This lesson explores the transformative impact of the digital age on businesses and the necessity of embracing agility to thrive in a software-driven economy. Students will understand how to navigate the challenges of legacy systems, rapid technological advancements, and evolving customer expectations. They will learn about leveraging trends like AI, cloud computing, and big data to drive innovation and competitiveness. Additionally, this lesson introduces SAFe as a comprehensive operating system that enables business agility by aligning teams, workflows, and strategies to deliver customer value effectively.

Topic One: Thriving in the Digital Age

• What You’ll Learn: Explore how organizations must adapt to thrive in the digital age. Learn about the challenges of legacy systems, rapid technological advancements, and shifting customer expectations. Discover how leveraging trends like AI, cloud computing, and big data can provide opportunities to innovate and remain competitive.
  
• This topic delves into the challenges and opportunities of the software-driven economy. It emphasizes how businesses must evolve their operations, solutions, and customer interactions to remain competitive. Key challenges include overcoming legacy system constraints, managing cultural shifts, and addressing cybersecurity threats. Opportunities arise in enhancing customer engagement, streamlining operations, and innovating business models to meet the demands of the digital economy.

Topic Two: SAFe as an Operating System for Business Agility

• What You’ll Learn: Understand how SAFe serves as a framework to achieve business agility. This includes exploring the seven core competencies and how SAFe integrates Agile, Lean, and systems thinking to create a cohesive operating model.
  
• SAFe provides a structured framework for achieving business agility, enabling organizations to swiftly respond to market changes and customer needs. You’ll learn how SAFe helps align teams, streamline workflows, and balance stability with innovation.

This lesson establishes the cultural and conceptual foundation required for successful Agile adoption. Students will dive into the Lean-Agile mindset, which combines Lean thinking and Agile values to promote adaptability, continuous improvement, and customer-centricity. They will explore SAFe’s core values—alignment, transparency, respect for people, and relentless improvement—and their role in creating a collaborative and high-trust environment. Finally, students will study SAFe’s ten guiding principles, learning how these principles drive efficient workflows, reduce delays, and enhance customer satisfaction across diverse organizational contexts.

Topic One: The Lean-Agile Mindset

• What You’ll Learn: Dive into the principles of Lean thinking and Agile values. Learn how these concepts form the cultural foundation for driving business agility, empowering teams to deliver customer-focused solutions.
• This topic highlights the combination of beliefs, assumptions, and practices that define the Lean-Agile mindset. By fostering continuous learning and adaptability, you’ll explore how to lead change effectively and inspire innovation.
  

Topic Two: SAFe Core Values

• What You’ll Learn: Discover the foundational beliefs that guide behaviors within SAFe portfolios: alignment, transparency, respect for people, and relentless improvement. See how these values shape a culture of trust and collaboration.
• Core values ensure alignment across teams, promote openness and honesty, and drive continuous improvement. Learn real-world examples and actionable strategies to embody these values in your organization.

Topic Three: Applying SAFe Principles 

• What You’ll Learn: Learn the ten guiding principles of SAFe, such as taking an economic view, applying systems thinking, and organizing around value. These principles will help you create workflows that maximize efficiency and impact.
• Each principle is grounded in real-world examples and practices, showing you how to optimize workflows, reduce delays, and enhance customer satisfaction.

Lesson 3 provides a deep dive into the critical skills and practices that enable teams to excel in a Lean-Agile environment. Students will learn how to form effective cross-functional teams, ensure high-quality deliverables through built-in quality practices, and structure Agile Release Trains to maximize value delivery. This lesson equips participants with the knowledge and tools to build high-performing teams and drive technical excellence in their organizations.

Topic One: Forming Cross-Functional Agile Teams 

• What You’ll Learn: Understand how to structure and form cross-functional Agile teams to enhance collaboration and deliver value efficiently. Explore the roles, responsibilities, and key characteristics of Agile teams.
• Agile teams are self-organizing and cross-functional, consisting of members with all the necessary skills to define, build, test, and deploy value increments. This topic highlights the importance of breaking down silos, aligning teams to value streams, and ensuring full-time dedication to team activities. Specialized roles such as the Scrum Master/Team Coach and Product Owner are also discussed.

Topic Two: Built-in Quality 

• What You’ll Learn: Learn the importance of integrating quality into every step of the development process. Explore practices and techniques that ensure high-quality deliverables.
• Built-in quality emphasizes embedding quality into all stages of product development. This topic covers practices like test-driven development (TDD), behavior-driven development (BDD), and automated testing. The goal is to prevent defects, reduce rework, and enhance customer satisfaction through consistently high-quality solutions.

Topic Three: Organizing Agile Release Trains Around the Flow of Value 

• What You’ll Learn: Understand how to organize Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to deliver value continuously and align with business objectives. Learn about the key roles and interactions within ARTs.
• ARTs are composed of multiple Agile teams that collaborate to deliver large-scale solutions. This topic focuses on structuring ARTs to optimize the flow of value, reduce delays, and enhance cross-team collaboration. Key concepts include understanding value streams, coordinating dependencies, and aligning team efforts with organizational goals.

In Lesson 4, students will learn the interconnected practices that enable Agile Product Delivery. From adopting a customer-centric mindset and leveraging design thinking to mastering PI Planning and backlog prioritization, this lesson provides actionable insights into delivering high-value solutions efficiently. The focus on developing cadence, releasing on demand, and building robust Continuous Delivery Pipelines ensures that students can adapt these practices to their unique organizational contexts, achieving both customer satisfaction and operational excellence.

Topic One: Customer Centricity and Design Thinking 

• What You’ll Learn: Understand how to place the customer at the center of your development process using principles of customer centricity and design thinking. Learn techniques for empathy mapping, defining customer needs, and iterating on solutions that align with both user expectations and business goals.
• This topic emphasizes the importance of understanding customer behaviors, motivations, and pain points. Students will explore how tools like user personas, journey mapping, and rapid prototyping can lead to innovative and user-friendly solutions. Additionally, the balance between customer needs and technical feasibility will be examined to ensure solutions are not only desirable but also achievable within organizational constraints.

Topic Two: Prioritizing the ART Backlog

• What You’ll Learn: Learn how to prioritize the Agile Release Train (ART) backlog using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) and other prioritization frameworks. Understand how to make informed decisions to deliver maximum value quickly and effectively.
• This topic provides students with the tools to evaluate backlog items based on value, urgency, and effort. Through WSJF and related techniques, students will learn to quantify the cost of delay and sequence work accordingly. Real-world scenarios will illustrate how prioritization drives alignment and enables teams to focus on delivering the highest-value features.

Topic Three: PI Planning

• What You’ll Learn: Gain hands-on experience with Program Increment (PI) Planning, a cornerstone activity in SAFe that ensures teams are aligned and objectives are clear. Learn how to set achievable goals, resolve dependencies, and create a collaborative roadmap for success.
• This topic walks students through the steps of a successful PI Planning session, from pre-planning preparation to post-planning follow-up. Activities include identifying cross-team dependencies, creating realistic iteration plans, and fostering alignment across teams and stakeholders. Students will also explore the benefits of PI Planning, including enhanced communication, synchronized workflows, and a shared understanding of priorities.

Topic Four: Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand

• What You’ll Learn: Discover how to synchronize development activities through cadence while retaining the flexibility to release value on demand. Learn strategies to manage variability, optimize workflows, and deliver value when the market demands.
• This topic highlights the importance of establishing predictable development cycles to improve efficiency and collaboration across teams. Students will learn how to decouple development from deployment using feature toggles, dark launches, and other release management techniques. Case studies will demonstrate how successful organizations leverage cadence and on-demand releases to deliver value incrementally and respond to market needs dynamically.

Topic Five: Building a Continuous Delivery Pipeline with DevOps

• What You’ll Learn: Understand the practices and tools necessary to build and sustain a Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP) using DevOps principles. Learn how to achieve continuous exploration, integration, deployment, and release.
• This topic focuses on the technical and cultural practices that enable fast, reliable, and continuous delivery of value. Students will explore the components of the CDP, including automated testing, build automation, and continuous monitoring. The role of DevOps in fostering collaboration between development and operations teams will be examined, alongside techniques for measuring pipeline efficiency and ensuring operational stability.

In Lesson 5, students explore Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) as a key competency for achieving business agility. They will learn how to define and structure SAFe portfolios, align them with enterprise strategies, and create a clear vision for future growth. Through epics, lean budgets, and portfolio Kanban, students will discover how to manage investments, prioritize work, and sustain continuous value delivery. This lesson equips participants with the knowledge to balance strategic objectives and operational excellence in their organizations.

Topic One: Defining a SAFe Portfolio 

• What You’ll Learn: Understand what a SAFe portfolio is and how it differs from traditional project-based portfolios. Learn how to define portfolios based on value streams, aligning development efforts with organizational goals.
• A SAFe portfolio is a collection of value streams that support the organization’s mission. Students will explore how portfolios are structured around long-lasting solutions, maintained by stable Agile Release Trains (ARTs), and guided by strategic themes to ensure alignment with enterprise objectives.

Topic Two: Connecting the Portfolio to the Enterprise Strategy 

• What You’ll Learn: Discover how to align portfolio objectives with the overall enterprise strategy through strategic themes, mission, and vision.
• This topic focuses on defining strategic themes collaboratively with business leaders and portfolio stakeholders. Students will learn how these themes provide direction, influence the portfolio vision, and connect to lean budgets and portfolio operations.

Topic Three: Maintaining the Portfolio Vision

• What You’ll Learn: Explore techniques to create and sustain a clear portfolio vision that reflects the current state and future aspirations of the organization.
• Students will use tools like the portfolio canvas to map out key components, such as customer relationships, value propositions, and revenue streams. They will learn how to align vision elements with enterprise strategy and adapt them over time.

Topic Four: Realizing the Portfolio Vision through Epics 

• What You’ll Learn: Learn how to use epics as vehicles for achieving the portfolio vision. Discover how to structure, prioritize, and implement epics effectively.
• This topic explains the lifecycle of an epic within the portfolio Kanban, from ideation to implementation. Students will learn to write Lean business cases, define minimal viable products (MVPs), and evaluate epics using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF).

Topic Five: Establishing Lean Budgets and Guardrails

• What You’ll Learn: Understand the principles of lean budgeting and how guardrails provide structure and accountability for spending.
• Students will explore policies that balance short-term and long-term investments, manage architectural runway, and ensure alignment between business priorities and value streams. Techniques for participatory budgeting and continuous business owner engagement will be covered.

Topic Six: Establishing Portfolio Flow

• What You’ll Learn: Discover how to visualize, manage, and optimize the flow of work across the portfolio using portfolio Kanban systems.
• This topic delves into how portfolio Kanban facilitates strategic alignment, reduces work-in-process (WIP), and prioritizes epics effectively. Students will learn how to use Kanban to identify bottlenecks, improve efficiency, and ensure transparency.

Lesson 6 equips participants with the knowledge and tools to lead effectively in a Lean-Agile transformation. Students will explore the traits and behaviors required to lead by example, fostering trust, courage, and growth within their teams. Additionally, they will dive into strategies for implementing and sustaining change using structured methodologies like Kotter’s 8-step process. This lesson emphasizes the role of leaders as catalysts for cultural and operational transformation, enabling organizations to achieve their business agility goals.

Topic One: Leading by Example

• What You’ll Learn: Understand the importance of modeling desired behaviors to inspire teams and drive change. Learn to cultivate skills such as authenticity, courage, emotional competence, and decentralized decision-making.
• This topic emphasizes how leaders can create a culture of trust and innovation by demonstrating insatiable learning, acting authentically, and managing emotions effectively. Leaders learn to empower their teams by making decentralized decision-making a norm and focusing on developing others to take on greater responsibilities. Practical examples and techniques for embodying these traits are explored to help leaders set the tone for transformation.

Topic Two: Leading the Change

• What You’ll Learn: Master techniques for driving organizational change using structured approaches like Kotter’s 8-step process for leading change. Learn how to create urgency, build coalitions, and sustain momentum during transitions.
• This topic focuses on applying proven change leadership frameworks to navigate and implement large-scale transformations. Steps include:
  
  • Creating a sense of urgency to align teams around a compelling reason for change.
  • Building a guiding coalition of committed leaders to drive the effort.
  • Forming a strategic vision to provide direction and inspire action.
  • Empowering teams to act by removing barriers and enabling decision-making.
  • Generating short-term wins to maintain enthusiasm and momentum.
  • Sustaining acceleration through continuous improvement efforts.
  • Instituting change by embedding new practices into organizational culture and processes.
• These steps are presented with real-world scenarios, ensuring leaders understand how to adapt them to their unique organizational contexts.
  

In the final lesson, students will see SAFe in action through real-world case studies showcasing its implementation across various industries. They will learn how organizations have achieved improved time-to-market, product quality, and team collaboration by adopting SAFe practices. The lesson concludes with a focus on fostering a culture of continuous improvement, teaching students how to identify opportunities for innovation and sustain momentum through retrospectives, metrics-based reviews, and iterative enhancements.

Topic One: SAFe in Action

• What You’ll Learn: See real-world examples of SAFe implementation and learn how organizations have achieved success with improved time-to-market and team collaboration.
• Explore case studies that demonstrate the practical application of SAFe principles across diverse industries.

Topic Two: Continuous Improvement

• What You’ll Learn: Learn techniques for fostering a culture of ongoing improvement, ensuring that processes, teams, and solutions continue to evolve.
  
• Discover methods like retrospectives and metrics-based reviews to identify opportunities for innovation and sustain long-term success.