Why SAFe®, Flight Levels®, and Theory of Constraints Show Three Layers - And What It Means for Your Success?

SAFe®, Flight Levels®/Kanban and Theory of Constraints - all show the same three layers - WHY?

Why SAFe®, Flight Levels®, and Theory of Constraints Show Three Layers - And What It Means for Your Success?

May 11, 2025

Wolfram Müller - 2023-07-26 (remastered 2025-05-11) - CC-BY-SA

When scaling agile or managing projects, frameworks frequently feature a common tri-layered structure. These layers - portfolio, coordination, and team - organize the complexity from strategic initiatives down to daily tasks.

But why these specific layers? Let's explore their unique roles and how recognizing their characteristics can help determine if your chosen framework is truly effective or fundamentally flawed.

The Three Layers: What Each Layer Does

Every scaled knowledge work management framework includes these three layers:

1. Portfolio Layer (top): Aligns projects and initiatives with your strategic goals, identifies constraints, prioritizes the projects, and ensures resources are optimally allocated to high-value projects.

1. Coordination Layer (middle): Manages dependencies between projects or teams to keep deliveries synchronized and on track.

1. Team Layer (bottom): Handles day-to-day tasks, ensuring smooth workflows and effective delivery of smaller work items or stories.

Interestingly, these layers alternate between "production/process" and "project" characteristics. The Portfolio and Team layers are more production-oriented, whereas the Coordination layer is project-focused. Why this distinction?

Projects vs. Production: Two Types of Work in Organizations

Organizations have two fundamental types of work:

• Projects (initiatives, missions): work packages with fixed sequences, strong dependencies, and high complexity and uncertainty – further on the touch time (on the longest chain) should be very near to the lead time. But therefore, higher complexity in management.
• Production (processes, value streams): Small, interchangeable tasks with flexible sequences – requires a backlog and leads to longer waiting times and lower touch times. But therefore, it is simpler to manage.

At the Team layer, production is clearly visible - you see it in agile practices like Scrum (similar to the “boxes/space WIP limits” at the Ford’s assembly line) or Kanban (like Toyota’s just-in-time system). Similarly, the Portfolio layer also operates like production, managing multiple projects or initiatives with flexible sequences.

The Coordination layer, however, behaves like projects, due to its role in managing dependencies. Here, effective methods include Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) are used.

Understanding this distinction is critical - it helps you choose the right management tools for each layer.

A Deeper Insight: Fractal Patterns in Layers

Looking even deeper, this pattern repeats itself at other scales:

• Below the Team layer, managing subtasks within a story or task involves again fixed dependencies – you have to think first how to do it, then do it, then quality check, then hand over to the next or delivery (very simple but project characteristics).
• Above the Portfolio layer, coordinating between different programs (often between companies) or large initiatives again exhibits project-like characteristics.

This creates a repeating, fractal-like pattern, alternating production and project characteristics throughout the organizational structure.

The Evolution of Workflow Controls

Over time, the workflow controls fortunately underwent some progress – here is a very rough overview of the current state of development:

Generations of work flow controls

With each generation, flexibility increases, and the amount of work-in-progress necessary to keep a steady flow is reduced. So with every generation, the lead time decreases and the throughput increases.

Tools and Methods from Theory of Constraints

Besides well-known agile methods like Scrum and Kanban, TOC offers multiple elements tailored to different scenarios:

• Drum Buffer Rope (DBR) – production with a real constraint
• Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) – high-speed and high-reliability projects and portfolios
• Reliable Scrum – high-reliable agile deliveries
• Simplified Drum-Buffer-Rope (sDBR) – very flexible production, like queue management
• agile Critical Chain Project Management (aCCPM) – a combination of Critical Chain for portfolio and projects, and agile on the team level
• TameFlow Boards (aka Ultimate Scrum) – minimal WIP swim lane boards = optimal flow in agile teams

The full overview of all building blocks can be found here in "Build Your Own High-Performance Framework - Part 1A: The Theory of Constraints Lego Bricks (remastered)"

Evaluating Frameworks: Is Your Choice Effective?

Now, with this understanding, you can easily evaluate your framework's effectiveness.

There are two dimensions:

• Does the framework recognize the different layers and provide appropriate methods?
• Are the methods provided efficient and of new generations?

Take SAFe® and Flight Levels®/Kanban, for example:

• Both use similar/same methods (Scrum and Kanban) at all three layers, ignoring each layer’s unique needs. This "one-size-fits-all" approach can be inefficient, like using a hammer to drive in a screw. It works, but takes extra effort, especially at the Coordination layer, where managing dependencies requires precise control.
• SAFe® uses mainly first generation methods and compensates with cadences, a lot synchronization meetings and may new roles. Most probably not efficient.

So, a good framework recognizes the three different layers and uses different appropriate control mechanisms of the best available generation.

Comparison: How SAFe®, Flight Levels®, and the Theory of Constraints Stack

SAFe® and Flight Levels® apply uniform management methods across layers, which might not match the distinct characteristics required at each layer.

In contrast, the Theory of Constraints (TOC) adapts to each layer:

• Portfolio & Team Layers (Production): Uses Drum-Buffer-Rope (DBR) techniques.
• Coordination Layer (Project): Applies Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM).

The following table gives an overview, especially for project organizations:

A little biased comparison ... sorry!

Attention: Some organizations do not have projects! These organizations have dedicated self-containing product lines with one product. Their goal is to deliver as fast as possible as cheap as possible and continuously improve in small steps. In this case the three-layer structure does not emerge.

These full product organizations are very rare and will get more rare in future because our systems get more complex over time and more collaboration company over spanning will be seen.

Conclusion: Choosing the Right Framework Matters

A truly effective agile or project management framework must respect the unique characteristics of each layer, applying appropriate methods of the newest generation to manage complexity efficiently.

Unfortunately, most current frameworks fail this test because they use the same method across all layers.

In contrast, the Theory of Constraints understands and utilizes the alternating fractal patterns of production and projects, applying suitable tools at every layer. The result is less management overhead and smoother, more effective delivery.

Now, consider your own organization. Is your current framework working effectively, or could embracing these insights improve your outcomes?

If you would like to learn practical implementation techniques, you can visit the DolphinUniverse community.

Join the free DolphinUniverse to stay ahead of the curve and learn more about 3rd-generation flow methods!

P.P.S. Generation 1 and 2 on all layer approaches are less complex and easier to sell because they seem simpler to implement. This advantage is often used by organizations to productize an approach and scale selling protected by unclear intellectual property claims – you easily recognize this by the ® after the product name.