Inspect and Adapt are among the organizational and workflow patterns that make up the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which was created to help organizations scale Lean and Agile development practices. SAFe is one of a growing number of frameworks, including Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD), and Nexus, that aims to address the difficulties businesses face when scaling beyond a single team.
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What is Inspect and Adapt?
Inspect and Adapt (I&A), which Scaled Agile refers to as a significant event held at the conclusion of each program increment (PI), is a crucial component of SAFe. A Program Increment or “PI” is a timebox that’s typically eight to 12 weeks long, during which an In the form of functional, tested software and systems, Agile Release Train (ART) provides incremental value. The development team presents and assesses the current state of the product under development as well as the methodology used to get there during the I&A session held at the conclusion of each PI.
Improved upcoming PIs are frequently the result of thorough product and process inspection and improvement. It is a key element of the idea of continuous improvement and the best way for the entire ART to collaborate in identifying and resolving systemic issues.
The Agile teams work with all stakeholders during the Inspect and Adapt event, and the outcome is a list of improvement items that the teams add to the backlog for the following PI Planning event. The core of the ART is PI Planning, a cadence-based, face-to-face event that improves each PI while bringing all teams together under a common mission and vision.
What is Included in the Inspect and Adapt Agenda?
Inspect and Adapt
Overview The Inspect and Adapt (I&A) is an important activity that takes place at the conclusion of each Program Increment (PI), during which the train presents and assesses the Solution’s present state. In a structured problem-solving workshop, teams then reflect and identify improvement backlog items. The Agile Manifesto emphasizes the importance of continuous improvement through the following principle: “The team tunes and modifies its behavior in response to periodic reflections on how to be more effective.” Additionally, “relentless improvement” is a core competency of the Continuous Learning Culture core competency and one of the four pillars of the SAFe House of Lean. While there will always be room for improvement throughout the Program Increment (PI) (e.g., Iteration Retrospectives), applying some structure, cadence, and synchronization helps ensure that there is also time set aside to identify improvements across various teams and Agile Release Trains.
Details
The Agile Teams and all other ART stakeholders take part in the I&A event. The outcome is a set of backlog items for improvement that are added to the program backlog for the following PI Planning event. In this way, each ART (Agile Release Train) enhances each PI. The Solution Train holds an analogous I&A event for large solutions. The I&A event is divided into three sections: PI System Demo Quantitative and qualitative measurement Retrospective and problem-solving workshop Participants in the I&A should, whenever possible, include all those who contributed to developing the solution. For an ART, these people would be the Agile team’s Release Train Engineers (RTE), System and Solution Architects/Engineers, Product Management, Business Owners, and other members of the train. Solution Train stakeholders may also attend this event.
PI System Demo
The first part of the I&A is the PI System Demo, which is a little different from the typical system demos that take place after each iteration because it aims to display all the Features that the ART has developed throughout the PI. Typically, a wider range of people attends these demos, such as customers or Portfolio representatives. As a result, the PI system demo has a tendency to be a little more formal, and additional planning and staging are typically needed. But like any other system demo, it should be time-limited to no more than an hour and have an abstraction level that will keep stakeholders interested and willing to offer feedback. Business Owners work with each Agile team to evaluate the actual business value realized for each of their Team PI Objectives before, or as part of, the PI system demo.
Quantitative and Qualitative
Measurement In the second phase of the I&A event, teams collectively review any quantitative and qualitative metrics they have agreed to gather, then talk about the results and trends. The RTE and the Solution Train Engineer are frequently in charge of compiling the data, examining it to spot potential problems, and facilitating the presentation of the findings to the ART in order to prepare for this. The program predictability metric is one of the key metrics. The anticipated vs. actual business value is rolled up to create the program predictability measure reliable trains should operate in the 80–100 percent range; this allows the business and its external stakeholders to plan effectively.
Retrospective
The teams then conduct a quick (30 minutes or less) retrospective with the aim of identifying a few significant issues they would like to address during the problem-solving workshop. There are various Agile retrospective formats that can be used; there is no one way to go about doing this [3]. The facilitator assists the group in choosing which issues to address based on the retrospective and the nature of the problems found. Each team may work on a different issue, or, more frequently, individuals from various teams who want to work on the same problem form new groups. This self-selection brings together those who are affected and those who are most motivated to address the problem, and it helps provide cross-functional and diverse views of the problem. The teams are joined in the retrospective and problem-solving workshop by important ART stakeholders such as Business Owners, clients, and management. Business owners frequently have the only able to remove roadblocks that are imposed by factors beyond their control.
What is the Foundation of the SAFe House?
Leadership is crucially important as the SAFe House of Lean’s cornerstone. Lean-Agile development adoption, success, and continual improvement ultimately fall under the purview of an organization’s leaders.
The only people with the authority to fundamentally alter an organization and the way work is done are leaders. Only effective leaders can foster a culture that values original thought and a never-ending quest for improvement.
The most effective Agile leaders transform their thinking, which also transforms the archaic business practices prevalent in the previous paradigm. They adopt the Agile way of thinking and apply its principles to all of their decisions and actions.
Inspect and Adapting are very useful in this situation. Businesses can examine both the product and the process by implementing procedures like I&A, and then they can modify either one or both to enhance the organization. Effective Agile leaders are aware of the advantages of I&A and make sure that they are carried out with the recommended frequency.
It takes time and effort to transform an organization into a lean-agile one. However, a company need not reach the objective before seeing results. Gains in engagement, quality enhancements, quicker releases, and a host of other positive effects will be experienced with each step toward Lean-Agile. These advantages will encourage the company to advance.
What is Relentless Improvement?
The twelfth principle of the Agile Manifesto sums up how important the philosophy of continuous improvement is to the SAFe Lean-Agile approach:
The team tunes and modifies its behavior in response to its reflections on how to be more effective at regular intervals.
SAFe emphasizes the importance of this philosophy by including “relentless improvement” as one of the four pillars of the While opportunities for improvement can and should occur continuously, applying some structure, cadence, and synchronization helps to ensure time is set aside to consider what can be done better during the Program Level Inspect and Adapt.
Raja Bavani, Mindtree’s chief architect, observes that Inspect and Adapt offers a chance to learn. “We are no longer part of a traditional waterfall world where we wait until the end of every project to reflect and learn something,” he says. “We live in an incremental and iterative world with plenty of opportunities to pick up new skills, put them to use, get better, and make sure we’re applying what we’ve learned to provide our customers with useful solutions. We’ve never intentionally chosen to take advantage of opportunities like this in the past.”
A key element of the SAFe House of Lean, in particular Pillar 4: Relentless Improvement, is Inspect and Adapt. Through team retrospectives and stakeholder input, I&A promotes continuous improvement. Teams take information from these sources and use it to produce better products that benefit everyone. Let’s look at the SAFe House of Lean as a whole to better understand Inspect and Adapt.
How to Solve Problems?
The ART conducts a structured, root-cause problem-solving workshop to address systemic issues. Root cause analysis offers a set of tools for problem-solving that can be used to pinpoint the true causes of a problem rather than just focusing on the symptoms. In a timebox of two hours or less, the RTE typically facilitates the session.
Agree on the Problem(s) to Solve
American inventor Charles Kettering is credited with the statement that “a problem well stated is a problem half solved.” The teams have now decided on the issue they want to tackle. But do they share the same understanding of the specifics of the issue, or is it more likely that they have different viewpoints? For this reason, the teams should spend a few minutes outlining the issue, making sure to highlight the “what,” “where,” “when,” and “impact” in the most concise manner possible.
Perform Root Cause Analysis E
effective problem-solving tools include the fishbone diagram and the ‘5 A fishbone diagram, also called an Ishikawa diagram, is a visual tool used to investigate the causes of particular events or sources of variation in a process. The previous problem statement is summarized at the head of the “fish” in Figure 5’s fishbone diagram.’
The categories of people, processes, tools, programs, and environment are preloaded into the main bones of our problem-solving workshop. But you can modify these as necessary. Team members then categorize their list of potential causes for the issue at hand. The 5 Whys method is used to investigate a cause’s root cause after it has been identified. The cause of the prior cause is simply discovered and added to the diagram by repeatedly asking “why.” Once a suitable root cause has been found, the process is stopped, and the same process is then used to address the following cause.
Identify the Biggest Root
The 80/20 rule, also known as cause Pareto analysis, is a method for identifying the fewest possible actions that have the greatest overall impact. It bases its argument on the idea that 80% of problems can be attributed to 20% of the causes. It’s especially helpful when numerous options for action are vying for consideration, which is almost always the case with complex, systemic issues. The item that team members collectively believe is the most important factor contributing to the original problem is chosen after all potential causes-of-causes have been identified. They can do this by “dotting” the causes they believe to be the most problematic (each person is given five votes, which can be distributed among one or more items as they see fit). The group then compiles the results of the votes into a Pareto chart, like the one shown in Figure 6 to show their agreement on the most important root cause.
Restate the New Problem
Pick the cause that has received the most support and restate it as a problem. Given that the teams already have a solid understanding of this root cause, this should only take a few minutes.
Brainstorm Solutions
The problem will now begin to suggest some possible solutions, having been restated. Within a set timeframe (roughly 15–30 minutes), the team brainstorms as many potential corrective actions as they can come up with. The rules of brainstorming apply here: Generate as many ideas as possible Do not allow criticism or debate Let the imagination soar Explore and combine ideas
Create Improvement Backlog
Items The group then collectively votes on the top three likely answers. These are rephrased as features and improvement stories that will be added right away to the upcoming PI Planning event. As a result, the RTE assists in making sure that the pertinent work required to deliver the identified improvements is planned. This completes the circle and ensures that the appropriate steps will be taken and that the necessary personnel and resources will be allocated in order to improve the situation. Through the development of routine and systematic problem-solving techniques, team members and ART stakeholders can rest assured that the train is steadily moving in the direction of constant improvement.
Inspect and Adapt at the Large
Solution Level In the context of a single ART, the aforementioned describes a strict method of problem-solving. Key players from the Large Solution level will frequently be present at the I&A event if the ART is a component of a Solution Train. A second large solution-level I&A event with the same format might be needed for larger value streams, though. Attendees at the large solution I&A event cannot include everyone due to the size of a Solution Train, so stakeholders are chosen who are best suited to solve the issues at hand. This includes the main Solution Train participants as well as the various ARTs and Suppliers’ representatives.
What Are Two Primary Opportunities in SAFe?
The two primary opportunities in safe for driving relentless improvement are options. Iteration Retrospective and option D. Workshop on Inspecting and Adapting. Hence, the correct answers are options A. and D, both the Iteration Retrospective and the Inspect and Adapt workshop. Read below about Iteration Retrospective.
How Do You Conduct An Inspect and Adapt Session?
- PI System Demo: Examine and Modify the Good.
- Utilize metrics to quantitatively measure the process.
- Problem-Solving Workshop: Modify the procedure.
What is the Purpose of the Inspect and Adapt Event?
The teams identify all the issues with the processes or problems that they believe need to be fixed during the retrospective phase of Inspect and Adapt. The focus is then reduced to a handful of the crucial program or team-level issues.
SAFe is one of a growing number of frameworks, including Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS), Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD), and Nexus, that aims to address the difficulties businesses face when scaling beyond a single team. Do you know more about the inspect and adapt agenda?