Beware SAFe, an Unholy Incarnation of Darkness An Article by Sean Dexter seandexter1.medium.com The Lean Portfolio Management function that controls funding, are given sole authority to approve which Portfolio Epics move into each stream. Epics are not explanations about a problem that needs to be solved. They are pre-formed ideas about how best to solve those problems. Right away we can see signs of the old-school mindset of viewing teams as a “delivery” function instead of a strategic one. The high level thinkers come up with ideas, and the low level doers execute on those ideas. Ignored is the possibility that those closest to the work might be best equipped to make decisions about it. Escaping from this misguided mindset is a core goal of Agile thinking that SAFe fails to remotely accomplish. SAFe is oriented around volume, not value Why Scrum is killing your productAgile Scrum is not workingThe management strategy that saved Apollo 11Design Systems, Agile, and Industrialization agile
Seeing and feeling Learning to design is, first of all, learning to see. Designers see more, and more precisely. This is a blessing and a curse—once we have learned to see design, both good and bad, we cannot un-see. The downside is that the more you learn to see, the more you lose your “common” eye, the eye you design for. This can be frustrating for us designers when we work for a customer with a bad eye and strong opinions. But this is no justification for designer arrogance or eye-rolling. Part of our job is to make the invisible visible, to clearly express what we see, feel and do. You can’t expect to sell what you can’t explain. This is why excellent designers do not just develop a sharper eye. They try to keep their ability to see things as a customer would. You need a design eye to design, and a non-designer eye to feel what you designed. Oliver Reichenstein, Learning to See For one who can see seeingdesignux