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Thursday, February 01, 2018

Which framework is better LeSS or SAFe ?

Pretty much in every meet up I do, or in the LeSS training, one of the audience will have this question 
which framework is good or better?
Even though I had answered such questions in the past, now I feel that
it is totally a wrong question to ask. 
You might want to know, what is the problem with the question?
My answer would be, before asking the above question "good or better framework," one needs to ask, what is needed for our organization to maintain agility while delivering the highest value to our customers. Once you get some answers, then work backswords to identify a framework that fulfill the needs. 
I have googled around and read several comparisons. All of them are comparing the features. For example, one framework is based on Scrum, but the other on XP. One talks about managers and the other as optional. Do you think, reading such tabular comparison helps you to answer your question about agility and delivering value to the customers? I believe, it won't. 
I had shared in my previous articles that, no matter which framework you adopt, it is guaranteed that you will have some outcome. The question is, does this outcome help your organization with agility and delivering value to the customers. Until and unless you practically implement the framework as per the book, one will never know if it works for them or not.
Based on my experience and empirical observation, it is very rare to see large organisations following the rules of the frameworks. As soon as they hit a hurdle with implementation, instead of trying to fix the culture or leadership, they tweak the rules of the framework to suit their context, thus reducing the effectiveness of the framework.
Tell me how many companies in the world are following Scrum by the book ? when I posed this question in my meet up yesterday,
the answer was unanimous: 0%
No matter what how many hours you spend n comparing the frameworks, you would still end up choosing that confirms your biases. You will only look at things that confirm your thinking. That's why I suggest you to stop asking the question which is better but asks
What should I do keep agility and deliver value to the customers ?. 
But don't get me wrong. Some framework is needed to begin the journey, especially for companies at SHU level. Companies at HA or RI level would be comfortable in inventing on their own. But even for SHU level companies, their questions should be focussed towards what is our end goal? How can we be agile? How can we satisfy the customers? 

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