Thread by @michael_leber

I know, it is kind of "dangerous" to tap the SAFe framework :) Not, that many people would care anymore. Or a lot of customers would care. But SAFe is primarily a training business - and usually criticizing SAFe results in being bashed by SAFe trainers.

To be honest, I also don't care about SAFe anymore. 7 years ago, after looking in any of its details, it was clear to me, this is not a skillful way. Having looked into it in 2021, my point of view was strongly confirmed.

A major problem with SAFe though is, how critique is assumed to be "bashing". Why? Not at all because SAFe is so great. But because it triggers emotions of trainers and consultants, who make a great living of something, that I interpret as uneducated intervention.

Many SAFe people argue, they would anyway not follow any of the whole "blueprints". And SAFe would only serve as entry point. I get that. And I appreciate the assumption. But I also believe, this is bad.

First of all, SAFe claims "Business Agility". And this seems more of a joke to me. If anything had to do with #BusinessAgility in the 21st century, it would not be the #Scaled #Agile #Framework. But introducing something like this with the idea to switch afterwards is stupid.

Because once introduced, you have burnt the ambition, passion and energy of lots of people. A turnaround from SAFe literally means, you need to heal the corporate culture. I'm once again about to start with such a client, internationally spread, located in Vienna.

To sum my arguments: SAFe claims #Agile by melting all buzzwords into a pot. The result is a 20th century hierarchy, spoon-feeding teams, disconnected from customers, with POs, who are not at all empowered, etc etc. It is the #agilization of an outworn organizational model.

One of the worst interpretations SAFe compiled is #Scrum. SAFe has literally castrated #Scrum and by spreading such a eunuch version of the framework across many teams, you literally nurture crap amongst large parts of an organization bottom-up.

So what, you might think. Having experienced so many SAFe handicapped clients, where we always needed to find ways out, repair and heal, it became obvious to make the ways out available. Hence 2022 we'll grow a platform, showing ways to leave SAFe. For those, who want to.