Before highlighting the differences between Agile and Safe Agile, the meaning of both concepts has been explained as follows.
The agile can be termed as the methodology which is based upon flexible projects and helps in the development of various innovative products. Such products are very much helpful in getting competitive advantages. This concept is well known for promoting customer satisfaction as well as teamwork.
On the other hand, the scalable agile framework or the safe agilist training helps to learn all such practices and is normally used in large-sized organizations so that all the needs of the stakeholders are efficiently met. This concept is well known for providing improvements in the quality of the products and promoting efficiency and transparency in the whole organization.
Some points of differences between both are mentioned as follows:
- Differences on the basis of strategy and principles used: The agile is based upon developing the products so that continuous delivery is focused. This concept is based upon cross-functional teams and is mainly undertaken for a small team of approximately 10 people. On the other hand, SAFe Is a framework that is not limited to smaller sized teams and guides the enterprises in various agile related practices.
- Differences on the basis of average salary provided: The Median salary in the UK of the holder of a SAFe certification is near about £70,000. On the other hand, the annual salary on an average basis in India of an agile coach is near about Rs. 22 lakhs.
- Differences on the basis of benefits provided by both: The agile is responsible for providing a number of benefits like reducing the wastage because of optimum utilization of the resources, facilitating faster turnaround based time, having an optimized process of development, having a great focus on the needs of the consumers and increasing the frequency of feedback as well as collaboration. On the other hand, the SAFe helps to provide benefits like a quicker and efficient codification of practices based on agile. It is also well known for providing a practical based framework related to training sessions of the development of the process, increasing productivity and reducing the errors, and increasing the time to market by approximately 50%.
- Differences on the basis of core values provided by both: The safe agile certification is responsible for providing the values of transparency, best quality, and alignment of processes and execution of the projects. On the other hand, the agile provides good interactions of the processes and tools, best working software which is based upon documentation, a good collaboration of the customers, and various efficient responses to changes.
- Differences on the basis of implementation of both: The agile can be termed as a project that will work best in all the organizations that are based upon simple structures of the organizational hierarchy. On the other hand, the SAFe will work best where the organizations are large and are willing to expand the ways of doing things beyond the teams.
- Differences on the basis of the structure of teams and the roles performed by them: The scrum-based teams normally consist of about 8-10 members and have the roles of being the owners of products, scrum-based masters, and making a development based team. Whereas the SAFe is based upon 4 kinds of different and unique roles to be performed. These may include the engineers based upon the management of programs, the engineer based upon the value and its stream, the solution type of architects, and many more.
- Differences based upon the dependencies of teams: In the case of agile, the dependencies on the teams are comparatively lower than SAFe. The development based teams have full freedom so that they can organize themselves and manage the tasks on their own. On the other hand, the concept of SAFe is based upon a level of coordination among the teams that are based upon alignment. This has provided an increase in the dependency of management upon the teams.
- Differences on the basis of the time-based frames and ceremonies: Within the agile systems, all the projects are based upon sprint and a specific frame of time. The cycle of things can last from 1 week to approximately 4 weeks. On the other hand, SAFe can also follow a similar type of structure. In such cases, the cycles will last for about 2 weeks. Also, a plan has to be followed throughout the whole process.
The SAFe Methodology is used in large-sized organizations where they have to deal with mission-related projects. This is very well-known because of its working which is based upon agile principles and template-based frameworks. This concept is well known for adding the extra layers of communication as well as control of the organizations. There are a number of factors that affect their implementation.
Following are the things that must be considered at the time of going with anyone:
- The level of the implementation and the goals of the organization.
- How much is the involvement level of employees?
- The structure of the companies.
- The projects and their types are to be managed.
- The requirements and opinions of all the stakeholders associated with the processes.
- The planning aspect required in the whole process.
Ultimately it depends upon the organization to choose between both of them by properly paying attention to their needs and requirements.