Agile methodologies prioritize the rapid delivery of customer value through iterative development cycles. While the focus often rests on visible, new product features, sustained delivery requires substantial effort directed toward foundational improvements. This necessary work is formalized within many scaling frameworks as the concept of Enablers. Enablers represent the technical, architectural, or exploratory activities that build the structural runway required for future business capabilities. Investing in these foundational elements ensures that development teams maintain speed and quality as solutions evolve.
Defining Enablers in the Context of Agile
An Enabler is defined as a type of work item used to support the future development and delivery of business Features. Although preparatory work is present in all Agile methods, the term “Enabler” is most commonly used within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). These items do not directly provide new functionality to the end-user but create the necessary technical or structural capacity for the system to grow. Their function is to establish a robust foundation, often called a technical runway, which allows for the efficient implementation of subsequent customer-facing requirements. Failing to execute this preparatory work often results in increased technical debt and a slowdown in future delivery velocity. Enablers are often defined and championed by System Architects and senior technologists to ensure the solution’s long-term viability.
The Four Core Types of Enablers
Exploration Enablers
These Enablers focus on reducing uncertainty and understanding market needs or technical feasibility before committing to an investment. They involve activities like market research, user interviews, prototyping, and hypothesis testing to validate a proposed solution. For instance, an Exploration Enabler might involve building a small prototype to test the performance limits of a new database technology before integrating it into the core architecture. This early research minimizes the risk of building the wrong solution or encountering unexpected technical roadblocks later in the development cycle.
Infrastructure Enablers
Infrastructure Enablers relate to setting up the environments, tools, and platforms required for development, testing, and deployment. These activities ensure the entire value stream can operate efficiently from coding through to production release. Examples include configuring a new continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline or setting up a dedicated hardware appliance for security testing. This category ensures technical teams possess the necessary environment to build and release software quickly and reliably.
Architectural Enablers
This type of Enabler focuses on creating the underlying structure, design, and subsystems that support the functional requirements of the solution. Architectural work ensures the system can scale, perform, and maintain quality as new Features are added. An example might be refactoring a monolithic application into microservices or implementing a new API gateway to handle increased external traffic. These activities prevent the system from becoming brittle and difficult to modify.
Compliance Enablers
Compliance Enablers address the activities required to meet regulatory, legal, security, or governmental standards. This category ensures the product or service adheres to external mandates and internal organizational policies. Activities such as achieving readiness for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in new markets or implementing a new security audit procedure fall under this heading. These Enablers are mandatory investments that protect the business from legal penalties and maintain user trust.
How Enablers Differ from Customer-Facing Work
The distinction between an Enabler and customer-facing work, such as a Feature, lies in the recipient of the immediate value. A Feature delivers a tangible benefit directly to the end-user, often resulting in a new capability or a streamlined process. For example, the Feature “Allow users to save items to a wish list” provides immediate, visible value to the consumer.
Conversely, an Enabler delivers value to the development team or the system itself, building capacity for future work. The Enabler “Upgrade database capacity to handle 10x concurrent connections” provides no direct user benefit but makes future Features possible and stable. While Features are typically expressed in business terms and validated by the customer, Enablers are expressed in technical terms and validated by the architects and development teams. Both are necessary to achieve business goals, but their purpose is distinct.
Managing and Implementing Enablers in the Backlog
Effective management of Enablers requires a structured approach to ensure they are prioritized alongside customer-facing work. Enablers originate from various sources, including System Architects, security professionals, and development teams, and are placed on the relevant backlog (Team, Program, or Portfolio) depending on their scope. Once identified, they are sized and estimated using story points or relative sizing, just like standard Features or Stories.
Prioritization is a collaborative effort where Enablers compete for resources with business Features based on the value they unlock and the risk they mitigate. Organizations must dedicate a specific portion of their development capacity to Enabler work, often a percentage ranging from 10% to 30%, to prevent technical debt accumulation. This dedicated capacity ensures teams consistently invest in the system’s foundational health while still delivering new business functionality.
The Strategic Importance of Enablers for Business Agility
Viewing Enablers solely as technical overhead misses their impact on long-term competitive positioning. They are an organizational investment that directly preserves delivery speed and product quality. Neglecting this foundational work inevitably results in the rapid accumulation of technical debt, which acts like friction, slowing down subsequent development efforts.
When technical debt increases, the cost and time required to implement simple changes rises, leading to slower market response times. By proactively investing in Enablers, organizations maintain the technical flexibility and responsiveness needed to adapt to changing market demands. This continuous investment ensures the development system remains healthy and capable of delivering value at a sustained velocity, which is fundamental to achieving business agility.