SAFe® 4.0 Reference Guide: Scaled Agile Framework® for Lean Software and Systems Engineering

#2 – Apply systems thinking

A system must be managed. It will not manage itself. Left to themselves, components become selfish, competitive, independent profit centers, and thus destroy the system. The secret is cooperation between components toward the aim of the organization.

—W. Edwards Deming

Deming, one of the world’s foremost systems thinkers, constantly focused on the larger view of problems and challenges faced by people building and deploying systems of all types—manufacturing systems, social systems, management systems, even government systems. One central conclusion was the understating that the problems faced in the workplace were ...