Agile Tour Germany / SAFe Meetup Germany PicturesAgile Tour Germany / SAFe Meetup Germany Pictures

On November 22nd the first Agile Tour Germany was held in Stuttgart. Part of the event was a meet up of experts for the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) which was discussed in several presentations and in an Open Space session.

Short Introduction to Scaled Agile Framework

Markus Meuten did a good job in his presentation where he explained an approach how to successfully combine Scrum and Kanban.

Markus Meuten explaining how to successfully combine Scrum and Kanban.

Short Introduction to Scaled Agile Framework

Hans-Peter Korn did a fantastic job by giving a short introduction to SAFe in just about 20 minutes. In his presentation he delivered the key ideas behind SAFe and why we are going to need such an approach when we want to scale agile.

Hans-Peter Korn talking about scaling agile and the Scaled Agile Framework.

Rally: Tools supporting SAFe

In her short talk Wanda Marginean presented how Rally Software (one of the sponsor of Agile Tour Germany) is supporting agile management on the portfolio and program level.

Wanda Marginean showing how Rally is supporting the Scaled Agile Framework in their products

Open Space Session about SAFe

Later I had the chance to host an Open Space session about the Scaled Agile Framework where we had discussions about more details. As usual when discussing SAFe the time reserved for the session was too short to adress all questions raised but once again Hans-Peter did a good job by shedding light on some more aspects of the framework.

Summarizing the results of the Open Space session about Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).

SAFe Meetup Germany

We then met for the SAFe meetup and had another picture taken.

From right to left: Wanda Marginean, Felix Rüssel and Markus Meuten. All certified SAFe consultants.

The Shocking Truth: You still need to think using your own brain!

Unfortunately the shocking truth is that you still need to think about what you are going to do and how to organize even if you use a process framework like the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and tools from Rally supporting it. In detail SAFe may even proof incorrect and false! So it is helpful but not always correct ;-).

Got angry after I realized that even with SAFe and tools from Rally I still need to think about how to do my job and scale agile successfully. Still no „silver bullet“ or „golden hammer“ at hand … ;-)

Summary

We had fun in Stuttgart and the first Agile Tour in Germany was a great success with a lot of opportunities to meet interesting people and learn great new stuff. This year everybody was talking about how to scale agile and with SAFe we had a good (helpful answer) to many of the questions. Looking forward to the next Agile Tour events in Germany!

On November 22nd the first Agile Tour Germany was held in Stuttgart. Part of the event was a meet up of experts for the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) which was discussed in several presentations and in an Open Space session.

Short Introduction to Scaled Agile Framework

Markus Meuten did a good job in his presentation where he explained an approach how to successfully combine Scrum and Kanban.

Markus Meuten explaining how to successfully combine Scrum and Kanban.

Short Introduction to Scaled Agile Framework

Hans-Peter Korn did a fantastic job by giving a short introduction to SAFe in just about 20 minutes. In his presentation he delivered the key ideas behind SAFe and why we are going to need such an approach when we want to scale agile.

Hans-Peter Korn talking about scaling agile and the Scaled Agile Framework.

Rally: Tools supporting SAFe

In her short talk Wanda Marginean presented how Rally Software (one of the sponsor of Agile Tour Germany) is supporting agile management on the portfolio and program level.

Wanda Marginean showing how Rally is supporting the Scaled Agile Framework in their products

Open Space Session about SAFe

Later I had the chance to host an Open Space session about the Scaled Agile Framework where we had discussions about more details. As usual when discussing SAFe the time reserved for the session was too short to adress all questions raised but once again Hans-Peter did a good job by shedding light on some more aspects of the framework.

Summarizing the results of the Open Space session about Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).

SAFe Meetup Germany

We then met for the SAFe meetup and had another picture taken.

From right to left: Wanda Marginean, Felix Rüssel and Markus Meuten. All certified SAFe consultants.

The Shocking Truth: You still need to think using your own brain!

Unfortunately the shocking truth is that you still need to think about what you are going to do and how to organize even if you use a process framework like the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and tools from Rally supporting it. In detail SAFe may even proof incorrect and false! So it is helpful but not always correct ;-).

Got angry after I realized that even with SAFe and tools from Rally I still need to think about how to do my job and scale agile successfully. Still no „silver bullet“ or „golden hammer“ at hand … ;-)

Summary

We had fun in Stuttgart and the first Agile Tour in Germany was a great success with a lot of opportunities to meet interesting people and learn great new stuff. This year everybody was talking about how to scale agile and with SAFe we had a good (helpful answer) to many of the questions. Looking forward to the next Agile Tour events in Germany!

Über Felix Rüssel

Felix Rüssel is exploring Lean-Agile concepts since 2002 with a special focus on how to connect and align Business and Development on all levels of an organization. He likes to challenge established thinking patterns and structures to enable innovative approaches which help to deal with current and future challenges. Felix Rüssel is a Certified Scrum Professional (CSP-PO), a Certified LeSS Practitioner (CLP) and a SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT5).