Solving Business Problems with SAFe Competencies
The ability to solve business problems is the true measure of SAFe success.
- Andrew Sales, Chief Methodologist at Scaled Agile
Summary
The ability to continually identify and address the biggest business problems is an essential component of any successful SAFe transformation and lays the foundation for an adaptive operating model. Instead of focusing solely on process compliance, leaders create a SAFe Competency Journey Map that links improvements directly to measurable business outcomes, tailored to their specific context. The process, often led by a Guiding Coalition, involves aligning on strategic goals, prioritizing business problems, and sequencing the necessary SAFe Competencies to address them. Dedicated Competency Champions then drive local execution, focusing on quick wins and continuous improvement.
Why is Solving Business Problems so important?
Whilst the 2025 State of SAFe report highlights that many organizations have been practicing SAFe successfully for many years, it also illustrates that some organizations struggle to achieve and sustain the results they expect. Although the specific reasons vary from organization to organization, a common factor was lower competency levels in critical areas. In particular, the skills, knowledge, and behaviours are required to transition to a Lean-Agile operating model effectively.
This realization led to an important evolution in the Framework. Not only do we need to provide guidance for Implementing SAFe through the implementation roadmap, alongside a clear process for customizing SAFe to their organizational context, but we also need to provide support for the ongoing journey towards mastery of this new way of working. This last step required us to reframe our thinking and to offer guidance in a more modular, accessible format, centered on what matters most to these organizations: solving business problems to achieve business outcomes. Together, these three critical activities create a truly adaptive operating model (Figure 1).
This article describes this evolution and outlines how all organizations, regardless of their current level of success, can benefit from being on a path towards deeper levels of competency. And in particular, how every organization must, at all times, have clarity on its biggest business problems and its plan for solving them. To this end, this guidance article presents a structured, collaborative approach to creating a “SAFe Competency Journey Map” that becomes a cohesive, prioritized organizational change plan. The goal of the journey map is to move beyond the transformation narrative from tracking the adoption of SAFe practices to achieving measurable business outcomes through competency mastery.
Read the State of SAFe Report
What are the Disciplines of a Lean-Agile Organization?
Last Update: 23 March 2026