Issues in the Adoption of the Scaled Agile Framework

Agile methods were originally introduced for small sized, colocated teams. Their successful products immediately brought up the issue of adapting the methods also for large and distributed organizations engaged in projects to build major, complex products. Currently the most popular multi-teams agile method is the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) which, however, is subject to criticism: it appears to be quite demanding and expensive in terms of human resource and project management practices. Moreover, SAFe allegedly goes against some of the principles of agility. This research attempts to gather a deeper understanding of the matter first reviewing and analysing the studies published on this topic via a multivocal literature review and then with an extended empirical investigation on the matters that appear most controversial via the direct analysis of the work of 25 respondents from 17 different companies located in eight countries. Thus, the originality of this research is in the systemic assessment of the “level of flexibility” of SAFe, highlighting the challenges of adopting this framework as it relates to decision making, structure, and the technical and managerial competencies of the company. The results show that SAFe can be an effective and adequate approach if the company is ready to invest a significant effort and resources into it both in the form of providing time for SAFe to be properly absorbed and specific training for individuals.