#194 – The BastART

The 10th principle of SAFe is about organizing around value–i.e, that an ART is part of a Value Stream and composed of teams that work on products and systems in that Value Stream. Sometimes, it’s difficult to map all teams out into Value Streams (e.g., because their system or platform serves multiple Value Streams), so we end up bundling all of these “incompatible” teams together in a proxy-ART.

Instead, take a look at how the Team Topologies approach by Mathew Skelton and Manuel Pais could work in your SAFe setup. Categorizing these non-Stream-Aligned Teams as what they really are (i.e., Complicated Subsystem or Platform Teams) will help everyone understand the teams’ places in the Value Stream, either as part of an ART or as a Shared Service across multiple ARTs or Value Streams. Following, remember to have discussions on whether these teams should become Enabler Teams and teach the Stream-Aligned Teams the competencies needed to minimize the number of dependencies across team types.