How SAFe Transformed Zhenkunhang’s R&D: A Real-World Agile Journey

Since 2015 Zhenkunhang has been building its industrial‑Internet capabilities, evolving its IT system from a monolithic SAP structure to a modular inventory‑management architecture. By 2020 the company faced five key challenges: unclear business value of requirements, long delivery cycles, poor team collaboration, sub‑par product quality, and ad‑hoc planning.

1. Organizational Change

Previously, development teams were organized by function (product, development, testing) with loose project groups. The SAFe adoption broke down these silos, forming cross‑functional agile teams of 5‑11 members that share a common goal of delivering business value. Decision‑making shifted to the teams, boosting autonomy and energy.

The Agile Release Train (ART) groups multiple agile teams around a value stream, aligning goals and cadence for integrated delivery.

2. Requirement Change

Requirements are now managed in four hierarchical layers: Epic → Feature → Story → Task. Epics represent business objectives, Features are system capabilities, Stories are user scenarios, and Tasks are the concrete development work. Stories are the smallest independently deliverable units.

An Investment Management Committee evaluates Epics against OKRs, ensuring alignment with short‑ and long‑term goals and sustainable IT growth. The refined hierarchy prevents scope drift and enables rapid feedback through smaller user stories.

3. Quality Change

SAFe introduced the concept of "built‑in quality," embedding quality checks at every stage of the value stream. Practices such as requirement, design, code, and test‑case reviews, along with TDD, automated testing, and continuous integration, have markedly reduced defect density.

4. Project‑Management Tool Change

The team adopted Alibaba Cloud’s CloudEffect platform as an online, DevOps‑enabled project‑management tool. Three types of Kanban boards were created: an Epic board for the Investment Management Committee, an ART board for Features, and a Team board for Stories and Tasks, all traceable back to company OKRs.

Product release and operations were also migrated to CloudEffect’s DevOps pipeline, achieving online release management and higher safety.

5. Mindset Change

SAFe is grounded in lean‑agile thinking; merely copying practices without internalizing the philosophy leads to superficial or failed transformations. After the external agile coaches left, the team reorganized to address a cross‑domain post‑sale transaction need, forming a new agile team that delivered high‑quality results on schedule.

Agile Certification and Knowledge Transfer

After six Program Increments (PIs), the center pursued SAFe enterprise certification, requiring over fifty individual certifications (RTE, PM, PO, SM, etc.) within six months. SAFe training was incorporated into internal courses, cultivating a pipeline of certified RTEs and SMs to sustain the transformation.

Agile Practice Summary

Following six PIs, a survey of developers showed clear improvements: markedly better team collaboration, effective goal alignment and requirement understanding, and mixed feelings about workload pressure, indicating areas for further refinement.

Team collaboration capability has significantly improved.

Goal alignment and requirement comprehension are effective.

Work‑pressure reduction is mixed; further attention needed.

The agile transformation journey is just beginning; despite challenges, the team is confident that embedding lean‑agile thinking will continuously improve product value delivery.