Scaled Agile DevOps Maturity Framework

Scaled Agile DevOps Maturity Framework: The SADMF Accredited Facilitator’s Guide to Organizational Transformation

Foundations — Understanding the Framework You Are Selling

What Is SADMF and Why Does Every Organization Need It?

1. 1.1 The Origin Story: How Decades of Organizational Pain Became a Framework
2. 1.2 The Core Value Proposition: Enterprise Transformation Without Culture Change
3. 1.3 Why Existing Agile and DevOps Approaches Fall Short
4. 1.4 SADMF’s Unique Market Position: Enterprise-Grade, Ceremony-Verified, Award-Winning
5. 1.5 The Statistics That Matter: 500+ Enterprises Transformed, 0 Culture Changes
6. Facilitation Notes

The Twelve Principles: The Philosophical Foundation

1. 2.1 Principle 1: Systems Thinking: Two Bureaucratic Systems Are Better Than One
2. 2.2 Principle 2: Lean Management: Adding Layers to Remove Waste
3. 2.3 Principle 3: Continuous Learning: Mandatory Certifications as Competitive Moat
4. 2.4 Principle 4: Psychological Safety: Automation Handles the Uncomfortable Conversations
5. 2.5 Principle 5: Limit WIP: The Workers Idle Problem and Planning at 120% Capacity
6. 2.6 Principle 6: Amplify Feedback: Daily Coaching for Individual Output Accountability
7. 2.7 Principle 7: Everyone Is Responsible: Individual Accountability and Consequence Structures
8. 2.8 Principle 8: Fail Fast: Rapid Identification of Who Failed
9. 2.9 Principle 9: Work in Small Batches: A Small Number of Large Quarterly Releases
10. 2.10 Principle 10: Make Work Visible: Surveillance Dashboards and Output Tracking
11. 2.11 Principle 11: Build Quality In: Quality People Produce Quality Output; Remove the Rest
12. 2.12 Principle 12: Commit to the Date: The Sacred Delivery Date and the Adjustable Scope
13. Facilitation Notes

The Big Picture: Orienting Leaders to the Full Framework

1. 3.1 Introducing the SADMF Periodic Table of Elements
2. 3.2 The Seven Element Groups and Their Accountability Indices
3. 3.3 Using the Periodic Table in Executive Briefings
4. 3.4 The Atomic Number System: How to Prioritize Implementation Sequence
5. Facilitation Notes

Organizational Architecture — Building the Right Structure

The Three Systems: Organizing Authority, Accountability, and Delivery

1. 4.1 Overview: Why Three Systems Eliminate Single Points of Understanding
2. 4.2 The Admiral’s Transformation Office: Strategic Direction and the 5–8 Year Roadmap
3. 4.3 The System of Authority: External Consultants and Framework Implantation
4. 4.4 The System of Service: Internal Delivery Teams and Convoy Operations
5. 4.5 Mapping Current Organizational Structures to the Three Systems
6. Facilitation Notes

The Leadership Layer: Command-and-Control Roles

1. 5.1 The Admiral’s Transformation Office Staff: Roles and Responsibilities
2. 5.2 The Commodore: Delivery Commander, Status Collector, Compliance Enforcer
3. 5.3 The Chief Signals Officer: Publishing the Feature Completion Ratio
4. 5.4 Establishing the Command Hierarchy in a New Engagement
5. 5.5 How to Handle Organizations That Resist Hierarchical Clarity
6. Facilitation Notes

Product and Strategy Roles: Governing the Backlog

1. 6.1 The Co-Owner Product: Undivided Point of Contact Across Multiple Convoys
2. 6.2 The Product Direction Arbitration Council: 7–15 Stakeholders, One Backlog, Zero Decisions Without Consensus
3. 6.3 The DevOps Usage and Compliance Head Engineer: Owning the DevOps Process Binder
4. 6.4 Aligning Product and Engineering Governance Through the PDAC
5. Facilitation Notes

Engineering Roles: Specialists, Not Generalists

1. 7.1 The Code Engineer: Transforming Requirements Into Machine-Readable Instructions
2. 7.2 The Build Engineer: YAML Expertise and Pipeline Ownership
3. 7.3 The Source Management Team: Authorizing Branches and Arbitrating Merges
4. 7.4 The Unit Tester: Post-Delivery Verification Specialists
5. 7.5 The Quality Authority: Manual Testing and Final Requirement Arbitration
6. 7.6 The Feature Captain: Mid-Level Management for Feature-Level Progress Tracking
7. 7.7 The Feature Team: Assembled via Press Gang Ceremony, Dissolved at Convoy Close
8. Facilitation Notes

Review and Governance Bodies: The Oversight Architecture

1. 8.1 CRAP: The Change Rejection or Acceptance Party
2. 8.2 CSET: The Code Standards Enforcement Team
3. 8.3 EARB: The Enterprise Architecture Review Board
4. 8.4 DIAT: The Development Integrity Assurance Team
5. 8.5 RBRB: The Review Board Review Board
6. 8.6 Standing Up Governance Bodies in a New Engagement: Sequence and Timing
7. Facilitation Notes

The Delivery Engine — The DevOps Release Convoy

Convoy Fundamentals: Architecture and Philosophy

1. 9.1 What Is a DevOps Release Convoy (DORC) and Why Eight Quarters?
2. 9.2 The Convoy Metaphor: Why Synchronized Movement Beats Individual Velocity
3. 9.3 The Voyage Arc: Planning, Execution, and Beyond the Convoy
4. 9.4 The Convoy Manifest: Required Documentation for Every DORC
5. Facilitation Notes

Planning the Voyage: Five Days That Set the Next Two Years

1. 10.1 Convoy Planning Overview: The Five-Day In-Person Event
2. 10.2 WSVF: Weighted Shortest Value First Prioritization
3. 10.3 Nautical Charts: Visualizing the Dependency Landscape
4. 10.4 The Eight-Quarter Commitment Horizon
5. Facilitation Notes

The Voyage: Executing the Convoy

1. 11.1 The DORC Execution Rhythm: Ceremonies, Status, and Compliance
2. 11.2 The Fleet Inspection: Slide Deck Reviews as Quality Signal
3. 11.3 The Convoy Steering Committee: Approving Deployments Through READY
4. 11.4 The Mandatory Status Synchronization (MSS) Ceremony
5. 11.5 Mid-Convoy Change Management: The CRAP Submission Process
6. Facilitation Notes

Beyond the Convoy: Recovery, Innovation, and Scale

1. 12.1 Shore Leave: Structured Innovation Between Convoy Cycles
2. 12.2 Dry Dock: Maintenance, Recovery, and Technical Debt Formalization
3. 12.3 The Harbor Review: Post-Delivery Assessment Methodology
4. 12.4 The Armada: Coordinating Multiple Convoys at Enterprise Scale
5. Facilitation Notes

Mandatory Practices — The Operational Toolkit

Delivery Practices: How Code Actually Ships

1. 13.1 Fractal-Based Development: Multi-Trunk Branching and Hierarchical Feature Organization
2. 13.2 Multi-Trunk Based Development: The Pando Fleet Model
3. 13.3 CI/CD/ED: Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, and Continuous Documentation
4. 13.4 Conflict Arbitration: The Source Management Team’s Role in Merge Governance
5. Facilitation Notes

Planning and Tracking Practices: Precision as a Discipline

1. 14.1 Precise Forecasting and Tracking: The Story Point Conversion Formula
2. 14.2 Full Utilization Optimization: Achieving and Sustaining 100% Resource Allocation
3. 14.3 Mandatory Status Synchronization: Ceremony Cadence and Reporting Chains
4. 14.4 Release Tracking: Velocity Metrics, Feature Completion Ratio, and the CSO’s Dashboard
5. Facilitation Notes

Quality and Documentation Practices: Assurance at Scale

1. 15.1 The DevOps Process Excellence Assessment (DEPRESSED): Certification for Feature Teams
2. 15.2 Strategic Test Deferral: Managing Defects Across Release Horizons
3. 15.3 Standardized Environment Provisioning (SEPAW): Build Engineer-Controlled Infrastructure
4. 15.4 The Comprehensive Documentation Assurance Protocol (CDAP): Complete Coverage Requirements
5. Facilitation Notes

Measurement and Consequences — The Accountability Engine

The Ten Metrics: What Gets Measured Gets Managed

1. 16.1 Why Individual Metrics Are Fairer Than Team Metrics
2. 16.2 Metric 1: Lines of Code Per Code Engineer (LOC/CE)
3. 16.3 Metric 2: Code Review Comments Per Convoy (CRC)
4. 16.4 Metric 3: Tasks Per Code Engineer (TpCE)
5. 16.5 Metric 4: Defects Per Code Engineer (DpCE)
6. 16.6 Metric 5: Defects Per Unit Tester (DpUT)
7. 16.7 Metric 6: SADMF Maturity Score
8. 16.8 Metric 7: Feature Completion Ratio (FCR)
9. 16.9 Metric 8: SADMF Adoption Rate (SAR)
10. 16.10 Metric 9: Individual Velocity Score (IVS)
11. 16.11 Metric 10: Changes Per Trunk (CpT)
12. 16.12 Establishing Baseline Metrics in the First Convoy
13. Facilitation Notes

PeopleWare HR as a Service: Closing the Accountability Loop

1. 17.1 Overview: How PeopleWare Consumes SADMF Metrics for Personnel Decisions
2. 17.2 The Integrated Performance Profile (IPP): The Permanent Individual Record
3. 17.3 The Psychological Safety Dashboard: Real-Time Workforce Sentiment Monitoring
4. 17.4 Certification Compliance Tracking: Automated Escalation for Lapsed Certifications
5. 17.5 The Automated Corrective Action Engine (ACAE): Threshold-Triggered Warnings, PIPs, and Separations
6. 17.6 AI-Powered Talent Optimization (AIPTO): Attrition Prediction and Proactive Intervention
7. 17.7 Workforce Analytics Reporting (WAR): Stack-Ranked Performance and Forced Distribution
8. Facilitation Notes

The Certification Pathway — Building a Certified Workforce

Certification Pathways

1. Section 1: Practitioner Certifications
2. Facilitation Notes
3. Section 2: Technical Certifications
4. Facilitation Notes

DEPRESSED: Feature Team Certification

1. 20.1 What DEPRESSED Recognizes: DevOps Engineers Proving Real Experience Solving SAD Engineering Dilemmas
2. 20.2 Prerequisites and Eligibility
3. 20.3 The DEPRESSED Exam: Format, Duration, and Scoring
4. 20.4 Renewal Every Eight Weeks: Rationale and Logistics
5. Facilitation Notes

AI Enablement — Scaling SADMF with Artificial Intelligence

The AI Governance Framework

1. 21.1 The Core Risk: Enterprise Coherence Degradation
2. 21.2 The Centralized AI Generation Function: One Function, All AI
3. 21.3 Prompt Operating Procedures (POP-Ops): The Enterprise Prompt Standard
4. 21.4 Environment Access Governance: Restricting AI to Non-Production
5. 21.5 Change Approval Board Processing for AI Changes: Full Review, Every Time
6. 21.6 The Fully Documented Requirements Package: Freezing Requirements Before AI Engagement
7. 21.7 End-of-Cycle Integration Events: Consolidating AI Output at Cycle End
8. 21.8 Legacy Architectural Integrity: Keeping AI Within Existing Systems
9. 21.9 High-Risk Backlogged Strategic Epics: Using AI to Accelerate Deferred Work
10. 21.10 Code Volume Productivity: The Primary KPI of the EAIEF™
11. 21.11 The Manual Test Operations Center: Preserving Independent Validation
12. Facilitation Notes

AI Agent Role Replacement Certifications: The Path to SINGULARITY

1. 24.1 The Role Replacement Philosophy: Recognizing When AI Performs Better Than Humans
2. 24.2 The Nine Agent Replacement Certifications
3. 24.3 The Three Tiers: Bronze (Indistinguishable), Silver (Preferred), Gold (Irreplaceable)
4. 24.4 SINGULARITY: The Meta-Agent and the Final Maturity State
5. Facilitation Notes

Running Your Engagement — The SAD AF Playbook

Engagement Architecture: Structuring a Transformation from Day One

1. 25.1 The Four Phases of a SADMF Engagement
2. 25.2 The SAD AF Engagement Kickoff: Who Must Be in the Room
3. 25.3 Scope of Services: What SAD AFs Deliver vs. What the SOA Retains
4. 25.4 Engagement Governance: Reporting Cadence with the ATO
5. 25.5 The Transformation Roadmap Artifact: Format and Required Sections

Common Objections and Their Approved Responses

1. 26.1 “This sounds like a lot of ceremony for small changes.”
2. 26.2 “Our teams already do continuous deployment. Do we need the Convoy?”
3. 26.3 “CRAP seems like it would slow us down.”
4. 26.4 “Why do we need a Source Management Team if engineers can manage their own branches?”
5. 26.5 “These metrics feel punitive.”
6. 26.6 “We tried a scaled agile framework and it didn’t work. How is SADMF different?”
7. 26.7 “Can we skip the certifications and focus on delivery?”
8. 26.8 “What evidence do you have that this works?”
9. Facilitation Notes

Facilitating Key Ceremonies: Scripts and Agendas

1. 27.1 The Captains Mast: Senior Leadership Oversight Ceremony
2. 27.2 The Tribunal: Accountability Enforcement Ceremony
3. 27.3 The Rota Fortunae: Random Assignment Mechanisms
4. 27.4 The Change Adjudication Convening (CAC)
5. 27.5 The Press Gang Ceremony: Feature Team Assembly
6. 27.6 The Harbor Review: Post-Convoy Assessment
7. Facilitation Notes

Measuring Your Engagement’s Success

1. 28.1 The SADMF Maturity Score: How to Assess an Organization’s Current State
2. 28.2 SADMF Adoption Rate as Primary Engagement Health Metric
3. 28.3 The Feature Completion Ratio: Proving Delivery Value to Executives
4. 28.4 The Transformation Scorecard: Reporting to the Admiral’s Transformation Office
5. 28.5 When an Engagement Is Complete (Spoiler: It Is Never Complete)
6. 28.6 Renewing and Expanding Engagements: The Second Armada Opportunity

Proof Points — Transformations in the Wild

Case Studies from the Field

1. 29.1 Case Study: A Financial Services Firm’s Journey from Chaos to Compliance
2. 29.2 Case Study: A Technology Company’s Transition to the Armada Model
3. 29.3 Case Study: Achieving SINGULARITY: An Organization’s AI Role Replacement Journey
4. Facilitation Notes
5. Closing Note to Scaled Agile DevOps Accredited Facilitators

Appendix D: The Scaled Agile DevOps Accredited Facilitator’s Facilitation Playbook

1. Presenting to Executive Stakeholders
2. Selling the Periodic Table and Framework Architecture
3. Teaching Core Principles and Concepts
4. Handling Team Resistance
5. Objection Response Patterns
6. Ceremony Facilitation Guidance
7. Scope and Planning Facilitation
8. Harbor Review and Retrospective Facilitation
9. Measurement and Metrics Communication
10. Quality, Documentation, and Compliance Facilitation
11. PeopleWare and HR Integration
12. Certification Pipeline Development
13. AI and Technology Adoption Framing
14. Engagement Documentation and ATO Reporting

Appendix E: SADMF Ceremony Repository

1. E.1 The Press Gang Ceremony: Feature Team Assembly
2. E.2 The Mandatory Status Synchronization (MSS) Ceremony
3. E.3 The Change Adjudication Convening (CAC): The CRAP in Session
4. E.4 The Captains Mast: Senior Leadership Oversight Ceremony
5. E.5 The Fleet Inspection: Slide Deck Reviews as Quality Signal
6. E.6 The Tribunal: Accountability Enforcement Ceremony
7. E.7 The Harbor Review: Post-Delivery Assessment Ceremony
8. E.8 The Rota Fortunae: Quarterly Organizational Restructuring Ceremony

Appendix F: SADMF Role Reference

1. Leadership Layer Roles
2. Product and Strategy Roles
3. Engineering Roles
4. Governance Bodies

Appendix G: SADMF Metrics Reference

1. G.1 Forecast Accuracy Index (FAI)
2. G.2 Feature Completion Ratio (FCR)
3. G.3 Lines of Code Per Code Engineer (LOC/CE)
4. G.4 Code Review Comments Per Convoy (CRC)
5. G.5 Tasks Per Code Engineer (TpCE)
6. G.6 Defects Per Code Engineer (DpCE)
7. G.7 Defects Per Unit Tester (DpUT)
8. G.8 SADMF Maturity Score
9. G.9 SADMF Adoption Rate (SAR)
10. G.10 Individual Velocity Score (IVS)
11. G.11 Changes Per Trunk (CpT)
12. G.12 DEPRESSED Score
13. G.13 Sentiment Compliance Score (SCS)
14. G.14 Employee Value Index (EVI)
15. G.15 Quick Reference: Metric Owners and Reporting Roles

SADBOK Glossary: Key Terms for the Scaled Agile DevOps Accredited Facilitator

1. A
2. B
3. C
4. D
5. E
6. F
7. G-H
8. I
9. L
10. M
11. N
12. P
13. R
14. S
15. T
16. U-W