How Planview Supports SAFe

Recording of the Planview demo at the SAFe Australia Online Meetup - SAFe Tooling Special Interest Group (SIG).

Download Presentation Slides

Summary of the SAFe Tooling SIG Featuring Planview

This meetup is part of SAFe Australia Online Meetup's SAFe Tooling special interest group, featured Joe Campbell, Planview’s Country Manager for Australia and New Zealand, and Adam Cimino, Solution Consultant. They presented how the Planview platform supports SAFe practices, focusing on strategy alignment, agile planning, portfolio management, and value stream management.

Key Highlights

1. Organizational Alignment:

   • Planview facilitates connecting strategy to execution, enabling organizations to focus on "doing the right work" and aligning objectives with key results (OKRs).
   • The platform supports both traditional (waterfall) and agile methods, offering a unified solution for diverse workflows.

2. Enterprise Agile Planning (EAP):

   • Planview’s EAP solution enables organizations to visualize work and flow across teams, value streams, and portfolios.
   • The platform integrates with tools like Jira, Azure DevOps (ADO), and others, allowing seamless collaboration without disrupting existing workflows.

3. Lean Portfolio Management:

   • Planview supports agile planning cycles, such as big room and PI Planning, and facilitates iterative, data-driven decisions.
   • Its integration capabilities connect financial and HR systems to align planning with resource allocation and actual costs.

4. Value Stream Management:

   • The platform incorporates flow metrics aligned with SAFe 6.0, providing insights into value delivery, efficiency, and potential bottlenecks.
   • Metrics like flow velocity and flow efficiency help organizations balance work types (features, defects, risks) and improve delivery processes.

5. Kanban and Backlog Management:

   • Configurable Kanban boards at portfolio, program, and team levels support WIP limits and prioritization using models like Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF).
   • The platform offers integration with team tools and custom scoring models for prioritizing work based on organizational needs.

6. OKRs and Strategic Themes:

   • Planview links work to OKRs, providing visibility into progress and alignment across teams, portfolios, and the enterprise.
   • Dashboards offer real-time tracking of objectives and metrics, supporting data-driven decision-making.

7. Collaboration and Retrospectives:

   • Built-in tools like whiteboards facilitate collaboration, retrospectives, and action tracking.
   • Items identified during retrospectives can be converted directly into actionable tasks within the platform.

8. Customer Use Cases:

   • Planview supports diverse industries, leveraging best practices from sectors like financial services, insurance, and life sciences to enrich its platform.

Future Discussions

The session concluded with an invitation for further exploration of Planview’s lean portfolio management capabilities, highlighting its ability to integrate strategic planning with operational execution.

Closing Remarks

Joe and Adam emphasized Planview's role in enabling organizations to navigate their agile transformation journey, acknowledging the complexities and iterative nature of such transitions. The session ended with an invitation for continued engagement to explore more advanced use cases.