Project Management Process

Responsible for executing Agile work.
Self-organizing, cross-functional team(Including PO,TL,Dev team, FE Team, UX team, and quality team)
Delivers working software in short cycles (sprints).

As I said: “Agile is not a tool; it’s a culture that starts at the top and flows through all levels.”

Doing Vs Being Agile

Mindset & Culture
Focus on values (e.g., customer collaboration, adaptability)
Teams embrace change, work iteratively, and improve continuously
Aligned with Agile Manifesto principles
Example: “We prioritize value, even if that means changing sprint scope.”
Deliverable-oriented mindsets: So, once the team says we will have analysis sprint, design sprint, and implementation sprint, they are working waterfall using agile.
Team (Rugby) deliverables instead of individualism: So once you see the team is sending emails to each other in front of management, we have issue in the mindset.

Myth: SAFe is designed only for large enterprises with hundreds of people.
Reality: While it’s popular in large organizations, SAFe can be scaled down for smaller setups with just a few Agile teams, since you are managing large-scale projects, with smaller teams, but you need these practices for managing such large projects

Myth: SAFe is rigid and bureaucratic, like waterfall in disguise.
Reality: SAFe has structured roles/events, but still relies on Agile principles, practices, adaptive planning, and continuous improvement, as it should exist at team level

Myth: Implementation requires starting with Portfolio, Solution, and Program levels together.
Reality: You can start small (Essential SAFe) and expand as needed, level by level, mandatory at the team level, then program, solution, and portfolio, according to your organization's level.

Myth: All decisions are centralized at the program or portfolio level.
Reality: SAFe encourages decentralized decision-making and team-level ownership, especially in execution. We have discussed what should be centralized and what should be decentralized. As strategic and long-term decisions should be centralized at the management level, it's actually a management decision, while others are team-level decisions.

Myth: You just follow SAFe ceremonies and you’re done.
Reality: Success depends on Lean-Agile mindset, leadership support, and cultural change—not just process compliance.

Myth: Teams abandon their current Agile methods when adopting SAFe.
Reality: SAFe builds on frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, and XP at the team level.

Myth: Teams can implement SAFe bottom-up.
Reality: Leadership engagement is critical, especially for funding models, governance, and organizational alignment, as SAFe is concerned with large-scale teams and projects, so the core focus on team harmony, and organizational practices, and support program, solution, and portfolio levels, so management support is mandatory.

Dr. Ghoniem Lawaty

Tech Evangelist