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Blackblot PMTK and SAFe

Introduction

This review explores the compatibility of the Blackblot Product Manager’s Toolkit® (PMTK), a market-driven product management methodology, with the product management function in Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®).

SAFe Background

Dean Leffingwell is the author of several books on Agile and requirements management and is the original creator of SAFe.

In his 2010 book, Agile Software Requirements, Mr. Leffingwell refers to an Agile Enterprise Big Picture concept, now known as Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).

Officially released in 2011, version 1.0 is the first edition of SAFe. Five major versions of SAFe have since been released.

During the 1990s, Mr. Leffingwell held leadership positions at Requisite, Inc. and Rational Software Corporation.

The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a software development process created and introduced in the early 2000s by the Rational Software Corporation. IBM later acquired Rational.

RUP was highly regarded by many practitioners but was overshadowed in the early 2000s by the ascent of Agile and Scrum’s popularity.

It has been asserted that SAFe is essentially RUP rebranded as an Agile framework.

SAFe is widespread and growing in popularity, with over 20,000 enterprises worldwide implementing SAFe, and more than one million practitioners have been trained in SAFe.

According to Gartner, 70% of Fortune 100 companies chose SAFe.

SAFe’s Character

SAFe is a vast collection of practices that include Agile, agility, Scrum, lean, kanban, continuous learning, extreme programming, design thinking, big data, and various other functions and roles.

SAFe encapsulates different product-related activities and tasks guided by SAFe’s values, principles, and mindsets.

SAFe is officially characterized by Scaled Agile, Inc as a “system for business agility”.

However, SAFe is characterized differently by online sources.

Examples include a framework for business agility, an Agile methodology for software development, a set of organization and workflow patterns, a framework for scaling lean and Agile practices, a framework to implement Scrum at an enterprise level, an Agile scaling framework, a prescriptive and structured Agile approach for large enterprises, an Agile software development framework, a project management methodology, tool for organizations to scale lean and Agile methods, a framework for scaling Agile across the enterprise, an interactive software framework to apply lean, Agile and Scrum practices, and more.

SAFe Pros and Cons

SAFe is touted as helping bring products faster to market, improve product quality, increase productivity, and facilitate happier and more engaged employees.

SAFe proponents say it brings clarity, structure, and direction far more than other Agile methods.

Contrarily, SAFe is critiqued as hierarchical, inflexible, heavily process-oriented, leaning towards over-planning, complex due to aggregating too many disparate practices, vague on role responsibility, distorting Scrum, and displaying overbearing command and control structures — all of which are argued as the opposite of being Agile and promoting agility.

SAFe Marketing

SAFe is marketed as a way to overcome older Agile methods’ limitation of a single team and a single project and scale Agile to work with larger or multiple teams.

Like politics, a movement can gain momentum and followers by creating a discredited alternative.

The Agile and the Scrum commercialization industry chose the Waterfall process for software development as a boogeyman.

Now SAFe is doing to Scrum what Scrum did to Waterfall.

The majority of Scrum implementations fail.

Nevertheless, way too many people are invested in Scrum, and if Scrum were to be declared a failure, it would be problematic for all those involved.

There had to be a way to elegantly transition out of Scrum with little blame or shame, so the excuse was that Scrum works but does not scale well.

SAFe shrewdly and successfully positioned itself as a viable alternative and natural evolution to Scrum.

SAFe and Product Management

SAFe rightfully makes a clear distinction between product management and Scrum.

SAFe correctly places the Product Manager as a separate role external to the Agile Team.

SAFe justifiably restrains over-zealous misinterpretations of the Scrum guide on product management by clearly separating the Product Manager role from the Scrum Product Owner role and placing them in different departments.

These notions are compatible with the Blackblot PMTK™ Methodology and conform with PMTK foundation rules.

However, SAFe’s official literature paints product management as an exhaustive list of skills and responsibilities with numerous diverse areas of ownership.

The list is overwhelming to the point where product management, according to SAFe, is essentially an amalgamation of all four schools of thought in product management that Blackblot had identified. And even more.

Published SAFe literature does not explain the methodological foundation used to create the scope of a SAFe Product Manager’s responsibilities and associated skillset.

Also, some of the official SAFe literature confusingly depict overlapping Product Manager and Scrum Product Owner role responsibilities.

Furthermore, SAFe promotes the unsupported idea of Agile Product Management.

According to Blackblot PMTK™ Methodology, product management has no subtypes, e.g., Agile Product Management.

There is only product management, and the fundamentals of product management, as outlined in PMTK, are universal and unrelated to any software development method.

Consequently, according to Blackblot PMTK™ Methodology, SAFe’s definition and characterization of product management and the Product Manager role are misguided and erroneous.

Summary

Agile scaling frameworks, SAFe included, are growing in popularity.

SAFe demonstrates a mature view that considers the Product Manager role focused on business value and strategically at a higher level than the Scrum Product Owners.

This modern perspective is compatible with Blackblot PMTK Methodology™ and the PMTK foundation rules that define the PMTK Product Manager as a highly strategic role.

As outlined in PMTK, product management is a strategic, separate, and independent function that can interface with any software development method or delivery approach.

It is positively reassuring that some SAFe perspectives and practices on product management are compatible with PMTK.

Unfortunately, the product management function in Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) is crammed with disjointed responsibilities, seemingly without any methodological foundation.

Given SAFe’s current definition of product management, Blackblot PMTK Methodology™ and SAFe are incompatible relative to product management.