Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey

Abheeshta Putta; Ömer Uludağ; Maria Paasivaara; Shun Long Hong

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_11

Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey

Abheeshta Putta^*, Ömer Uludağ, Maria Paasivaara, Shun Long Hong

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference article in proceedings › Scientific › peer-review

9 Citations (Scopus)

148 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

During the last two decades, turbulent business environments tempted firms to adopt agile methods to cope with the ever-changing customer demands. The success of agile methods in small and co-located teams inspired companies to apply them to large-scale endeavors. Agile scaling frameworks, such as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), have been proposed by practitioners to scale agile practices to large projects and enterprises. Companies are increasingly taking these frameworks into use. However, the number of quantitative empirical studies assessing the benefits and challenges of adopting the agile scaling frameworks is still limited. This paper starts filling in this gap by presenting the results from a survey of 100 industry participants around the world on their perception of the benefits and challenges of adopting the SAFe framework. Our results show that the SAFe adoption improves transparency, as well as collaboration and dependency management between agile teams. The most commonly mentioned challenges of the SAFe adoption are organizational politics, difficulties in establishing an agile mindset, change resistance, and team formation challenges.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Proceedings
Editors	Peggy Gregory, Casper Lassenius, Xiaofeng Wang, Philippe Kruchten
Publisher	Springer
Pages	172-187
Number of pages	16
ISBN (Electronic)	9783030780982
ISBN (Print)	9783030780975
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_11
Publication status	Published - 2021
MoE publication type	A4 Conference publication
Event	International Conference on Agile Software Development - Virtual, Online, Denmark Duration: 14 Jun 2021 → 18 Jun 2021 Conference number: 22

Publication series

Name	Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing
Publisher	Springer
Volume	419 LNBIP
ISSN (Print)	1865-1348
ISSN (Electronic)	1865-1356

Conference

Conference	International Conference on Agile Software Development
Abbreviated title	XP
Country/Territory	Denmark
City	Virtual, Online
Period	14/06/2021 → 18/06/2021

Keywords

Agile scaling frameworks
Large-scale agile software development
Scaled agile framework
Survey

Access to Document

10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_11

Putta_Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical SurveyFinal published version, 1.27 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

Putta, A., Uludağ, Ö., Paasivaara, M., & Hong, S. L. (2021). Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey. In P. Gregory, C. Lassenius, X. Wang, & P. Kruchten (Eds.), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Proceedings (pp. 172-187). (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing; Vol. 419 LNBIP). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_11

Putta, Abheeshta ; Uludağ, Ömer ; Paasivaara, Maria et al. / Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey. Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Proceedings. editor / Peggy Gregory ; Casper Lassenius ; Xiaofeng Wang ; Philippe Kruchten. Springer, 2021. pp. 172-187 (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing).

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abstract = "During the last two decades, turbulent business environments tempted firms to adopt agile methods to cope with the ever-changing customer demands. The success of agile methods in small and co-located teams inspired companies to apply them to large-scale endeavors. Agile scaling frameworks, such as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), have been proposed by practitioners to scale agile practices to large projects and enterprises. Companies are increasingly taking these frameworks into use. However, the number of quantitative empirical studies assessing the benefits and challenges of adopting the agile scaling frameworks is still limited. This paper starts filling in this gap by presenting the results from a survey of 100 industry participants around the world on their perception of the benefits and challenges of adopting the SAFe framework. Our results show that the SAFe adoption improves transparency, as well as collaboration and dependency management between agile teams. The most commonly mentioned challenges of the SAFe adoption are organizational politics, difficulties in establishing an agile mindset, change resistance, and team formation challenges.",

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Putta, A, Uludağ, Ö, Paasivaara, M & Hong, SL 2021, Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey. in P Gregory, C Lassenius, X Wang & P Kruchten (eds), Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol. 419 LNBIP, Springer, pp. 172-187, International Conference on Agile Software Development, Virtual, Online, Denmark, 14/06/2021. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_11

Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey. / Putta, Abheeshta; Uludağ, Ömer; Paasivaara, Maria et al.
Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Proceedings. ed. / Peggy Gregory; Casper Lassenius; Xiaofeng Wang; Philippe Kruchten. Springer, 2021. p. 172-187 (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing; Vol. 419 LNBIP).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference article in proceedings › Scientific › peer-review

TY - GEN

T1 - Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey

AU - Putta, Abheeshta

AU - Uludağ, Ömer

AU - Paasivaara, Maria

AU - Hong, Shun Long

N1 - Conference code: 22

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - During the last two decades, turbulent business environments tempted firms to adopt agile methods to cope with the ever-changing customer demands. The success of agile methods in small and co-located teams inspired companies to apply them to large-scale endeavors. Agile scaling frameworks, such as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), have been proposed by practitioners to scale agile practices to large projects and enterprises. Companies are increasingly taking these frameworks into use. However, the number of quantitative empirical studies assessing the benefits and challenges of adopting the agile scaling frameworks is still limited. This paper starts filling in this gap by presenting the results from a survey of 100 industry participants around the world on their perception of the benefits and challenges of adopting the SAFe framework. Our results show that the SAFe adoption improves transparency, as well as collaboration and dependency management between agile teams. The most commonly mentioned challenges of the SAFe adoption are organizational politics, difficulties in establishing an agile mindset, change resistance, and team formation challenges.

AB - During the last two decades, turbulent business environments tempted firms to adopt agile methods to cope with the ever-changing customer demands. The success of agile methods in small and co-located teams inspired companies to apply them to large-scale endeavors. Agile scaling frameworks, such as the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), have been proposed by practitioners to scale agile practices to large projects and enterprises. Companies are increasingly taking these frameworks into use. However, the number of quantitative empirical studies assessing the benefits and challenges of adopting the agile scaling frameworks is still limited. This paper starts filling in this gap by presenting the results from a survey of 100 industry participants around the world on their perception of the benefits and challenges of adopting the SAFe framework. Our results show that the SAFe adoption improves transparency, as well as collaboration and dependency management between agile teams. The most commonly mentioned challenges of the SAFe adoption are organizational politics, difficulties in establishing an agile mindset, change resistance, and team formation challenges.

KW - Agile scaling frameworks

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M3 - Conference article in proceedings

AN - SCOPUS:85111387378

SN - 9783030780975

T3 - Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing

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EP - 187

BT - Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Proceedings

A2 - Gregory, Peggy

A2 - Lassenius, Casper

A2 - Wang, Xiaofeng

A2 - Kruchten, Philippe

PB - Springer

T2 - International Conference on Agile Software Development

Y2 - 14 June 2021 through 18 June 2021

ER -

Putta A, Uludağ Ö, Paasivaara M, Hong SL. Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey. In Gregory P, Lassenius C, Wang X, Kruchten P, editors, Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming - 22nd International Conference on Agile Software Development, XP 2021, Proceedings. Springer. 2021. p. 172-187. (Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing). doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-78098-2_11

Benefits and Challenges of Adopting SAFe - An Empirical Survey

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