Spotify has a unique setup: small, autonomous squads work independently, each focusing on a specific part of the product.
These squads are essentially mini-startups within Spotify, empowered to tweak, upgrade, or even overhaul their section without interrupting anything else. No waiting around—just pure, agile scrum framework in action.
Meanwhile, Philips, a global giant with cross-functional teams in hardware, software, and customer support (to name a few), has adopted SAFe, agile practices to harmonize its efforts across geographically distributed teams. Their goal is to reduce time-to-market and improve quality.
One thing is clear: Scrum or SAFe, all companies must integrate an agile framework into their workflow to smoothen operations. This blog will tackle SaFe vs. Scrum and Scrum@Scale and help you understand the similarities, differences, and factors to consider for each of the frameworks.
SAFe Vs. Scrum: Choose the Right Framework for You
An In-depth Look at Scrum
Scrum is a management framework that helps teams organize, collaborate, and adapt to deliver results effectively. It thrives on short work cycles (sprints), clearly defined roles, and regular feedback.
Let’s break that down with a simple example.
If you were to start a restaurant, you’ve got two ways to run the show: either you and your partner meddle in each other’s tasks, creating chaos, or you split into smaller, focused teams.
One group perfects the recipes, another handles packaging, and a third manages marketing. Each team owns its tasks, works in short cycles, meets daily to share updates, and adjusts based on taste tests and customer feedback.
Pros and cons of Scrum
| Pros | Cons |
| Flexibility: Teams can quickly adapt to changes. | Steep learning curve: Requires proper training. |
| Faster delivery: Incremental releases keep stakeholders happy. | Scaling challenges: Not ideal for large, complex projects. |
| Collaboration: Open communication improves teamwork. | Team dependency: Relies on experienced and motivated individuals. |
| Customer satisfaction: Regular updates incorporate user feedback. | Limited to small teams: Works best with 3–10 members. |
📌 Example: A gaming company uses Scrum to push weekly updates for its app, keeping players engaged with fresh features. However, when expanding to a larger multiplayer project, coordination across agile teams becomes a bottleneck, highlighting Scrum’s scaling challenges.
Who is Scrum best for?
One word: Software teams. But there’s more.
Scrum shines in software and lean product development, startups, and smaller teams dealing with dynamic projects, unknown solutions, or frequent client feedback. It’s perfect for teams needing iterative processes to deliver results faster.
Scrum Processes and Roles
Processes:
- The Product Owner creates a Product Backlog, prioritizing tasks
- The team breaks tasks into smaller pieces to form a Sprint Backlog
- Work is completed in Sprints (2–4 weeks)
- Daily Standups keep everyone aligned
- At the end of the sprint, results are reviewed, and lessons are noted
Roles:
- Product owner: Prioritizes tasks and ensures the team delivers business value
- Scrum leader: Coaches the team, facilitates meetings, and removes obstacles
- Development team: Cross-functional experts who own and complete the tasks
An Introduction to SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework)
Simply put, SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) is an Agile framework designed to help large organizations manage multiple teams working on complex projects. It’s built on three metaphorical pillars: Team, Program, and Portfolio. These pillars offer flexibility while addressing the challenges of scaling Agile practices.
When Ericsson, a global telecom leader, faced challenges managing teams across continents, they turned to SAFe.
With SAFe’s Agile Release Trains and structured governance, Ericsson achieved:
- Improved alignment: Teams across locations worked seamlessly under consistent Agile practices
- Faster time-to-market: Quicker release cycles with continuous integration
- Better collaboration: Cross-functional knowledge-sharing and collective problem-solving
- Predictable delivery: Clear milestones ensured transparency and reliability
- Higher customer satisfaction: Faster delivery and quality improvements boosted trust
Pros and cons of SAFe
| Pros | Cons |
| Scalable: Perfect for large, distributed teams | Complex: Implementation requires significant effort and training |
| Alignment: Ensures teams work toward shared goals | Bureaucratic: Can introduce layers of oversight |
| Faster delivery: Continuous integration speeds up releases | Customization challenges: May not fit all organizational cultures |
| Improved quality: Built-in quality practices reduce defects | Overhead: Adds processes that can slow smaller teams |
| Predictability: Clear milestones improve progress tracking | Tool dependence: Relies heavily on specific tools for success |
📌 Example: A multinational manufacturing company adopted SAFe to streamline cross-functional collaboration. While they achieved better alignment and faster product delivery, the initial training phase took months, highlighting SAFe’s steep learning curve.
Who is SAFe best for?
SAFe is ideal for large organizations that are managing cross-functional teams and complex projects.
It’s beneficial for:
- Enterprises needing alignment across departments
- Organizations with geographically distributed teams
- Companies aiming to integrate Agile at an enterprise level
Implementation strategy and governance in SAFe
Governance in SAFe ensures alignment and accountability through well-defined processes and metrics.
Key elements include:
- Planning: Establishing roles, responsibilities, and workflows for clarity
- Monitoring KPIs: Tracking progress with metrics like time-to-market and quality
- Compliance reporting: Ensuring adherence to industry standards
Governance is a core part of Lean Portfolio Management within SAFe, and responsibilities often fall to roles like the SAFe Program Consultant (SPC) or Chief Scrum Master (CSM).
These leaders:
- Oversee Agile Release Trains
- Manage risk and compliance
- Foster collaboration across programs
Key Differences Between Scrum and SAFe
Even though they are part of the same Agile family, Scrum and SAFe cater to different needs. Let’s break them down and see how they stack up.
1. Organization structure and framework
📀 Scrum is lightweight and thrives on small, self-organizing teams (5–9 members) working in short 2–4 week sprints. There’s no hierarchy—multiple scrum teams and their members share equal responsibility, guided by roles like the Scrum Master and Product Owner. Framework requirements include a Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, and regular sprint cycles.
💿 SAFe, however, is built for large enterprises with multiple teams. It’s highly structured, with layers like Portfolio, Program, and Team levels to manage complex projects. SAFe requires detailed planning sessions like Program Increment (PI) Planning, and aligning work across teams over 8–12 weeks.
📌 Example:
- A startup developing a new app feature would benefit from Scrum’s simplicity and speed
- A multinational telecom company like Ericsson needs SAFe to manage distributed teams and ensure alignment
2. Roles and Dependencies
📀 Scrum relies on three roles: Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Developer. Teams self-manage and handle dependencies through daily communication, sprint reviews, and retrospectives.
💿 SAFe introduces more specialized roles like Product Managers, System Architects, and Release Train Engineers, reflecting its focus on coordinating multiple teams. Dependencies are addressed during PI Planning and regular synchronization events to ensure smooth collaboration.
📌 Example:
- A Scrum team handling an e-commerce site update would communicate directly to resolve dependencies
- A SAFe team developing a self-driving car would use structured meetings and tools to align hardware, software, and testing teams
3. Delivery Approach
📀 Scrum emphasizes frequent, incremental updates in short cycles, allowing quick adjustments based on feedback. It’s all about delivering functional pieces of the product faster.
💿 SAFe focuses on delivering integrated solutions with its longer Program Increments. Its structured delivery model ensures predictability and quality, ideal for large-scale projects.
📌 Example:
- Scrum works for rolling out weekly updates to a social media app
- SAFe is suited for deploying an enterprise-level financial platform with multiple interdependent modules
🔮 Difference overview
In summary:
| Aspect | Scrum | SAFe |
| Team size | Small (5–9 members) | Large (multiple teams across departments) |
| Scope | Single-team projects | Enterprise-wide coordination |
| Timeframe | 2–4 week sprints | 8–12 week Program Increments |
| Best for | Startups and small teams | Large organizations with complex projects |
Similarities Between Scrum and SAFe
“The differences that separate human beings are nothing compared to the similarities that bond us together.” Sophie Grégoire Trudeau once said this about people, but who knew it applied to agile frameworks too!
1. Shared principles from Agile software development
At their core, both frameworks draw from the Agile Manifesto and its principles. They prioritize:
- Customer collaboration over rigid contracts
- Responding to change instead of sticking to a fixed plan
- Delivering value through working software as the primary measure of success
- Empowering self-organizing teams to innovate and adapt
2. Collaboration and incremental development
Scrum and SAFe champion a collaborative approach, enabling teams to deliver smaller chunks of value frequently. This ensures:
- Continuous feedback from stakeholders
- Faster response to evolving customer needs
- Reduced risks through early and regular delivery
So, if you’re too worried about choosing between Scrum and SAFe, you can never go too wrong.
Whether a Scrum team rolls out weekly app updates or a SAFe train delivers integrated enterprise solutions every quarter, both frameworks break down work into manageable pieces, ensuring consistent progress.
So, when should you choose Scrum vs. SAFe?
1. Small teams working on a fast-moving product
📱Scenario: Your startup is launching a new app, and you need to iterate quickly with a small team.
✅ Solution: Scrum
- Great for teams of 5–9 members focusing on short-term goals
- Enables frequent updates and fast feedback cycles
📌 Example: A food delivery app team uses Scrum to release weekly feature updates based on user feedback.
2. Large organizations with multiple teams and dependencies
📱Scenario: Your enterprise has several cross-functional teams working on interconnected projects.
✅ Solution: SAFe
- Handles dependencies across teams with tools like PI Planning
- Aligns efforts across teams to achieve shared goals
📌 Example: A telecom company adopts SAFe to synchronize software and hardware teams on a global scale.
3. Projects with rapidly changing customer needs
📱Scenario: You’re developing a product that needs frequent customer input and quick adjustments.
✅ Solution: Scrum
- Ideal for iterative development and incorporating constant feedback
📌 Example: An e-commerce company uses Scrum to tweak its user interface every sprint based on customer suggestions.
Choosing the Right Framework for Your Team
By now, it is clear that each framework serves a unique purpose.
However, choosing between Scrum and SAFe depends entirely on your team’s needs.
This is why you should ask a few questions to guide your decision-making:
- How big is your team, and how many teams need to collaborate?
- Are your projects simple or packed with interdependencies?
- Do you need quick iterations, or is long-term planning more crucial?
- Are your stakeholders looking for granular updates or a bird’s-eye view?
- Do you need a framework that scales across multiple geographies?
- How mature is your team with Agile practices?
Once you’ve got answers, matching your team’s needs to the right framework is easier.
Factors to Consider
👥 Team size and collaboration needs
- Scrum is perfect for small, self-organizing teams working on independent projects
- SAFe thrives in large organizations with cross-functional teams needing synchronized efforts
💻 Project complexity
- If your project is straightforward and doesn’t involve dependencies, go with Scrum
- For projects with heavy interdependencies and multiple layers of complexity, SAFe is your go-to
⌛ Delivery timelines
- Scrum allows frequent deliveries in short sprints, making it ideal for fast-paced projects
- SAFe focuses on structured, predictable outputs over longer increments
📈 Stakeholder expectations
- Use Scrum if stakeholders are happy with smaller, iterative updates
- Choose SAFe when stakeholders need an integrated view of progress across multiple teams
📄 Agile maturity
- Scrum works best for teams familiar with agile and lean principles and ready to self-manage
- SAFe is suited for organizations that have scaled beyond individual team agility and need enterprise-level coordination
Scrum@Scale: Combining the Best of Both Frameworks
If you’re having trouble deciding, you can opt for the best of both worlds. Yes, it exists!
Meet Scrum@Scale—the powerful combination of Scrum’s simplicity and SAFe’s scalability.
Here’s how it works: Scrum@Scale expands Scrum’s principles to larger organizations. Instead of piling on extra layers of hierarchy, it builds a scale-free architecture, creating networks of small, efficient teams working cohesively.
The goal? Achieve linear scalability without drowning in bureaucracy.
Think of it as minimum viable bureaucracy (MVB)—it provides just enough structure to stay organized and avoid unnecessary delays without stifling creativity or speed.
📌 Example: Imagine a global retail chain launching an omnichannel platform. Small Scrum teams handle app design, logistics integration, and customer service features. Using Scrum@Scale, these teams align on dependencies through Scaled Daily Scrums, with an Executive Action Team driving transformation and decision-making.
Benefits of Integrating Scrum and SAFe
✅ Flexibility meets scalability
- Combines Scrum’s adaptive, team-level focus with SAFe’s structured scaling approach
- Teams work independently but align on shared goals through Scrum@Scale’s ecosystem
✅ Simplified collaboration
- The Scaled Daily Scrum ensures continuous coordination across teams
- Shared knowledge and transparency minimize bottlenecks
✅ Efficient organizational growth
- Encourages organic scaling at your own pace without overwhelming teams
- Supports agile principles across large enterprises with minimal disruption
As Mike Cohn aptly said, “If you’re not better next month, you’re no longer agile.” While Agile frameworks promote constant improvement, collaboration, and adaptability, teams still need project management to prioritize tasks.
For continuous improvement, you need the right tools.
Step 1: Break down deliverables into actionable tasks
Start by breaking down deliverables into small, actionable tasks. Think of these as the building blocks of your Agile house.
Using user stories, you can reflect exactly what your end-users need, whether a new feature or fixing something they’ve raised issues about.
✨ In Scrum terms, this is your sprint planning. With , you can take items from your Product Backlog, organize them into a Sprint Backlog, and get the ball rolling—no Post-it notes needed.
💜 Case Study: Sideways NYC 🤝🏻
One team that mastered sprint automation with is Sideways NYC.
Let us look at their journey.
Challenge: The team wanted to move from time tracking to sprint points for a more agile approach to monitoring capacity. However, manually managing sprint schedules across teams and projects was time-consuming and prone to errors
Here’s how helped: Using ’s Automated Sprints feature, they configured two-week cycles to start every Monday, automating the entire sprint process.
The project manager simply entered the number of cycles in the project scope, and automatically generated all the Sprint Lists. This saved significant time and ensured consistency across teams without the need for manual updates
Step 2: Manage your Agile projects effectively
When managing Agile projects, is like your project management compass.
You can outline your Agile Charter in Docs and share it with your team without the endless email chains.
Here’s the process: Once you’ve organized your tasks, use ’s collaboration features to keep everyone in the loop. You can tag relevant team members through comments or @mentions, ensuring they get notified and can jump in when needed.
Additionally, make agile documentation a breeze by using Brain to draft requirements for your next software iteration. Simply provide basic details about a feature’s functionality or updates, and the AI will generate key elements like outlines.
Need to keep your Scrum processes organized? ’s Kanban View offers an intuitive visual workflow that keeps everyone on the same page.
And with sub-tasks and checklists, you’ll never have to worry about forgotten steps or those pesky “small details.”
Step 3: Foster real-time collaboration
Agile is all about collaboration; real-time communication can make or break your team’s momentum. ’s Chat feature transforms how teams communicate by integrating conversations directly into their workflows.
Every List, Folder, and Space has its dedicated chat, allowing team members to discuss projects while having all relevant views and tasks just a click away.
Plus, you can add team members, share updates, and even make a chat private—all seamlessly tied to the corresponding workspace.
✨ With everything living in one place, you can effortlessly switch between chatting about and completing a task.
Step 4: Gain visibility into the Agile process
Visibility is another puzzle piece, and Dashboards doesn’t disappoint.
With customizable dashboards, you can monitor progress, track performance, and stay on top of Agile metrics like burnup and burndown charts.
Whether it’s understanding how tasks flow through the team or spotting where things are bottlenecking, gives you the data and insights to course-correct in real time.
Step 5: Tap into support and community resources
Of course, tools alone aren’t enough. Adopting Agile frameworks requires support and community. offers plenty of both, from templates and tutorials to an active user community that is happy to share tips and tricks.
And when you hit a roadblock? Their support team is always ready to guide you.
Sprint Your Way to Success with
By now, you should have a better idea of which framework—Scrum or SAFe—is right for your organization. To stay ahead of challenges and ensure timely delivery, you need an agile project management tool that is as agile as your team.
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