By Cidoni Brind, Director – DevOps & Process Re-engineering, Engineering
Enterprise leaders often find themselves staring at a paradox: they’ve invested in Agile frameworks, hired skilled people, and still don’t see the velocity, transparency, or alignment they were promised. Teams are busy and ceremonies are happening, but the connection between strategic priorities and delivery outcomes is tenuous at best.
This is not a process problem. It’s a tooling and alignment problem.
In my experience advising global enterprises and implementing Trundl’s SAFe® in a Box, I’ve seen how aligning strategy with execution—technically, culturally, and operationally—can unlock real business results.
Let’s explore how.
Why Misalignment Costs You More Than You Think
It’s common to see enterprises adopt the SAFe® framework but leave their tooling environment (usually Jira) untouched or only half-configured. The result?
Teams revert to spreadsheets for planning.
- Teams revert to spreadsheets for planning.
- Portfolio managers create “slide decks of truth” instead of pulling from live systems.
- Executives mistrust the data and revert to micromanagement.
This misalignment between Agile practices and systems introduces three kinds of waste:
Decision Latency
When leaders don’t have trustworthy data, decisions slow or become reactive.
Delivery Drag
Unseen dependencies, rework, and context-switching delay value delivery.
Lost Leverage
Strategic goals don’t trickle down into epics, features, or stories—so teams work hard but not necessarily on the right things.
According to Forrester’s State of Agile Development, 2025, organizations that are further along in their Agile maturity report more consistent delivery of business value—but many are still falling short on release frequency and cross-team alignment. This underscores that even with skilled people and solid frameworks, misaligned tools and processes can hold back full realization of Agile’s promise.
Aligning Jira to the SAFe® Framework
One of the biggest misconceptions in enterprise Agile is that tooling alignment is a one-time Jira configuration effort. In reality, it’s an ongoing discipline of aligning work structure, planning cadence, and reporting practices with your operating model.
Lean Portfolio Visibility
Use Jira Epics tied to strategic themes. Tools like BigPicture allow leaders to see how investments break down into features and stories—and where value is flowing (or stuck).
Cross-Team PI Planning
PI Planning in PowerPoint isn’t sustainable. When you structure Jira using SAFe® principles (ARTs, PIs, iterations), planning becomes live, visual, and collaborative.
Workflow Governance
Implement automation with Jira Misc Workflow Extensions (JMWE) to enforce governance without overhead. For example, block promotion of a feature to “Ready for Implementation” without approval, or auto-update a parent epic when a child story completes.
Outcome-Centric Dashboards
Leverage reporting with EazyBI or native dashboards that align with OKRs, not just burndown charts. Leaders need to see how initiatives impact objectives—not just how many stories closed last sprint.
A Practical Exercise: Start with a Value Stream Mapping Session
f you want to walk away from this blog with something actionable, here’s a recommendation: run a value stream mapping session with your key stakeholders.
Ask the following:
- Where do ideas originate, and how do they become work in Jira?
- Where do decisions stall?
- What systems or tools are used outside of Jira to make Agile planning “work”?
From there, identify the tooling gaps—these are your best opportunities for increasing ROI without changing your framework or team structure.
Outcomes You Can Expect From Aligned Agile Delivery
When we help clients implement SAFe® in a Box, we configure Jira, sure, and we also ensure alignment to strategic goals, planning cadences, and reporting structures.
Outcomes Clients Typically Experience:
- 40–60% reduction in rework and missed dependencies
- 25%+ improvement in PI planning efficiency
- Dramatic improvement in leadership trust in delivery metrics
- Faster decision cycles, driven by real-time reporting and visualizations
- Increased adoption of Agile practices across business units
But the most powerful shift? Executives begin to see Agile not as a delivery framework—but as a strategic execution model.
Final Thought: From Doing Agile to Being Agile & Driving Real Business Impact
As an enterprise leader, your job isn’t to “implement SAFe®” or “adopt Jira.” Your job is to create a system where strategy flows to execution, value is measured continuously, and teams collaborate across silos with clarity and purpose.
You can’t get there if your tools don’t support your way of working.
