Infrastructure
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microTOOL is a Scaled Agile Platform Partner
Program Management with Essential SAFe®
Agility with many teams in perfect cadence
Everything you need to get your Agile Release Train up and running
From stakeholders with goals to the vision
The vision describes the solution to be developed. To define it, the stakeholders must be identified and their goals analyzed. This lays the foundation for later customer satisfaction.
objectiF RPM for SAFe® provides for this:
- stakeholder, goal and context diagrams for clear communication
- standardized forms for stakeholders, goals, epics, etc.
- a product vision canvas and a document template for the product vision
- a review workflow for validating goals, epics and product vision
Requirements engineering & backlog management
How to organize and structure the multitude of epics, capabilities, features and stories hierarchically in SAFe®?
objectiF RPM for SAFe® offers:
- a central program backlog for prioritizing epics and enablers
- functions for deriving and refining epics, enablers, feature requirements and user stories
- UML/ SysML diagrams to visualize relationships, dependencies, conflicts and refinements
- requirements traceability from the epics to the realized component
Pre and post PI plannings
Input and output of face-to-face meetings are centrally available for all participants with objectiF RPM for SAFe®. Those who need to plan interactively online can use virtual boards, canvases as well as the integrated chat and instant video conferencing.
For PI planning, objectiF RPM for SAFe® offers:
- planning patterns for creating increments with everything an Agile Release Train needs.
- functions for ranking epics and feature requirements in the program backlog
- vision board, goal and context diagrams for reviewing the product vision and business context
- prepared workflows for increment, team and iteration planning
- graphical models to visualize feature dependencies
- an automatically updated schedule of the program as a Gantt chart
Solution architecture and implementation
Keep the big picture and solution architecture in mind at all times despite team self-management. Use uniform structuring tools for software design and make relationships between elements of the solution visible.
objectiF RPM for SAFe® provides an overview and traceability through:
- preconfigured repository structures for managing design results and implementation files
- patterns for quickly creating components and implementation files with just one click
- SysML block diagrams for designing modern service-oriented architectures
- functions for establishing traceability between requirements, software design and source code files
- features for test management
Read all about SAFe® with objectiF RPM in this whitepaper
Lean Portfolio Management with Portfolio SAFe®
Continuous value creation with high agility
Everything you need for Lean Portfolio Management
Strategy analysis
Ensure traceability from the business goals and business epics to the finished solution. Starting from strategy analysis onwards.
objectiF RPM for SAFe® offers:
- standardized forms for describing strategic themes (including key results according to the OKR method), business goals, business epics and enablers
- a portfolio backlog to manage and prioritize business epics and enablers
- stakeholder, goal, and portfolio context diagrams, as well as diagrams that visualize relationships and dependencies of business goals and business epics
- a review workflow to ensure the quality of deliverables from the start of the project.
Value stream planning
In portfolio planning, you drag business epics from the portfolio backlog into the project/program backlog of a value stream and then start the implementation – with complete traceability from the portfolio to the project/program.
To support portfolio planning, you will find in objectiF RPM for SAFe®:
- a Portfolio Vision Canvas and an annotated Value Stream Canvas, based on Portfolio SAFe®
- diagrams for modeling future business processes
- a template for documenting the portfolio vision in MS Word and PDF format
- a value stream wizard for creating value streams, adding new projects/programs to the portfolio and configuring the portfolio planning view
- a quick navigation from the value streams of a portfolio to the related programs.
Enterprise architecture (EA)
The path to implementing the vision leads through the architecture, which must be transparent for everyone involved in the development of an enterprise solution.
objectiF RPM for SAFe® supports you in developing the enterprise architecture with:
- simplified SysML block diagrams, showing relationships between business epics, derived feature requirements and architectural elements
- patterns that make it possible to create architecture components in just a few clicks
- real-time analyses for architecture and traceability from business epics to architecture elements.
Read all about Lean Portfolio Management with objectiF RPM in this whitepaper
Controlling SAFe®programs and portfolios
Measure and grow in short cycles
Are goals being achieved? Is value being created?
Where do the programs and portfolios currently stand?
In order to make the right decisions, you need an up-to-date overview of the big picture, costs, staff capacity and the progress of solution development at all times. This is only possible with centralized data managed by a tool. objectiF RPM for SAFe® provides you with numerous agile metrics, cross-project queries of all states of artifacts and automated notifications when the status quo changes.
Controlling programs with objectiF RPM for SAFe®
Controlling portfolios with objectiF RPM for SAFe®
Governance, risk management & compliance
in public administration & regulated industries with SAFe®
Safety despite high agility
Source: according to Matthias Knoll; Susanne Strahringer, IT-GRC-Management – Governance, Risk und Compliance: Grundlagen und Anwendungen Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.
Auch im Public-Sektor und in sicherheitskritischen Branchen wie Luft- und Raumfahrt, Medizintechnik, Bahntechnik, Anlagenbau und Automatisierungstechnik wird zunehmend agil entwickelt. Gerade dort gewinnt das Scaled Agile Framework SAFe® stark an Bedeutung, weil es methodische Unterstützung für die Einhaltung von Normen, Standards und gesetzlichen Vorgaben liefert. So lässt sich Agilität mit Public bzw. Corporate Governance sehr gut vereinbaren. objectiF RPM für SAFe® ist die Lösung für agile Governance.
The ongoing digitization in business and administration offers a wide range of opportunities, but also poses new risks. IT risk management is thus gaining in importance. When exploiting the opportunities for innovative digital services and products, it must not be forgotten that public administration and companies – especially those in regulated industries – must comply with mandatory norms and standards, legal requirements, internal regulations and processes. IT strategy, planning, management and control must be aligned with these. This is the task of IT governance. And it must be ensured that companies and organizations are aware of these requirements, are committed to complying with them and follow them consistently, i.e., fulfill IT compliance. The three areas of IT governance, IT risk management and IT compliance are closely related. They are grouped together under the term IT GRC management.
But doesn’t IT GRC management put the brakes on agility? After all, it is agility that enables companies and public administrations to keep pace with changing conditions and new technologies. Let’s be specific: The most widespread framework for large agile development projects today is the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe®. So do IT GRC management and agility according to SAFe® match?
Our answer is: Yes, very well in fact – with the support of objectiF RPM for SAFe®.
objectiF RPM for SAFe® supports unified processes and compliance with
objectiF RPM for SAFe® ensures process quality and revision control through
Governance
objectiF RPM for SAFe® supports strategy development in the context of portfolio management, especially delimiting scope with graphical models. They make it easier for the governance team to control the scope of a project according to SAFe®. Do the projects and programs fulfill the specified strategy? Are the development results achieved in line with the strategy? objectiF RPM for SAFe® helps answer these questions with queries. They show the entire path from the strategic goals and business epics to the features and refined user stories. The traceability extends even further to the team iterations and the developed solution components.
Additionally, objectiF RPM for SAFe® supports the work of your governance team with:
- standardized backlog management at all levels of development
- defined workflows for reviewing e.g. backlogs
- controlling with several real time evaluations, agile metrics and KPIs
- an earned value analysis for performance assessment.
Compliance
You have to follow specific standards in your industry, are bound by legal requirements or want to comply with your own standards and best practices? In objectiF RPM for SAFe® you will find a set of tools for this. Features that help you combine regulation with agility. With objectiF RPM for SAFe®, you set up projects according to SAFe® per template and create the entire infrastructure for your ARTs. In particular, it provides backlogs, result types, models, documents and controlling instruments for implementing SAFe.
objectiF RPM for SAFe® offers you a great deal of leeway to adapt this template to your regulatory needs for repeated use. Among other things, you can:
- define your own result types and design a suitable user interface for entering and editing the results
- define your own event-driven workflows
- create your own patterns for recurring tasks, sub-processes and results,
- create or configure specific dashboards, evaluations, views, commands, document templates, etc
- extend the functionality of objectiF RPM for SAFe® with your own functions and integrate them “seamlessly” into the tool’s context menus.
Risk management
Managing product risks is essential in safety-critical industries. objectiF RPM for SAFe® supports you with:
- forms for creating risk management artifacts, such as risks, hazards, risk mitigations and vulnerable use scenarios
- Kanban boards for steering risk management
- A state-based risk management workflow
- real-time analyses of risks and risk mitigation.
All these features are of course adaptable to the specific norms and standards of your industry.
5 good reasons for using objectiF RPM for SAFe®
Because "scalable" means more than just "scaled"
objectiF RPM for SAFe® scales the approach of a single Scrum team for a large project with several agile teams working in parallel. But that’s not the end of the story. Sometimes at the beginning of a program the number of teams hasn’t been decided, and in some programs the number of teams is to be gradually increased or the need for more teams is only recognized once the project is underway. For these cases, the objectiF RPM for SAFe® provides planning patterns that allow you to add more teams and set up the corresponding infrastructure at the same time. A program in objectiF RPM for SAFe® can thus be scaled at any time to meet your current needs.
Because complexity can be mastered with structure
A program created with objectiF RPM for SAFe® consists of increments. Several teams are involved in developing your solution. For each team, increments are subdivided into iterations. Iterations are carried out by the teams of an Agile Release Train simultaneously.
The central repository of the project – that is, result storage for all teams – is structured by the template. Predefined result types ensure standardization and uniform quality standards. Having the same results and structures recur for all teams in all increments and iterations provides good orientation and aids the program manager in mastering the complexity of the program.
Because traceability is indispensible
Epics, feature requirements, user stories and enablers play a central role in the planning and steering of an agile program. In addition to having relationships among themselves, they also have relationships with other results, such as stakeholders, their goals, personas, architecture designs, system components, test cases, tests, bugs and implementation files. In the central repository of objectiF RPM for SAFe® all results are comprehensively stored together with their relationships.
This ensures traceability from requirements to code.
Because version control is a must
In an agile program created with objectiF RPM for SAFe®, all results and their relationships are subject to version control. An automatically generated history makes it possible to trace the origin of each result. The history also allows for version comparisons and – when necessary – reverting to an older state.
The overall state of development for various results can be recorded by drawing a baseline. Ready-to-use configurations for the results of individual teams as well as whole increments make it possible to draw a baseline in just a few clicks.
Because you do things differently
objectiF RPM for SAFe® allows you to set up an agile portfolio or program in just a few minutes. It saves you time and effort. But what happens if your organization works differently than what’s provided for in objectiF RPM for SAFe®? In that case, simply modify the objectiF RPM for SAFe® template in advance or adjust the generated project afterwards:
- define new result types or modifying existing result types by adding new properties or editing them using dialog boxes and forms
- design your own event-controlled workflows
- configure or create dashboards, analyses, views, templates, patterns and more for streamlining recurring tasks
- extend objectiF RPM for SAFe® with your own functions and interfaces.
objectiF RPM for SAFe® provides the necessary means for customization.
SAFe® and Scaled Agile Framework® are registered trademarks of Scaled Agile Inc., which publishes comprehensive documentation of the framework on its website www.scaledagile.com