How does SAFe handle integration and testing?

SAFe or Scaled Agile Framework handles integration and testing in the same way that any other agile process of agile framework would.

It is baked into the DNA of the agile team to continuously integrate and test from concept to customer delivery. It isn’t something we do a the end, it’s something that is baked into the agile process to integrate product development elements and continuously test the solution.

SAFe creates teams of agile teams, known as Agile Release Trainers (ART) who ensure that their work is coordinated, integrated, and focused on specific customer objectives.

A good example of this is an autonomous car.

You have hardware, software, and firmware elements, which must integrate into a working feature or product at the end of each production cycle. So, for that specific program increment (PI), it is essential that all the elements are integrated and tested to ensure that the customer receives a working product that checks all the boxes and helps them achieve a specific goal.

We can’t have dependencies where one team waits for the other to complete their job before handing it over to the next team, and so forth. That would be waterfall-style project management and defeats the entire process of adopting agile or SAFe.

Large Scale Solutions.

SAFe also acknowledges that you have environments where large-scale solutions are being developed, and it isn’t simply the product development team who are involved. You have:

• Teams of agile teams working on the solution.
• Suppliers who are an integral part of the solution delivery.
• Partners who are an integral part of the solution delivery.
• Compliance and legislative elements that are critical to the solution delivery.

And so forth.

A rock-solid agile scaling framework needs to address these different elements and ensure that each of them are coordinated and aligned with continuous delivery of value to customers.

In these circumstances, you need to acknowledge that continuous integration and delivery of value to customers may not always be achievable. Your supplier or partner may not embrace agile and insist on following a more traditional approach to project management or product development.

Often, those suppliers and partners are bigger than your organization, and span multiple geographies, and so it can be tough or unrealistic to dictate terms to them.

Phased integration.

The organization and team will be aware of these suppliers and partners who don’t operate in an agile fashion, and plan effectively around their service delivery. They will have some kind of deadline or commitment from the supplier or partner, and ensure that the solution delivered is integrated and tested before the product is handed off to another department or delivered to the customer.

This may be the wood that is included in the dashboard of our autonomous car, or it may be the supplier side software that needs to integrate into the software we are building.

Either way, the team will make that dependency transparent and visible, and simply plan around the delivery elements of those 3^rd party products and features to ensure that work flows effectively and efficiently through the system, and that integration and testing happens as soon as possible.

SAFe, like Scrum, insists that a customer receives a fully working and releasable product or feature at the end of each production cycle. In SAFe, this is known as a Program Increment, and the team will ensure to plan the dependencies into that program increment to make sure that the customer receives a fully working product to review at the end of that production cycle.

So, that’s how SAFe handles integration and testing.

About Value Glide

Value Glide are a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) consultancy, coaching practice, and training specialist who work with organizations to align business objectives with customer needs and wants.

As deeply experienced agile coaches and practitioners, our team are invested in continuous learning through each client engagement and use the data and evidence we gather from each implementation to inform our training, coaching, and consulting services.

In a nutshell, empirical process control or empiricism.

If you are thinking of adopting agile within your organization and have identified SAFe as a great agile framework to adopt, implement and improve your business agility, visit our SAFe Quickstart ART Launch program page or view our SAFe Consulting Services page.

If you have identified a need for an agile coach and SAFe coach to help your organization adopt and implement SAFe, visit our SAFe Coaching Services page.

If you want to know more about SAFe and how to lead SAFe, visit our SAFE Training page for a host of options, from Leading SAFe to a SAFe Release Train Engineer course.

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