I feel like SAFe is ruining my profession.

This might come as a bit of a rant, but I need to know if I'm WAY off base, cause I really am worried about my future otherwise.

I am seeing more and more companies that want SAFe certified scrum masters. They want SAFe experienced people to fill their positions.

Why is SAFe so popular? From my perspective, it's popular because it provides a structure to keep existing command and control practices and a more WATER scrum FALL scenario in tact, while being able to claim you're "agile", right?

These are the notes I took from the last SAFe explanation video I watched:

Portfolio - dictates direction from strategic themes and enterprise strategy with budget, and generates your epics.

Value streams - provides for even larger solutions for multiple archs, value stream engineer, solution architecture, solution manager

Program - agile release train - product iterations x5 by default - product manager / program backlog at feature level - governed by an Release train engineer  - each product iteration starts with a PI meeting where the program manager lays out the vision - dependencies are identified as each team weighs in on what they can deliver in the next 5 iterations - bi/weekly meeting scrum of scrums with the RTE to demo each iteration and show that all the increments are working together to complete the objective. 

Architectual runway is established during PI planning to lay out the runway we think we'll need to keep the train moving which is facilitated by the train system architect, only plan for 4 iterations and the final iteration is a innovation iteration is used for creative ideas like hack-a-thons, also to retrospect on the overall train to improve collaboration and to plan the next PI and to ensure we're delivering. 

Team - standard scrum or kanban

 

Okay, so we learned that at the portfolio level, the business is deciding what the theme, the budget, and the epics of the project are, without any input from the teams who will be doing the work themselves.

We also learned that the teams select from the features, what work they can deliver, which is already planned for them. Then they coordinate those dependencies based on who is required to do that work that's already prescribed.

There's about 12 different roles responsible for all of that, none of which are actually on the teams doing the work.

Right away, this is immediately disqualified from Scrum because welp, that's not self-organizing or self-managing... That's your classic Waterfall methodology, rebranded. 

So, the fact that they call their team's "scrum" teams is truly hilarious to me.

Now these companies go out and try to hire scrum masters, who are certified in scrum, to come in and play the roles of RTE or Scrum Master. But, they're not allowed to actually implement Scrum as it was designed? How the hell does that even make sense? Have I seriously gone insane?

Furthermore... How is any of that agile? The team's don't even interface with their customers, they have no idea what the customer thinks of their solutions, and they're not even allowed to make their own solutions.

What about Agile?

This certainly seems more like process and tools over individuals and interactions to me...

This seems more like comprehensive documentation over working software to me...

I would definitely say it's more contract negotiation over customer collaboration...

and while they do allow for a week every month for continuous improvement, I'm not sure exactly what the teams are improving on when they're not allowed to control any of the architecture or the plans, or even the solutions!?

Please, someone tell me I'm just being hyperbolic, that I have no idea what I'm talking about, and properly educate me. Link me a video or something that will explain how completely wrong I am and that this isn't a clown fiesta disguised as "agile"... Please. Because, otherwise, I'm convinced that companies are just never going to actually change and I'm probably going to have to go back to just being a tester in this mess.