Scrum vs SAFe | What is the difference between them?
Tags: webdev, beginners, productivity, career
Published: 2022-09-19 05:10:49

## Introduction:

We all have heard the saying "Change is the only constant". It is essential to adapt to these changes. Enterprises and organisations are incorporating agile methodologies and principles to enhance their performance and efficiency. 

![Scrum Vs SAFe](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/pyq3pwiavixcyk2yce6j.jpg)
## What are Scrum and SAFe

Let's first understand what [Scrum and SAFe](https://agiledigest.com/) are actually? Scrum is an iterative method of product development where different small teams combine together and deliver a piece of work with inputs from every corner. In the case of SAFe, the whole of the enterprise works together and not just as a team.  

## Scrum highly depends upon three roles namely-

Product Owner- The [product owner’s](https://agiledigest.com/) function is to manage, organise and communicate with the enterprise
Scrum Master- The [Scrum Master](https://agiledigest.com/) looks after the functioning of the company during the sprints
Scrum Team- The [Scrum team ](https://agiledigest.com/)executes the designated job to them during the sprints.

Unlike Scrum, SAFe also releases planning as well, so that improvements and changes can be made for the betterment of the firm.

## SAFe highly depends upon these three:-

Lean Product Development- It is a process for building products faster with less waste.
System thinking- It is an approach for analysing that focuses on the way that a system's constituent parts interrelate and how systems work over time and within the context of larger systems.
Agile Software Development- It is a [type of development methodology](https://agiledigest.com/csm/) that anticipates the need for flexibility and applies a level of pragmatism to the delivery of the finished product.

We can conclude that Scrum and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) both work under agile values and principles. But Although they are pretty similar, there are some parameters where they differ from each other. 







## Difference between SAFe and Scrum

Scaled Agile Framework(SAFe) and Scrum have acquired immense popularity and relevance in recent times because of increased awareness about them in the management domain. Let's find out some points of the differences between them:

| Point of Difference        | Scrum           | SAFe  |
| ------------- |:-------------:| -----:|
| Adopted by     | Scrum is adopted by the agile teams | SAFe is adopted by enterprises as a whole which is like an extension of scrum.|
| Team Size      | The Scrum methodology is implemented by small self-organizing agile teams.     |  On the other hand, SAFe is implemented and adopted by enterprises as a whole having large teams of agile teams. |
| Components | The Scrum framework comprises Scrum Teams and roles, events, artifacts, and rules.      |   The SAFe framework comprises agile teams, teams of agile teams, large solutions teams, lean portfolios, management, roles events, artifacts, and rules.|
| Starting of work  | With three development team members and SM and PO, one can start functioning for Scrum  | One needs to start working with Essential SAFe which has 50+ members to start working for SAFe. |
| Framework  | Scrum is a framework that addresses the concerns and problems of the team related to product development.  | SAFe is a much broader and more extensive framework that ensures the business Agility of an enterprise and addresses, team, teams of teams, large solutions, and lean portfolio management.|
| Type of Roles  | Scrum has team-level roles like SM, PO, and DevOps Team members | [SAFe](https://agiledigest.com/) has team level, teams of team level, large solution level, and portfolio level roles, for example, RTE, System Architect, Product Management, Solution Train Engineer and others.|
| Functioning  | Small businesses and organizations with a simple business structure can benefit the most from Scrum.| SAFe on the other hand ensures agility, efficiency, and productivity for large enterprises.|
| Construct  | The basic construct is the scrum team | The basic construct is the Agile Release Train(ART).|
| Management | In Scrum, the middle management has no role to play.| Portfolio and Program management play the most important role in the case of SAFe.|
| Detailing | Often it's seen that Scrum doesn’t minutely check all the details and hence misses some intricate points | SAFe minutely scrutinizes all possible features of an organization.|

## Conclusion:

We can thus conclude that [SAFe and Scrum](https://agiledigest.com/) are quite similar to each other and only differ in the level or size of implementation of their features. Choose the right framework as per the requirement of your business and enjoy its benefits.