Fitbit is one of the success stories promoted by Scaled Agile Inc.
Fitbit Inc. is an American company founded in 2007 with its headquarters in San Francisco. It now has about 15 offices around the world. In 2019 Fitbit was reported to have sold more than 100 million devices and have 28 million users. Between 2015 and 2016 FitBit adopted SAFe.
Damian Brown, Sr. Director of Program Management Office, describes the success of SAFe citing criteria, such as processes and teams’ Velocity, that are irrelevant for Agile teams and show a lack of paradigm shift or an Agile mindset. He continues commenting on the company’s growth and the commercial success of the new products released. But the financial data, reports from financial analysts and other publicly available data contradict that.
A person working at FitBit confirmed the lack of autonomy of the teams. And added that later FitBit had abandoned SAFe, and the person that had persuaded the company to try it had left the company as well. The FitBit case study is still listed on the SAFe website as a success story. This story seems far from being a success.
References:
- https://www.scaledagileframework.com/fitbit-case-study/
- https://www.scaledagile.com/case_study/fitbit/
- https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/FIT/fitbit/number-of-employees
- https://www.svpg.com/revenge-of-the-pmo/
- https://www.svpg.com/spotify-vs-fitbit/
- https://medium.com/@seandexter1/beware-safe-the-scaled-agile-framework-for-enterprise-an-unholy-incarnation-of-darkness-bf6819f6943f