After reading Scaling Simplified last year, I was looking for my next book on scaling agility while staying away from SAFe. The timing couldn’t be better as this book had just been published in April of 2024.
As I read the first chapter, I was delighted to notice how the authors removed the Kanban terminology. While you can smell Kanban in chapters 1 and 2, I want to congratulate the authors on using business terminology to explain Kanban concepts. For example:
Visualize your situation instead of Visualize your workflow
Keeping focus instead of Limiting WIP
Flight routes instead of Start and end points and columns
If you want to escape the trap of being the ‘Agile nerd’ in the class, grab those terms so middle and upper management can understand you.
I wanted to ‘deep-dive’ into the flight levels so I got a bit disappointed reading chapter 2 which is the author’s advice/experience on what to prepare before setting in place flight levels. I would advise going to chapter 3 and 4 to understand flight levels 2 and 3 then come back to chapter 2.
Flight level 2 (chapter 3)
The authors are quite generous in sharing different types of boards for this flight level. It reassured me on the types of boards I was proposing for customers in my consulting services. It also gave me some new ideas on types of boards I wasn’t aware of for coordinating teams.
On the other hand, I was disappointed by the absence of guidance around measurements in this chapter. The chapter started with naming the 5 practices and when I got to the end of the chapter, it covered the first 3 practices without touching the measurements of this flight level.
Flight level 3 (chapter 4)
This is the chapter where I got the most value. I believe I’ve increased my ‘game’ in this chapter alone. OKRA. SOFI. These acronyms have meaning for me and are simple reminders of what I should be doing in flight level 3. Pages 146 and 147 are the best pages of the book. It explains how a flight level 3 board is structured and on the following pages, the authors explain how to operationalize the board. The conversation about outcomes versus output is extensive and right.
Flight Levels System Architecture (chapter 5)
I had seen these terms a lot of times on LinkedIn. They sounded boring and were unattractive. Chapter 5 has the same name. After reading it, I now had a complete opposite view of those words.
As I was reading this chapter, it tied everything together. It explains very clearly how to create the flow of values through the 3 flight levels of an organization. The authors give a procedure as to what to look for so you are not left in the wild.
I had been looking for an alternative to SAFe to help Agile scale for years now and I think I’ve found it. For me, it beats other alternatives like Scrum.org Nexus, Less or PAL-EBM.
This chapter gives you a way to identify how the work flows through an organization as it goes from levels 1, 2 and 3. As a bonus, the last few pages of this chapter shows flight routes patterns and what it tells you about top-down, bottom-up or autonomous decision making in the organization.
Flight Levels Operations (aka Operating the thing)
The last chapter explains how to operate flight levels. Once again, this chapter was full of insights, advice and tips on how to operate all 3 flight levels.
If you are a SAFe practitioner, have a look at this chapter. It can be used as a checklist to see if you are missing anything or challenge your SAFe implementation.
Agnostic of Agile frameworks already in place
I found the book’s tone respectful of Agile frameworks, practices, or roles already in place. The book mentions Scrum, Product Owner, or SAFe without being condescending. The book doesn’t neglect them, giving me the impression flight levels add a bit of structure or guidance to scale business agility.
Escaping SAFe
If you are one of those looking for an alternative to SAFe, I recommend this book. From my perspective, this book offers a much more light structure (the flight levels, the flight routes, the work systems topology) to describe the levels you usually see in SAFe. I like how the authors give us a structure that most people can relate to. I’m surprised as to why it hasn’t gotten more traction in the industry.
I recommend reading Scaling Simplified with this book. ‘Flight levels’ offers me a structure that was missing from ‘Scaling Simplified’. When talking with middle and upper management, the flight level structure is easy to understand without falling into the trap of frameworks. On the other hand, ‘Scaling Simplified’ has some novel ideas not covered in ‘Flight levels’.
References
I like to look at the references at the end of a book to see what inspired the authors. Throughout the years, it gave me a non-objective perspective on the types of ideas in the book. When I encounter a book with loads of references, I’m in for a ride where the author tries to conduct them under one theme.
In this book, there are 27 references. If you exclude the references to a John Lennon song, the Agile manifesto, and a retrospective tool, we are at 24 references. 10 of them are from the authors. Is this good? Is this bad? My point of view is this book is a continuation of the authors’ contribution to the field of Kanban/Lean/Business Agility.
In conclusion
I don’t know if it was just pure luck or if things were meant to be but these two books (Simplified Scaling and Flight Levels) are my best books about scaling Kanban … whoops… I mean agility to a larger group than a single team. They focus on flow. They focus on the customer. They focus on the business. Themes that matter to me. Do they matter to you?
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