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Improve Your SAFe Implementation

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Launching an ART is the beginning, not the destination. The organisations that get the most from SAFe are the ones that keep improving after launch — deepening role capability, improving flow, connecting the portfolio, and embedding the practices that make the new way of working stick.

Pretty Agile has been helping Australian organisations improve their SAFe implementations since 2014. Em Campbell-Pretty and Adrienne Wilson are SAFe Fellows, SPCTs, and the authors of The ART of Avoiding a Train Wreck. The patterns that stall a SAFe implementation after launch — and the interventions that address them — come from that experience.

Led by SAFe Fellows who are also SPCTs.

What brings organisations back

Most organisations reach a point where the initial momentum from the ART launch starts to flatten. PI Planning is running, iterations are executing, but something isn't improving the way it should. The most common patterns:

  • RTEs and Scrum Masters are facilitating events but not yet coaching teams toward better performance
  • Flow metrics are being collected but nobody is acting on them
  • The portfolio hasn't changed — funding is still annual, strategy isn't reaching the teams
  • A role was stood up without adequate preparation and needs to be reset
  • The ART has been running long enough that a structured reset would unlock the next level of performance

If any of these sound familiar, the work below is where to start.

Advanced training

For people in key SAFe roles who need to go deeper.

Public classes — scheduled throughout the year

All public courses can also be delivered privately for your organisation. Get in touch to discuss dates and format.

Private classes — available on request

These courses are delivered as private engagements for organisations with specific role-development needs — not scheduled public classes. Each requires a conversation to scope and schedule.

SAFe Micro-credentials

Short, focused learning for practitioners who want to deepen specific skills without attending a full course. See the SAFe Micro-credentials page for the full catalogue.

Structured coaching

Pretty Agile designs and facilitates structured coaching engagements for organisations at this stage of the SAFe journey. Every engagement has a defined focus, a clear structure, and an exit that builds the organisation's own capability.

Coaching engagements are shaped to what the organisation needs to work on. Common focus areas include:

  • Feature discovery and refinement
  • Team-level event facilitation and improvement
  • ART-level event facilitation (PI Planning, System Demos, Inspect and Adapt)
  • Epic definition and portfolio backlog development
  • Full ART resets — a structured re-launch for ARTs that have been running long enough that the original patterns need to be rebuilt from a stronger foundation

Talk to us about what's not working and we'll help you design the right engagement.

Workshops

Targeted workshops for specific improvement problems. All workshops are facilitated by Pretty Agile and can be run as standalone events or as part of a broader coaching engagement.

Flow and value streams

If your flow metrics are showing problems but nobody knows where to start, these workshops identify the root cause and produce a prioritised action plan.

Measurement

If you're collecting data but not improving, these workshops build the measurement strategy that connects metrics to decisions.

Configuration and governance

If SAFe isn't quite fitting your context, or your portfolio governance needs to catch up with your ARTs, these workshops provide the structured method to make changes safely.

Leadership and culture

If the practices are in place but the leadership behaviours haven't shifted, these workshops address the human side of the implementation.

Why it matters who supports this work

The improvement work that happens after ART launch is where a SAFe implementation either compounds or plateaus. The skills required — coaching leadership behaviour, resetting teams that have drifted, designing portfolio governance that actually holds — are different from the skills required to launch.

Pretty Agile has been implementing and improving SAFe in Australian enterprises since 2014.

  • SAFe Fellows who are also SPCTs
  • Authors of Tribal Unity and The ART of Avoiding a Train Wreck
  • Trained 14,500+ people in SAFe since 2014

Ready to improve your SAFe implementation?

Tell us where you are, what's stalling, and what you've already tried. We'll help you identify the right combination of training, coaching, and workshops for your context — and give you a clear sequencing recommendation to take away from the conversation.

Get in touch

Frequently asked questions

Start with the problem, not the solution. If roles need to go deeper, advanced training is usually the right first step. If events are running but not improving, structured coaching is likely more useful than more training. If there's a specific organisational challenge — flow, measurement, customisation, portfolio governance — a targeted workshop will address it more efficiently than either. Talk to us and we'll help you work out the right sequence.

Every engagement starts with understanding what the organisation is trying to improve and what has already been tried. From there, Pretty Agile designs a structured engagement with a defined focus, a clear delivery sequence, and explicit goals. Engagements are scoped in advance — not open-ended. The goal is always to build the organisation's own capability, not to create dependency on external coaches.

Workshops can be run as standalone events — no broader engagement is required. Most workshops run for one day. Some organisations use a single workshop to address a specific, bounded problem; others combine several workshops with training and coaching as part of a structured improvement programme. Either approach works. Pretty Agile can help you determine whether a standalone event is the right scope, or whether a broader engagement would produce better outcomes for your context.

The ART launch focused on standing up the structure — the teams, the roles, the events, the first PI. Improvement work focuses on what happens after the structure is in place: deepening capability, improving flow, connecting the portfolio, and embedding the behaviours that make the new way of working permanent. The tools and interventions are different, and so is the level of readiness required from the organisation.

An ART reset is a structured re-launch for an Agile Release Train that has been operating for some time but has developed patterns that are limiting performance. Common triggers include persistent flow problems, team-level dysfunction, leadership changes, or a significant shift in the portfolio's strategic direction. A reset revisits the team structures, role readiness, event quality, and working agreements that were established at the original launch — and rebuilds them from a stronger foundation. It is typically facilitated by experienced SPCTs or SAFe Fellows who can diagnose what's not working and design the right intervention sequence.

Pretty Agile offers the full range of advanced SAFe training in Australia, delivered by SAFe Fellows and SPCTs. Public scheduled courses run throughout the year and include SAFe Advanced Scrum Master (SASM), SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE), Implementing SAFe with SPC Certification, Advanced SPC (ASPC), Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), and SAFe for Architects. SAFe DevOps, Agile Software Engineering, and Agile Product Management are available as private engagements for organisations with specific role-development needs. All public courses can also be delivered privately for a single organisation on a date and in a format that suits.