You get to work, everyone else took the day off, except when you need to ask them a question, then the needed person is immediately available and willing to help you. On this ideal day your goals are clear and so is your head. So really, there is no such thing as an ideal day except in our imagination. Continue reading