Continuous Exploration (CE): a driver for innovation in SAFe
Staying competitive in a digital world requires continuous innovation and adaptation. Continuous Exploration is a key element of the SAFe framework, which enables organisations to regularly explore new opportunities and develop products and features that meet customer needs. CE not only encourages innovation, but also fosters collaboration between teams, while ensuring that development processes are aligned with rapidly changing market needs. In this article, we look at why Continuous Exploration is important and how it can contribute to organisational success. We review the steps involved and the challenges it presents.
What is Continuous Exploration (CE)?
Continuous Exploration is a process that is a key element of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline.
A Continuous Exploration:
- It enables the organisation to constantly explore new opportunities and develop new products or features that meet customer needs and market trends.
- It constantly monitors and analyses customer needs, which helps to ensure that products are better tailored to users' expectations.
- It encourages different teams to work towards a common goal, which increases the efficiency and effectiveness of the development process.
- The vision and roadmap set out as part of CE is useful for teams and the whole organisation to follow a clear direction for improvement.
The steps of Continuous Exploration (CE)
Continuous Exploration (CE) consists of four main steps that ensure a fast and efficient response to market needs and feedback. Let's see them now!
1. Hypothesising
This step is about generating ideas and defining the metrics needed to test them. Product management generates hypotheses based on customer requirements, which need to be validated during the development process. Ideas should not be considered as a fait accompli; instead, they should be considered as assumptions that need to be tested and validated. In this context, Lean startup thinking is applied, for example by defining a Minimum Marketable Function (MMF) and a Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
2. Cooperation and research
This phase involves the involvement of different stakeholders and a thorough mapping of customer needs. Product management uses primary and secondary market research techniques such as surveys, questionnaires and competitive analysis to gain a deeper understanding of the market. Customer-centric planning, such as customer visits or gemba walks, help to identify current needs and problems.
3. Architecture
During Continuous Exploration, the basic architecture of the solution is defined. This is to support continuous delivery and ensure the necessary flexibility. This includes consideration of releaseability, testability, and operational aspects, as well as modelling of security threats.
4. Synthesising
The knowledge acquired is summarised and integrated into a new future state in this step. The vision, roadmap and prioritized feature list ensure that the Agile Release Train (ART) teams are moving in a common direction. During the synthesis, it is important to have the team ready for the next stage of the development cycle and to continue the product development process based on the feedback received so far.
These steps together ensure that the CE process effectively supports innovation and that the product development process is flexible to market needs.
What are the challenges of Continuous Exploration?
As we have seen above, there are many benefits to be gained from implementing this process, but there are also challenges to be faced. Let's look at them now!
1. Time and resource requirements
Ongoing research is a time and resource intensive process, especially when several teams are working in parallel to explore different features and ideas. Organisations often find it difficult to find the right balance between surveys and the tasks at hand. This can be particularly problematic when working to tight deadlines and with limited resources.
2. Managing priorities
Continuous Exploration involves prioritising between different ideas, features and development directions. However, this is not always an easy task, especially when there are multiple stakeholders involved in the process, each with their own priorities and interests. Inappropriate prioritisation decisions can impact on the success of the product and the effectiveness of the teams.
3. Cooperation between teams
CE is a multidisciplinary process that requires different roles and expertise. However, collaboration between teams can often be challenging, especially when teams are geographically distant or come from different disciplines. Lack of collaboration or communication barriers can slow down the process and reduce effectiveness.
4. Managing change
Through continuous research, ideas and features can change as new information and feedback is gathered. Managing change can be challenging, especially if your organisation needs to adapt quickly to market needs or new technological developments. Keeping up with change and managing it effectively is essential for success.
5. Sustaining the long-term strategy
While Continuous Exploration focuses on identifying and realising new opportunities in the short term, it is important to keep the long-term strategy of the organisation in focus. Short-term goals can sometimes cause an organisation to lose sight of the bigger picture, which can be detrimental in the long term. Finding a balance between long-term strategic goals and short-term research activities is key.
6. Keeping teams motivated
Ongoing research can be a challenge to keep teams motivated in the long term, especially if the process does not yield immediate results. Teams need constant inspiration and support to maintain their enthusiasm and commitment.
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