SAMINT-MILI 20040 Master’s Thesis 30 credits May 2020 Adoption hurdles faced by organizations embracing SAFe® Alexis Rodriguez Leon Khushboo Singh Master Programme in Industrial Management and Innovation Masterprogram i industriell ledning och innovation Acknowledgment This thesis work has been a journey in which we have learned more about a new framework and many methods on how to proceed with qualitative research. This could not be done without the contribution of the interviewees who have collaborated, giving great inputs about this framework. This thesis could neither be done without the collaboration of the other students that gave us some great ideas and comments on our research during the seminars. Nevertheless, the collaboration of our subject reader was the key factor for us to complete the thesis because he has given us great feedback. Therefore, we would like to thank you all for the contribution and dedicate this thesis work to all of you. Sincerely, ___________________________ ___________________________ Alexis Rodriguez Leon Khushboo Singh Abstract Adoption hurdles faced by organizations embracing SAFe® Alexis Rodriguez Leon and Khushboo Singh Faculty of Science and Technology Visiting address: Ångströmlaboratoriet Agile methodology has gained wide adoption. Agile methodology, with its Lägerhyddsvägen 1 House 4, Level 0 iterative and incremental approach for software development, has gained popularity within IT organizations that are facing a dynamic business Postal address: environment. Agile software development has emerged as an alternative to the Box 536 751 21 Uppsala traditional Waterfall model in delivering software at a faster pace and having more receptiveness towards the changing requirements. However, Agile Telephone: +46 (0)18 – 471 30 03 methodology was originally designed for small and individual teams. This makes moving Agile to large-scale organizations a complicated task. In this thesis, we Telefax: +46 (0)18 – 471 30 00 will review the challenges and success factors presented by (Dikert et al., 2016) in their systematic literature review for SAFe (Scaled Agile framework). Our Web page: http://www.teknik.uu.se/student-en/ thesis is based on empirical research. The authors have conducted interviews to gather data to underpin or dissent from the findings in the systematic literature review regarding the challenges and success factors of implementing SAFe in organizations. Keywords: Agile methodology, SAFe®, Organizational transformation., success factor, challenges, systematic literature review Subject reader: Marcus Lindahl Examiner: David Sköld TVE- MILI19019 Printed by: Uppsala Universitet Popular Science Summary Agile methodology has become one of the most appealing processes for large firms that endeavors to enhance and improve their performance. Still, Agile methodology was originally designed for small projects in software development organizations (Dikert et al., 2016). However, scaling Agile in larger organizations is complex, and there are challenges involved in introducing Agile (Dikert et al., 2016, Kalenda et al., 2018). Large projects require coordination and communication between the teams. Proper management of dependencies between the teams, various Non-Agile units needs to be done. Therefore, larger organizations require the scaling of Agile practices, which are provided by the Scaled Agile Framework (Ebert & Paasivaara, 2017). This thesis intends to try to analyze by an empirical study the challenges and success factors of implementing the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). The authors of this thesis will take the help of previous studies and interview Agile experts to come up with challenges faced by organizations pertinent to SAFe. This study will be executed because there are scarce researches about the perceptions of people working on this kind of framework. Also, it will be essential to know about it for companies that are trying to implement SAFe or for people that are interested in getting knowledge about this new framework that is relatively new in the IT sector. Since the IT industry is changing in a fashion pace, this new framework will help businesses to increase their deliveries efficiently. There are already companies that have implemented SAFe, and it has helped their business to continuously and efficiently deliver value on a regular and predictable cadence. Table of Contents 1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Background ................................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Problem Statement ..................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Conceptualization ....................................................................................................... 2 1.4 Research Questions .................................................................................................... 6 2 Theory ................................................................................................................................ 7 2.1 What is Waterfall model? ........................................................................................... 7 2.1.1 Issues with the Waterfall model ............................................................................. 8 2.2 What is Agile? ............................................................................................................ 9 2.3 Why Agile? .............................................................................................................. 11 2.4 What is SAFe? .......................................................................................................... 11 2.5 Why SAFe? .............................................................................................................. 13 2.6 The Transition from Waterfall to Agile to SAFe ..................................................... 13 2.7 Organizational Transformation: ............................................................................... 14 2.8 Success Factors ........................................................................................................ 16 2.8.1 The management system: ..................................................................................... 16 2.8.2 System and Structure (Social system): ................................................................. 17 2.8.3 Technical system .................................................................................................. 18 2.8.4 Behavioral system ................................................................................................ 18 2.9 Challenges specific to General Organizational Transformation .............................. 19 2.9.1 Change resistance: ................................................................................................ 19 2.9.2 Challenges related to Training and Coaching Role in Organizational Change .... 20 2.10 Challenges specific to Agile Development .............................................................. 21 2.10.1 Management and Organization issues .............................................................. 21 2.10.2 People Related to Issues ................................................................................... 21 2.10.3 Process related Issues ....................................................................................... 22 2.10.4 Technology (Tools and Techniques) ................................................................ 22 2.11 Change Process Models to bring about the Organizational Transformation ........... 23 2.11.1 Kotter’s model .................................................................................................. 23 2.11.2 The Kurt Lewin Model of Change: .................................................................. 26 3 Methodology .................................................................................................................... 29 3.1 Abductive Study ....................................................................................................... 29 3.2 Semi-structured interviews ....................................................................................... 29 3.3 Selection of participants ........................................................................................... 30 3.4 Validity and Reliability ............................................................................................ 32 3.5 Ethics ........................................................................................................................ 33 4 Empirical Data .................................................................................................................. 35 4.1 SAFe ......................................................................................................................... 35 4.1.1 Team Level ........................................................................................................... 35 4.1.2 Program Level ...................................................................................................... 36 4.1.3 Portfolio Level ...................................................................................................... 36 4.2 SAFe Implementation Roadmap .............................................................................. 37 4.2.1 Reaching the Tipping Point .................................................................................