Note: This article is part of the Community Contributions series, which provides additional points of view and guidance based on the experiences and opinions of the extended SAFe community of experts.
PI execution is critical to achieving value with SAFe. To achieve successful ART execution, organizations need an efficient system that defines the backlogs of the value to be delivered, the roles that manage them, and the proper timelines for refinement at every level of SAFe. Understanding that we are already doing some form of preparedness today, with our own checklists and timelines being more ad hoc, this article illustrates how to connect the levels to enable ‘continuous Planning Increment (PI) readiness.’ This requires contemplating these processes to provide an organized thread aligning them and the people using them to make them more cohesive. To pursue this, we adopt Principle #2, Apply Systems Thinking.
The Enterprise Backlog Structure
What differentiates Agile at scale is the use of a hierarchical backlog structure. This mechanism organizes the Enterprise around value delivery at all levels. Depending on the configuration selected, SAFe uses up to 4 backlogs (full SAFe configuration):
Portfolio Epics are split into Capabilities
Capabilities are split into Features
Features split into Stories
Note, items may also arise locally and are not required to originate from a higher-level backlog. The items that flow through from the higher backlogs tend to be more long-term and strategic, but many of the items emerge locally and may or may not link to a higher-level backlog item type. Figure 1 below summarizes the backlog structure, primary roles responsible, and duration and scope of various backlog items.
