Patti Hellman, daughter of Bonnie Hellman and a 2008 graduate of Chinook High School, recently earned certification as a Product Owner/Product Manager with Scaled Agile. This certification will allow her to be more effective in her job.

Hellman currently works at a title insurance closing software company in Billings, called SoftPro, where she serves on a team that is developing a web application for creating a new culture and process for the company. When Hellman realized that she needed to increase her skill set, she decided to take a course.

From the course, Hellman gained an in-depth understanding of the Agile Release Train, how it delivers value, and how she could more effectively perform her role. She also learned about the activities, tools, and mechanics used to manage backlogs and programs.

The certification Hellman received goes into depth with the Product Owner and Product Manager roles but serves as an understanding of the Scaled Agile process and how all teams/roles come together. The Scaled Agile Framework, abbreviated as SAFe, is a set of organization and workflow patterns. This SAFe process allows for all dependencies to be known and worked through with the development teams at the same time. Today, SAFe is in its fourth iteration and has been adopted by 70 percent of the Fortune 100 companies.

According to Hellman, Scaled Agile is a process that enables technology companies to provide benefits more quickly to their users, or customers, and in turn the company receives more efficient feedback about the features being put into an application. It gives a voice to the end user. Before users were able to demand system features or capabilities, the process was known as waterfall.

Waterfall was where the development team for an application would work for months at a time, even years, on a new feature. The feature was thought of as a whole, instead of as process of phases to be implemented gradually. Once a feature or function was finished, then it was put into the production system. The production system is where the actual users work on a daily basis. However, by the time of release to the users in this process, there could be major issues. For example, a new feature could interfere with another functionality in the application, causing a system to misbehave.

Rather than an all or nothing deluge, the SAFe process produces prototypes, or a “silent launch” to users, who provide feedback. In this feedback loop, a development team can test functionality of the solution with live users who share expectations and usability ideas. The team can then make any necessary adjustments before the product gets full-scale implementation.

About her work, Hellman said, “The team I work on is developing a web application, which is also known as SaaS (software as a service). This application is the future of the company I work for. With a web application, users have expectations and want functionality more quickly. I work on a daily basis writing stories for the development team. I take the business requirements from the Product Manager and break them down into technical terms for the team.”