ICON Blog

2021 SAFe® Summit Presentation – Epic Owners: The Key to Strategic Unification

Written by Sawyer Conrady | January 3, 2023

Mar 24, 2022

Epic Owners are generally thought of as the shepherds of Portfolio Kanban Epics but that is only the tip of the iceberg. As Epics are some of the most significant enterprise investments, Epic Owners play a key role in coordinating parts of the organizational hierarchy so they have a conjoined understanding of the strategic intent of an Epic. But how do we ensure we are unlocking the benefits of this role and avoiding anti-patterns?

In this presentation, you will learn more about applying Epic Ownership based on pragmatic experience.

Key Objectives

  • The role of the Epic Owner – who they are, what they enable, and where they come from
  • How Epic Owners unify strategic intent by coordinating throughout the organizational hierarchy
  • How Epic Owners enable end-to-end Portfolio Kanban flow using the Lean Startup cycle
  • How to spot and avoid Epic Owner anti-patterns

Update: Presented at the 2022 In-Person SAFe® Summit on Aug. 24th, 2022

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Written by Charlene M. Cuenca , SAFe Fellow, SPCT, SAFe Contributor

With over 29 years of professional experience, Charlene has been a leader in transforming organizations and teams into Agile and Scaled Agile best practices. Charlene has experience working with enterprise Agile initiatives with organizations large and small, Federal Government, and Fortune 500 companies for over 17 years. She is passionate about Agile and enjoys helping enterprises on their journey towards organizational agility.

Charlene holds several certifications/designations including but not limited to SAFe Fellow, SAFe Program Consultant Trainer (SPCT), Enterprise Business Agility Strategist (EBAS), SAFe Program Consultant (SPC5), and SAFe Contributor. Charlene has been part of several proven large-scale Global Agile Transformations providing enterprise, portfolio, program, team, and Exec/Sr leadership coaching and training, across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

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