Agile organizations face a constant challenge: investing enough in technical exploration and architectural innovation—known as enablers—while maintaining relentless focus on customer value. Striking this balance is crucial for delivering sustainable business results, keeping technical debt in check, and staying ready to innovate.

Yet, many SAFe teams either underinvest in enablers or prioritize them at the expense of immediate customer needs. This post breaks down practical strategies to bring harmony between exploration enablers and customer-centric work.

What Are Exploration Enablers?

In SAFe, enablers are backlog items that prepare and support future business features. Exploration enablers help teams research, experiment, and validate solutions before fully committing. These include:

• Prototyping a new technology or interface
• Conducting architectural spikes or technical investigations
• Running proof-of-concept experiments
• Testing feasibility for emerging trends such as AI or cloud migration

Exploration enablers may not immediately deliver customer features, but they remove risks and open paths for business innovation.

Why Exploration Matters: The Innovation Dilemma

Teams that ignore technical exploration risk being limited by legacy architectures and unproven technologies. Over time, this slows down innovation and reduces the organization’s ability to respond to market needs. Conversely, focusing solely on enablers without a customer lens can lead to wasted effort and features that never reach production.

Smart organizations use enablers as strategic investments to speed up and de-risk customer-centric delivery. Learn how to structure this balance in the Leading SAFe Agilist Certification course, which covers the principles and practices of Lean-Agile leadership.

The Customer-Centric Imperative

Customer centricity drives Agile and Lean thinking. Teams strive to deliver value that matters most to end users, gather feedback, and iterate fast. SAFe puts a strong emphasis on customer centricity, but also upholds technical excellence to prevent bottlenecks and slowdowns. When customer work and technical health are balanced, organizations achieve sustainable speed and adaptability.

Why the Balance is Tricky

• Business pressure: Product Owners often focus on features with clear customer impact, sidelining enablers until they become urgent.
• Technical risk: Architects and engineers spot problems early, but may struggle to prioritize exploration work.
• Lack of visibility: When enablers are hidden or undefined, technical debt quietly grows.

This tension can stall long-term progress unless teams build transparent planning and shared ownership into their way of working.

Strategies for Balancing Exploration and Customer Work

These techniques help SAFe teams integrate exploration enablers into a customer-driven roadmap:

1. Make Enablers Visible in the Backlog

Always create clear enabler items in the team and program backlog. Don’t bury technical spikes or research tasks inside stories. Discuss each enabler’s purpose and connection to the product roadmap during backlog refinement. The SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager Certification dives deep into prioritizing and refining work items that blend business and technical needs.

2. Link Enablers to Business Outcomes

Each enabler should support a clear business hypothesis. For example, exploring a new API technology should tie directly to a measurable outcome—faster customer onboarding, lower maintenance costs, or increased platform stability. Articulate the value and expected results before work begins.

3. Timebox All Exploration

All spikes, technical proofs, and research initiatives should have defined timeframes and objectives. Agree on success criteria before starting and review outcomes with the team and stakeholders.

4. Allocate Capacity Intentionally

During PI Planning, decide upfront what percentage of team capacity will go to enablers. Many Agile Release Trains set aside 20-30% of their time for technical work, making this allocation transparent and tracked. Explore practical capacity allocation tips in this SAFe article.

5. Foster Collaboration Between Roles

Product Owners, Product Managers, Architects, and engineers should co-create the backlog. Jointly decide which enablers unlock future customer value. The SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Certification can help facilitators and leaders support these cross-functional conversations.

6. Measure and Share Outcomes

After completing exploration enablers, communicate what was learned and how it influences the next customer-focused work. This reinforces the value of technical investment and builds trust with business stakeholders.

Common Pitfalls (and Solutions)

• Invisible enabler work: Use explicit enabler item types in your tools. Track and review separately from business features.
• Business disconnect: Always connect enabler work to business risks or opportunities. Avoid “tech for tech’s sake.”
• Technical debt build-up: When enablers are consistently postponed, future velocity drops. Protect enabler time during every PI.
• Unbounded technical research: Timebox and define clear outcomes for every exploration item.

Real-World Example

A global fintech company needed to scale its core application for a massive user increase. The business wanted new features, but architecture teams warned of performance bottlenecks. By allocating 30% of PI capacity to exploration enablers—such as load testing, cloud migration proofs, and API scalability—they kept delivery moving fast and avoided stability issues. Results and learning were shared with both technical and business stakeholders. This kind of coordination is covered in the SAFe Release Train Engineer Certification training, which empowers leaders to orchestrate large Agile Release Trains (ARTs).

Actionable Team Techniques

• Definition of Ready: Accept enablers only if their scope, timebox, and business impact are well-defined.
• Include enablers in PI Planning: Architects and engineers should bring technical needs to the table early.
• Track enabler outcomes: Use metrics like defect reduction, improved deployment speed, or decreased cycle time.
• Share learning widely: End every PI with a review of technical discoveries and next steps.

The Scrum Master's Role in Balance

Scrum Masters act as facilitators for balance. They ensure both business and technical priorities are heard during planning, keep enablers visible, and support collaborative decision-making. Learn these skills in the SAFe Scrum Master Certification course.

Final Thoughts

Balancing exploration enablers and customer-centric work is not a one-off task—it’s a continuous discipline that enables teams to innovate while keeping the business competitive. By making enablers visible, aligning them with outcomes, and measuring their value, organizations support sustained agility and growth.

To deepen your expertise, check out the SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager Certification and Leading SAFe Agilist Certification for more advanced strategies.

 

Also Read - Using Enablers to Support Lean Architecture in Complex Portfolios

Also see - Aligning Enablers with OKRs for Strategic Execution in SAFe