Separate progress is not the same as integrated progress. Release decisions depend on the second one. “The performance of a system doesn’t depend on how the parts perform taken separately, it depends on how they perform together, how they interact.” Russell L. Ackoff “A bad system will beat a good person every time.” W. Edwards Deming In the last post, I argued that Release on Demand depends on several conditions being true inside the delivery system, and you can find that po

Just because you can release anytime doesn't mean you should! “Speed without control is chaos.” Taiichi Ohno “What we call management consists largely of making it difficult for people to get their work done.”Peter Drucker One of the recurring misunderstandings in discussions about SAFe appears when the phrase Release on Demand enters the conversation. The wording sounds straightforward, and it is often interpreted to mean that organizations should release continuously. Th

If you’ve seen this moment, you already know why Agile stalls. “The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. ”Theodore Roosevelt “You cannot manage knowledge workers the way you managed factory workers. ”Peter Drucker I’ve seen it over and over again. Managers cannot let Scrum be Scrum. They have to meddle. They impose reporting where none is needed.

“Trust is not blind faith. Trust is built on transparency and shared understanding.” Stephen M.R. Covey “Optimization of parts does not optimize the whole.” Eliyahu M. Goldratt SAFe was not created because Agile stopped working. It emerged because organizations, particularly large ones, began asking Agile to address problems it was never designed to solve on its own. That distinction matters, especially for leaders who watched early Agile initiatives struggle once they enco

“Requirements are guesses. Designs are guesses. Estimates are guesses. What matters is how fast you can find out.” Mary Poppendieck “The problem isn’t that we don’t know how to build software. The problem is that we don’t know how to build software together .” Gene Kim Waterfall works very well when you know exactly what you are building. If you are constructing a house, pouring a foundation, or installing a system with fixed specifications, defining the work in detail up f