Episode 8: Dean Leffingwell
About Dean Leffingwell
Recognized as one of the world’s foremost authorities on Lean-Agile best practices, Dean Leffingwell, the creator of SAFe, is an author, entrepreneur, and software development methodologist.
His best-selling books, Scaling Software Agility, Agile Software Requirements, and SAFe® Distilled, form much of the basis of modern thinking on Lean-Agile practices and principles.
Founder of several successful startups, including Requisite, Inc. (acquired by Rational), Mr. Leffingwell also served as Chief Methodologist to Rally Software, and prior to that, as Sr. Vice President at Rational Software (now part of IBM).
He serves as Chief Methodologist to Scaled Agile, Inc., which he co-founded in 2011.
About this episode
In the eighth episode of Mik + One, the official Project to Product podcast, Mik’s guest is Dean Leffingwell, Co-founder and Chief Methodologist at Scaled Agile.
In this episode, Mik and Dean cover:
- SAFe 5.0 and the importance of having business agility in addition to technical agility
- The different types of customers and understanding why internal customers are just as valuable and important as external ones
- Abandoning organizational hierarchies to become more agile and survive digital disruption, as well as other paths for organizations to take to achieve business agility
- Why teams must have autonomy but not be autonomous to successfully work within an organization that is scaling
- Why establishing a common taxonomy is critical to get people to think in terms of outcomes and delivering business value
- Advice to help organizations ensure a successful SAFe transformation by focusing on outcome-based metrics and an end-to-end feedback loop
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Additional Resources:
- Scaled Agile Framework
- Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise by Dean Leffingwell
- SAFe 4.5 Reference Guide: Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Enterprises by Dean Leffingwell
- Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises by Dean Leffingwell
- User Story Mapping by Jeff Patton
- Team Topologies: Organizing Business and Technology Teams for Fast Flow by Matthew Skelton and Manuel Pais
- Mik + One: Team Topologies
- Accelerate by Dr. John Kotter
To download the transcript for this episode, click here.
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