Key Highlights
- The SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework is a comprehensive guide to achieving business agility that is based on Agile, Lean, systems thinking, DevOps, and value stream management.
- The four core values of SAFe are Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement.
- These core values are crucial for creating a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement within organizations.
- Alignment is important for delivering value in the shortest sustainable lead time and requires communicating the vision, connecting strategy to execution, speaking with a common language, constantly checking for understanding, and understanding the customer.
- Transparency promotes openness, honesty, and a trust-based environment where clear communication of facts and mistakes as learning moments is encouraged.
- Respect for people recognizes the unique expertise and contributions of individuals, values diversity of opinions, and fosters partnerships and long-term relationships.
- Relentless improvement is achieved by creating a culture of continuous learning, reflection, adaptation, and innovation, with a focus on problem-solving and objective measurements.
Introduction
When adopting a framework, it is important to understand its underlying values and beliefs that drive its principles and practices. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a system for achieving business agility that integrates various bodies of knowledge such as Agile, Lean, systems thinking, DevOps, and value stream management. What sets SAFe apart are its four core values: Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement. These core values form the foundation of SAFe and guide the behaviours, actions, and decisions of individuals and teams participating in a SAFe portfolio, particularly in the context of agile development. They are essential for achieving the intended business results and creating a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.
The Essence of SAFe Core Values
The core values of SAFe are the deeply held beliefs that underpin the framework and define its essence. Without these core values, the practices in the framework will fail to deliver the intended business outcomes. The core values of SAFe, including Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement, are the guiding principles that enable organizations to implement SAFe successfully and achieve business agility. These values emphasize the importance of collaboration, open communication, respect, and continuous learning and improvement in creating safe places for organizations to thrive.
The Importance of Core Values in Scaling Agile
Core values play a crucial role in scaling Agile practices and frameworks like SAFe. They provide a strong foundation for organizations to align teams, foster collaboration, and achieve business agility at scale. The core values of SAFe, including Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement, guide organizations in implementing Agile principles and practices effectively across the enterprise, especially in large teams. By embracing these core values, organizations can create a culture that supports the scaling of Agile, promotes teamwork, and enables continuous improvement. This, in turn, leads to better alignment, increased transparency, enhanced collaboration, and a focus on delivering value to customers efficiently and effectively.
How Core Values Guide the SAFe Implementation Journey
The core values of SAFe play a critical role in guiding the implementation journey of the framework. Alignment ensures that all teams and individuals are working towards a common goal, which improves efficiency and effectiveness. Transparency fosters open communication and trust, enabling better decision-making and problem-solving. Respect for People creates a positive and inclusive work environment, promoting engagement and creativity. Relentless Improvement drives continuous learning and innovation, leading to better business outcomes for individual teams and the overall system. By embracing these core values and incorporating them into the SAFe implementation journey, organizations can navigate the complexities of scaling Agile, overcome challenges, and achieve the desired benefits of business agility.
Deep Dive into Each SAFe Core Value
SAFe has four core values: Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People and Relentless Improvement. The detailed description of each value on the SAFe framework site is behind a login, so the summaries in the Key Highlights above are the ones this post relies on. What the public framework pages do show is where the values surface in day-to-day SAFe work, and that is what the rest of this section covers.
Where Each Value Shows Up in SAFe
The table below pairs each value with a SAFe event or principle described on the public framework pages. The pairing is our reading of how the pieces fit, not a quotation from the gated core values article.
| Core value | Where you can see it | What the framework page says |
|---|---|---|
| Alignment | PI Planning | A cadence-based event for the whole Agile Release Train (ART) that aligns teams and stakeholders to a shared mission and vision. The output includes a planning board that shows feature delivery dates and dependencies. |
| Transparency | PI Planning and Inspect and Adapt | PI Planning gives a transparent view of when value will be delivered. Inspect and Adapt reviews measures of what actually happened in the Planning Interval, not what was planned. |
| Respect for People | How planning and decisions are organised | The people who do the work plan the work. Two principles point the same way: unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers, and decentralize decision-making. |
| Relentless Improvement | Inspect and Adapt | Held at the end of each Planning Interval, with a retrospective and problem-solving workshop. Improvement items go into the ART backlog for the next PI Planning event, and the stated aim is that every ART improves every PI. |
Core Values and the Lean-Agile Mindset
The values sit underneath the Lean-Agile Mindset. SAFe defines that mindset as the beliefs, assumptions, attitudes and actions of leaders and practitioners who embrace Lean Thinking and the Agile Manifesto. The framework site makes a point that matters for anyone running a rollout: agility depends more on mindset than on practices. People interpret new information through the mindset they already hold, often without noticing, so a team can run every SAFe event on schedule and still miss the point if the underlying beliefs have not changed.
The same page asks for a growth mindset, meaning people believe their own thinking can improve. Organizations that want to become more Agile need people to understand the ideas behind Lean Thinking and the Agile Manifesto, not only follow a rulebook. That is why the framework site says that without the core values the practices will fail to deliver the intended business results.
The Ten Lean-Agile Principles Next to the Values
The core values are not the same thing as the ten Lean-Agile principles. The values are the foundational beliefs. The principles are the working rules that guide how you plan, build and fund. The ten principles as listed on the framework site:
- Take an economic view: weigh trade-offs such as risk, cost of delay and cost against an approved budget.
- Apply systems thinking: improving one part does not improve the whole, so look at both the system being built and the organization building it.
- Assume variability; preserve options: keep several design options open longer and let evidence decide.
- Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles: short iterations bring feedback sooner and reduce risk.
- Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems: judge progress on working solutions rather than documents or phase gates.
- Make value flow without interruptions: find and remove what slows or blocks the flow of value.
- Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning: a regular rhythm and aligned planning help you handle uncertainty.
- Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers: give people autonomy and purpose, since individual incentives can drive internal competition.
- Decentralize decision-making: let the people closest to the work decide, while keeping a clear framework for strategic decisions.
- Organize around value: structure teams around value delivery instead of functional silos.
For a deeper look at the principles, see our guide to the SAFe Lean-Agile principles.
Leaders Set the Example
The framework site says leaders help an organization adopt the core values by modeling them in their words and actions. In practice that means the values are tested at the points where leaders make visible choices: whether they attend planning and demo events, whether they share bad news early, whether they let teams decide within agreed guardrails, and whether improvement items from a retrospective get capacity or quietly slide. People copy what leaders do, not what a poster says.
Questions to Ask About Your Own Team or ART
These are practical self-checks you can use in a retrospective. They are suggestions, not an official SAFe assessment.
- Alignment: Can each team explain, in its own words, the shared mission for the current Planning Interval and how its work contributes?
- Transparency: Can a stakeholder see the status of work, dependencies and risks without asking someone for a report? When something slips, how quickly does it surface?
- Respect for People: Do the people doing the work take part in planning it, and do they influence the decisions that affect them?
- Relentless Improvement: What did the last retrospective or Inspect and Adapt event change? If you cannot name one change that was planned and finished, the loop is not closed.
The Impact of Core Values on Organizational Culture
The core values of SAFe have a significant impact on organizational culture. Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement create a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement. They foster employee engagement, creativity, transparency, and a focus on delivering value to customers. By embracing these core values, organizations can shape behaviours and decision-making, enhance collaboration and efficiency, and create a culture of respect for people.
Shaping Behaviors and Decision-Making
The core values of SAFe play a crucial role in shaping behaviours and decision-making within an organization. Alignment guides individuals and teams towards a common goal, ensuring that decisions are aligned with strategic objectives. Transparency promotes open communication and sharing of information, enabling better decision-making based on facts. Respect for People fosters a culture of collaboration, accountability, and trust, influencing decision-making that considers diverse perspectives and values the contributions of individuals. Relentless Improvement encourages a learning mindset and experimentation, empowering individuals and teams to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve. By embracing these core values, organizations can shape behaviours and decision-making that align with the principles and practices of SAFe, including customer centricity and design thinking, leading to improved outcomes and success in achieving business agility.
Enhancing Collaboration and Efficiency
The core values of SAFe, including Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement, enhance collaboration and efficiency within an organization. Alignment ensures that teams work together towards a common goal, fostering collaboration and synergy. Transparency promotes open communication and information sharing, enabling teams to work more effectively together. Respect for People creates a positive and inclusive work environment, promoting teamwork and cooperation. Relentless Improvement encourages individuals and teams to continuously improve their processes and practices. By embracing these core values, organizations can enhance collaboration and efficiency.
Adapting Core Values in Different Organizational Contexts
While the core values of SAFe are universal, their implementation may vary across different organizational contexts. Each organization has its unique culture, structure, and challenges. Therefore, it is important to adapt the core values to fit the specific needs and context of the organization. The principles and practices associated with each core value can be customized and tailored to align with agile teams, business units, and enterprise-wide initiatives. By considering the organizational context, agile teams can effectively embrace the core values of SAFe and drive business agility.
Overcoming Challenges with SAFe Core Values
Implementing the core values of SAFe may come with its own set of challenges. However, by embracing these challenges and applying the core values, organizations can overcome them and drive continuous improvement. Challenges such as resistance to change, lack of alignment, communication gaps, and cultural barriers can be addressed by emphasizing the core values of Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement. By fostering a culture of relentless improvement that values collaboration, open communication, and continuous learning, organizations can overcome these challenges and successfully implement SAFe.
Identifying and Addressing Common Obstacles
Implementing the core values of SAFe may encounter common obstacles that can hinder the journey towards business agility. These obstacles can include resistance to change, lack of leadership support, skill gaps, and organizational silos. However, by applying the core values of Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement, organizations can address these obstacles and work towards achieving the target state of a culture of continuous learning, collaboration, and improvement. Through a culture of relentless improvement, organizations can overcome these obstacles and create an environment that supports the implementation and realization of the benefits of SAFe.
Strategies for Strengthening Core Values in Agile Teams
To strengthen the core values of SAFe in agile teams, organizations can adopt strategies that promote collaboration, transparency, respect, and continuous improvement. Some strategies include:
- Encouraging active participation and involvement of team members in decision-making processes.
- Fostering a culture of open communication and knowledge sharing.
- Providing training and mentoring programs to enhance the skills and capabilities of team members.
- Recognizing and rewarding individuals and teams for their contributions and achievements.
- Creating forums and platforms for continuous learning and sharing best practices.
By implementing these strategies, organizations can strengthen the core values of SAFe within agile teams and create an environment that supports the successful implementation of the framework.
What the Implementation Roadmap Says About Leading the Change
Scaled Agile’s Implementation Roadmap has 13 steps, and the first ones are about people more than process. The first step is to build momentum so the organization commits to change, with a shared case for change, a vision and a guiding coalition. Later steps train Lean-Agile change agents, create a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) to drive and sustain the transformation, and train executives, managers and leaders so they sponsor the change and model the Lean-Agile mindset. Leaders complete Leading SAFe, and the roadmap asks them to remove impediments in governance, culture and practice. Read this way, the roadmap is a plan for living the core values at leadership level before the first team is trained. Our post on the SAFe implementation roadmap walks through the steps, and the Leading SAFe course is where leaders study the values and principles first-hand.
The Future of SAFe and Its Core Values
The core values of SAFe will continue to play a significant role in the future of the framework. As the business landscape evolves, the practices and principles associated with the core values may adapt to meet new challenges and opportunities. SAFe will continue to incorporate evolving practices and keep the core values relevant to the changing needs of organizations. By staying true to the core values, SAFe will remain a comprehensive guide for achieving business agility and delivering high-quality products and services.
Evolving Practices and the Continuous Relevance of Core Values
The core values of SAFe, including Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement, will remain relevant as the framework evolves. While the practices and techniques associated with these core values may evolve, the underlying principles and beliefs will continue to guide organizations in achieving business agility. SAFe will adapt to emerging trends, technologies, and practices, while keeping the core values at its core.
Anticipating Changes in Agile Methodologies
Agile methodologies are constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of organizations and the business landscape. SAFe’s core values, including Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement, provide a solid foundation for adapting to these changes. By embracing these core values, organizations can anticipate and embrace changes in Agile methodologies, ensuring that they remain effective and relevant. The core values guide organizations in maintaining alignment, fostering transparency, promoting collaboration, and driving continuous improvement. By staying true to these core values, organizations can navigate changes in Agile methodologies and adapt their practices to deliver value more efficiently and effectively.
Conclusion
In conclusion, SAFe Core Values serve as the guiding principles for organizations to scale agile successfully. By fostering alignment, transparency, respect for people and relentless improvement, these values shape organizational culture. Overcoming challenges and adapting the core values to your context are essential for continuous improvement.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do SAFe Core Values contribute to project success?
The SAFe core values contribute to project success by providing a strong foundation for collaboration, efficiency, and continuous improvement. They guide teams in delivering value, achieving business outcomes, and fostering a positive work environment that engages team members and promotes their contributions to project success.
Can an organization adopt SAFe Core Values without fully implementing SAFe?
Yes, an organization can adopt SAFe Core Values without fully implementing SAFe. Embracing the core values of Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, and Relentless Improvement can help organizations in their journey towards business agility, even if they choose not to implement all aspects of the SAFe framework such as lean portfolio management or strategic themes.
How do SAFe Core Values interact with other Agile frameworks?
SAFe Core Values provide a strong foundation for collaboration, transparency, respect, and continuous improvement, which align with the principles and practices of other Agile frameworks. They can be applied to enhance the effectiveness and success of lean product development, agile principles, and best practices in various Agile frameworks.
What steps can teams take to better integrate SAFe Core Values into their daily work?
Teams can better integrate SAFe Core Values into their daily work by practising continuous exploration, embracing a culture of collaboration and open communication, promoting continuous improvement, and incorporating the core values into their decision-making processes. These steps foster a positive work environment and support the successful implementation of SAFe.
Are the SAFe core values the same as the SAFe principles?
No. The four core values (Alignment, Transparency, Respect for People, Relentless Improvement) are the foundational beliefs behind SAFe. The ten Lean-Agile principles, such as taking an economic view and applying systems thinking, are separate. The principles guide how you plan, build and fund work; the values describe the beliefs and behaviours the framework expects from everyone involved.
Who is responsible for living the core values?
Everyone in a SAFe portfolio, but the framework site puts particular weight on leaders: they help the organization adopt the values by modeling them in their words and actions.
Where can I learn the core values in depth?
The full core values article is available to members on the SAFe framework site. A good way to study them in context is the two-day Leading SAFe course, which prepares you for the SAFe Agilist exam (45 questions, 90 minutes, 80% to pass, per Scaled Agile). For the exam and certificate details, see the course page.
