One of the things that attracted me to SAFe (I know, a lot of folks have had bad experiences, hear me out) was the dual backlog. Most places I know where SAFe went sideways did not use this and IMO it's one of the key selling points to the whole system.
Essentially, there's the Program Backlog which is managed by Product and the rest of the business. And the Solution Backlog, which is managed and prioritized entirely by the tech teams. Going into a PI, the goal is to allocate capacity to both and typically that is a 70-30 balance but it ensure that the teams can prioritize anything they believe is important without having to bother convincing the non-technical side of the company.
Unfortunately where Scrum, SAFe and most other things go wrong is not the system itself. It's leadership trying to enforce a command and control structure to remove decision making from people closest to the problems.
Essentially, there's the Program Backlog which is managed by Product and the rest of the business. And the Solution Backlog, which is managed and prioritized entirely by the tech teams. Going into a PI, the goal is to allocate capacity to both and typically that is a 70-30 balance but it ensure that the teams can prioritize anything they believe is important without having to bother convincing the non-technical side of the company.
https://v5.scaledagileframework.com/program-and-solution-bac...
Unfortunately where Scrum, SAFe and most other things go wrong is not the system itself. It's leadership trying to enforce a command and control structure to remove decision making from people closest to the problems.