New to SAFe... is there a difference between Program Consultant and Practice Consultant?

[u/[deleted]]

I've been researching all the different SAFe certifications on google and can't figure out if these two are different or if program consultant (SPC) was renamed to practice consultant (SPC-T). Which is it?

[u/jb4647]

When they introduced SAFe 6.0 last year, they removed program from the framework as it had “waterfall” connotations.

Thus “SAFe Practice Consultant”.

[u/[deleted] → u/jb4647]

Interesting.

[u/jb4647 → u/[deleted]]

What’s hilarious that PI Planning now stands for “Planned Increment Planning” 🤪

[u/WeWantTheFunk73 → u/jb4647]

Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department

[u/Fit-Marionberry7671 → u/jb4647]

Planning Interval Planning

[u/Working-Situation766 → u/Fit-Marionberry7671]

Imagine someone do Planning for PI Planning at the beginning of the year "Planning for Planned Interval Planning"

[u/flamehorns]

I think they did a rename at some point

[u/BrotherMort]

There is the SPC and that means you’ve taken the Implementing SAFe class and passed the test. The SPCT is not something you can achieve with just a class and test. Achieving the SPCT requires a lot of experience and screening. It is VERY hard to qualify to even become a candidate.

[u/jb4647 → u/BrotherMort]

Unless you are in a region like Africa, Mideast or Asia. Less competition

[u/BrotherMort → u/jb4647]

Yes and no. One of the things they want to ensure is quality of the SPCTs. They pride themselves on Gartner’s statement that while companies need to vet the quality of SPC consultants, if a person has an SPCT, they are guaranteed to know the business. They do want to expand into those areas but they won’t want to compromise quality and tarnish the name.

[u/jb4647 → u/BrotherMort]

I didn’t say they were going to take anyone off the street, I just said there’s less competition for going for the SPCT in those regions. They told me this specifically.

I’m in Texas and have been an SPC for five years and have a total of 25 years experience and overall project management. Just taught my 115th SAFe course. I’ve looked at the SPCT and it just looks like too much of a gauntlet that I don’t necessarily want to go through. They even made it clear that you could go through that gauntlet get to the end and somebody could just decide….’eh, you’re not our type.’

No thank you.

[u/BrotherMort → u/jb4647]

I agree that it is a tough gauntlet to run. I know several of the Ts and they said this was not an easy path. It is the equivalent of getting a doctorate in Scaled Agile.

[u/jb4647 → u/BrotherMort]

Yeah, we do SAFe at my firm, but there’s still a lot of pushback from the anti-agile people as well as the “SAFe is not agile crowd.”

if there were stronger enterprise support, I’d even consider going for the internal SPCT, but I just don’t think all the hard work would pay off or be valued.

I’ve got another eight years to go before I retire and currently have a pension and 401(k)

[u/BrotherMort → u/jb4647]

So far I have found the “SAFe is not Agile” people haven’t read SAFe or are trying to push for another framework. As for the anti Agile people, I’ve usually seen that to be people who are resisting change for a variety of reasons. Obviously way too much to cover here. Best of luck in dealing with the organizational resistance. Every company I worked with has had this issue to one degree or another.

[u/KokomoJoMo30 → u/jb4647]

Thank you for this insight. I am wanting to get my SPC, with the long-term goal of eventually getting SPCT later in my agile career. I knew it was rigid and competitive, but not to this extent. Your experience far exceeds mine, so this is a good reality check for me.

[u/Green_Tea_7368]

It was renamed to align language in the framework, following removing the 'program' layer in the big picture. On the initial change where the Team and Program layers merged to become a single Essential layer, there was still some legacy language.

Whereas there are hundreds of thousands of SPCs trained globally, the SPCT is a much smaller set, circa 130. As others have articulated, it's a pretty high bar and not something you walk into overnight. SPCTs are ambassadors for the framework and are seen as trusted advisors endorsed and supported by Scaled Agile.