SAFe practice consultants (SPCs) are change agents known for their technical expertise and motivation to improve the company’s software. They play a key role in implementing SAFe, handling various internal and external roles in the SAFe-enabled enterprise. The enterprise is looking to hire SAFe practice consultants to achieve organizational agility, which requires employing professionals who are committed to bringing a sustainable transformation into the organization. Let’s see some reasons to understand why organizations need an external SPC.
Get an Outside Eye
Companies hire external SPC consultants to get a new view and way of handling organizational challenges. As these external SPC consultants work in multiple industries, they often bring a new perspective on addressing the challenges in project development. They also have good experience in handling SAFe transformation across multiple industries, and they can offer the organizations best practices in SAFe, avoiding common pitfalls and trial and error in the transformation process. The SPCs gain skills by taking courses like Leading SAFe, RTE and SAFe DevOps Certification. They also purse advanced courses like Implementing SAFe.
Get the Business that Extra Horsepower
The challenges that organizations encounter sometimes need an immediate and effective solution, and they don’t have the manpower to solve them. The expert SPC professional turns vital here as they turn out to be reprioritizing employees who focus on core issues and bring out effective solutions. As these SPCs are not permanent employees of the organization, you can hire them at a comparatively cheaper price, which makes onboarding the job role relatively easier. Hiring an external SPC consultant gives organizations access to special skills that do not exist in the organization. They turn to your best choice when you don’t have enough money or work to keep the highly paid SAFe practice consultants busy round the clock.
Offer guidance on agile scaling.
SPC consultants are known for scaling agile at the enterprise level. They handle complex tasks efficiently and provide a detailed guide for successful implementation and adoption of SAFe practices in the organization. The external SPC you hire for the organization will make sure to integrate agile at scale while maintaining quality delivery and speed. They bring an unbiased viewpoint, assessing the current workflows of the organization and their readiness to implement SAFe. They stay uninfluenced by the internal environment in the organization and are able to offer honest feedback and recommendations.
Offer Tailored Roadmap
SAFe implementation in the organization is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The specialized practice consultant is vital in tailoring the SAFe framework for the specific needs of the organisation. The framework implementation will be aligned with business goals, processes, and specific needs. The expert consultants will make sure the SAFe implementation fits in the organizational context and strategy.
External SAFE practice consultants can bring efficiency to the adoption process. They ensure faster implementation of the framework for benefits like improved delivery, quick time to market, and better quality control. Though they serve as external employees of the organization, they are quite efficient in managing employee resistance, fostering collaboration, and facilitating the smooth adoption of the framework in the organization. The external SPCs educate the team about the benefits of SAFe and foster collaboration and communication, managing resistance to change.
Train the Team for Adoption
SPC’s role does not restrain implementing SAFe in the organization; the external professionals will train the team and leaders about SAFe implementation and practice so that there is no problem in sustaining the framework even after the consultant leaves. The role of external SPCs in the organization is complete only after taking workshops, certifications, and upskilling teams in agile practices. The external SPCs will ease the complexity of scaling agile practices and keep the organizations from failed transformations.
Aligns Teams and Business Goals
SAFe is not just about implementing agile practices; it is also about fostering continuous improvement in the SAFe environment. The external SPC set up a framework to optimize the processes to help organizations face new challenges and market demands. The SAFe framework can effectively align core functions with organizational objectives. The external SPCs can establish an effective synchronization between product owners and agile teams to reflect business strategy and agile execution across departments in the organization.
Why do I become a SAFe Practice Consultant?
The SPC has immense knowledge about effective implementation of framework aligning with organizational objectives. The role can earn you a good income whether you are working as a permanent employee in the organization or as an external SAFe consultant. As you work on addressing the common challenges to achieve business agility, you stay responsible for leading SAFe transitions. Anybody from business technology analyst to process lead can become an SPC consultant. To improve the chances of success in SAFe implementation, one has to earn some SAFe courses such as SAFe APM certification.
The certification courses will teach you how to apply SAFe principles during the implementation as a part of lean agile transformations. The SAFe certification courses are embedded with exam support, where you get access to study material and mock tests to know your understanding of the course and gauge your readiness to crack the exam before you take an actual test. After you pass the exam and earn the certification, you will be part of a professional community where you will gain access to SAFe toolkits and many other sources to implement SAFe successfully.
If you are to continue your profession as an external SAFe consultant, you should be an active member of the free professional community and improve your connections across multiple industries to find the opportunity as an external SPC consultant in different organizations.
Conclusion
The external SPC consultant is a demanding profession that can earn you high salaries. Also, by hiring external SPC, organizations can easily navigate the hurdles involved in scaling agile and fostering efficient, effective, and sustainable transformations. The external SPC with immense knowledge about the scaled agile framework can accelerate business agility, fostering long-term success and reducing risk.
