Agile Planning at Scale Made Easy
Planning, Roadmap and Dependency Management using Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and other frameworks.
Nooga scale adds digital tools to help estimate, plan and visualize work across multiple teams and projects in your organization. For organizations used Scaled Agile Framework, SAFe, our tool extends on Azure DevOps that you can follow your practices right where you work.
Is your team having challenges with getting Azure DevOps to work with SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework)? You are not alone in this.
With Nooga Scale, it is easy to get started since Nooga Scale follows the same look and feel as Azure DevOps.
Also, everything you do in Nooga Scale stays in Azure DevOps, which means you don't have to worry about integration, security or data protection in a separate service.
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Getting Started
Key benefits
- Scaled Agile planning for cross functional teams.
- Seamless integration with Azure DevOps.
- Visualization of work across Azure DevOps projects and teams.
- Prioritize the work using visual tools for WSJF.
- Roadmap visualization to show the delivery flow.
- Dependency management using a program board that shows constraints and critical paths with a clear visualization of dependencies.
- Objectives and Risk management to keep focus on the most important things.
- Key metrics to show insights into what matters in your SAFe planning.
*Try our free 14-day trial of Nooga Scale. Book a demo or click here to get started!
Key Features
Planning
When working at scale, repeatable tasks can quickly become significant chores. In the spirit of lean principles, we aim to automate what we can to eliminate waste.
- Definition of context: In Nooga Scale, you define who works together so relevant information can stay focused for the teams. In SAFe, we define Agile Release Trains (ARTs) as the logical unit for connecting who works on what, and when.
- Order teams: Set the order of the teams to match how you want them displayed on the board.
- Add dependent teams: Dependent teams can be added to the ART if you want to track dependencies between delivery teams and shared teams.
- Automatic creation of Program Increments and Sprints: Tools should support, not hinder. In agile, there are many recurring tasks that Nooga Scale aims to automate.
Dependency Management Using a Program Board
Working together at scale requires increased visibility into what others are doing. Nooga Scale adds an interactive program board to make documenting and sharing this information easier.
- Quickly document planning: The program board lets you easily add features directly to the board or map them from an existing backlog.
- Share increment overview: With a digital program board, anyone can view the outcome of increment planning.
- Visualize dependencies: The program board shows dependencies between features. Adding new ones is as simple as dropping cards onto each other to create a connection.
Objectives
Goal setting is key to maintaining focus on the most important work. In Nooga Scale, you can set goals at the PI level or team level using Objectives. Define the planned Business Value (BV) during increment planning and track progress during execution.
- Document PI and Team PI Objectives: An important part of measuring performance and delivery precision is to set objectives for the PIs and then measure the outcome.
- Measure achievement and delivery: Use Business Value to measure outcomes and monitor progress using Feature completion by linking objectives to features.
Risks
Risk management is a vital part of the planning process. During PI planning, teams raise risks and impediments to the RTE. Nooga Scale provides a board to efficiently manage and track these risks—both during planning and throughout the increment.
- Visualize and manage risks: During PI planning, risks are easily shared via the risk board. In the ROAM exercise, teams and business owners collaborate to manage risks before committing to the plan for the next increment.
- Customize columns: Create a board tailored to your team. Use the ROAM acronym, custom states, or risk levels—the risk board can be customized to your way of working.
Analytics - Flow Metrics
Quick insights into project status are essential. Get insights and drive your Scaled Agile planning to new heights with Flow Metrics. This analytics hub provides a detailed understanding of your project’s health and efficiency, showcasing:
- Flow Distribution: Tracks the spread of work types, ensuring balance and identifying workflow inefficiencies.
- Flow Load: Monitors active, new, and closed work items to optimize capacity and maintain manageable work in progress (WIP).
- Flow Predictability: Compares planned versus actual delivery to enhance forecasting and improve reliability.
- Flow Velocity: Measures the completion rate of work items per iteration to support a consistent and sustainable pace.
- Flow Time: Tracks the duration from commitment to delivery, helping identify areas for process improvement.
- Flow Efficiency: Evaluates the percentage of time work items are actively worked on versus idle time, with the goal of reducing downtime and increasing overall throughput.
Process Configuration
Aligning agile teams at scale is crucial, but maintaining alignment can be time-consuming. Nooga Scale enhances Azure DevOps with process enhancements to streamline setup and ongoing use. We’ve also introduced tooling for additional planning concepts and artifacts from SAFe, such as release trains, program increments, and objectives.
- Custom Azure DevOps SAFe process template: We provide a SAFe process template for Azure DevOps so you don’t have to build one from scratch.
- Automating configuration of Azure DevOps projects: Getting started should be easy. Nooga Scale includes a guided configuration process that automatically adds SAFe framework artifacts like release trains, program increments, and objectives.
*Try our free 14-day trial of Nooga Scale. Book a demo or click here to get started!
Testimonials
"We began our journey following the Microsoft prescribed configuration for SAFe. Once we installed this extension our old structures were no longer required!”
"The installation and configuration of this extension was smooth and without impact to our existing configuration. The extension widely make use of the existing structures of Azure DevOps, The extension with digital Program Board, PI Objective and Risk tracking has been a great help after being forced out of the office and on to 100% digital facilitation."
- Christoffer Bolding Christensen, Energinet
*Try our free 14-day trial of Nooga Scale. Book a demo or click here to get started!
