SAFe entities
Summarize
Summary of SAFe entities
This content explains the key SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) entities that help ServiceNow customers plan, track, and deliver software products efficiently. Understanding these entities enables customers to organize work hierarchically from large initiatives to specific tasks, align teams, and manage delivery cycles within SAFe practices integrated into ServiceNow.
Show less
Key Features
- Epic: The largest unit of work representing significant business initiatives or hypotheses. Epics span multiple program increments (PIs) and are prioritized using the WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) scoring method to maximize business value. Epics are decomposed into features for delivery.
- Feature: A smaller work item than an epic, designed to be completed within a single program increment cycle. Features are sequenced in the Agile Release Train (ART) backlog and broken down into user stories.
- Story: A user-centric, concise requirement or business case that is small enough to be completed within a sprint. Stories are estimated in story points reflecting effort, not time, and are implemented by SAFe teams.
- Agile Release Train (ART): A collection of agile teams collaborating on delivering a single solution. ARTs organize and manage work across multiple teams.
- Program Increment (PI): A defined timebox (typically 8–12 weeks) during which ART teams collaboratively deliver incremental value. PIs usually include four development sprints plus one innovation and planning sprint.
- SAFe Team: An autonomous, cross-functional group with diverse skills working toward common goals. Teams can be created and managed by users with specific roles (safescrummaster or safeartuser) or system administrators. Teams can be assigned to work items and have members added accordingly.
- Sprint: Subdivisions of program increments, measured in weeks, representing focused development cycles for teams within an ART.
Practical Use for ServiceNow Customers
- Create and manage epics to capture large-scale business initiatives and prioritize them effectively using WSJF.
- Decompose epics into features and features into stories to structure work for agile teams, enabling clear implementation paths.
- Define ARTs and assign SAFe teams to collaborate on delivering solutions within program increments, facilitating coordinated delivery.
- Use program increments and sprints to plan and track development cycles, ensuring predictable incremental value delivery.
- Manage SAFe teams and their membership within ServiceNow, controlling access and roles to align with your organizational policies.
Learn about the various SAFe entities that are used to successfully plan, track, and deliver your software products.
- Epic
Epic in SAFe is the largest unit of work, which can be continuously worked through multiple program increments. Epic captures business hypotheses and is prioritized and assessed using the WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First is used to prioritize and sequence jobs to produce optimum business value) score.
An epic is further decomposed into features for implementation and delivery by SAFe ARTs.
- Feature
A SAFe feature is equivalent to an epic in Agile Development. It must be small enough for completion within a program increment cycle. It is prioritized and sequenced in an ART backlog based on its global ranking. A feature is further decomposed into user stories for implementation and delivery by SAFe teams.
- Story
A SAFe story is a brief statement encapsulating a product requirement or business case written in user-centric language. A story must be small enough for completion in one sprint. The estimated effort required to complete a story is measured in story points. More points are assigned to a story requiring more effort. Story points are arbitrary measurements of the effort (not necessarily the time) required to complete a story, based on the estimates from the SAFe team members.
- Agile Release Train
Agile Release Train (ART) comprises a set of teams working towards a single solution.
- Program Increment
A program increment is set period during which teams in an ART collaborate and produce to achieve agreed-upon goals. A program increment in SAFe is similar to a sprint in Agile Development, typically spanning 8–12 weeks. The most common form of program increment comprises four development sprints followed by one innovation and planning sprint.
- SAFe team
SAFe team is an autonomous, cross-functional team containing members possessing different skill-sets who work in collaboration to achieve a common goal.
A user with the safe_scrum_master or safe_art_user role can create a SAFe team. You can assign these teams to SAFe work items such as stories, epics, and features.
Once a SAFe team is created, you can add members to it.- New customers: System administrator can add members to the team.
- Existing customers: A user with the safe_scrum_master or safe_art_user role can
add members to your SAFe team.Note:
You can restrict this function just to the system administrator by creating the safe.disallow_scrum_add_group_member property and setting it to true.
For information on how to create a property, see Add a system property.
- Sprint
Program Increments in SAFe are further segmented into sprints for teams involved in it, and are measured in terms of weeks.