Scaled Agile SAFe-Agilist SAFe 6 Agilist - Leading SAFe (SA) (6.0) Exam Practice Test

SAFe draws from Kotter’s model and describes the dual operating system:

“Organize the Enterprise around the flow of value while maintaining the hierarchies… This dual system leverages stability and speed.”

Planning adjustments are agreed upon during the management review and problem-solving meeting in the PI planning event. The management review and problem-solving meeting is a session that occurs at the end of day one of the PI planning event. In this session, the management team reviews the draft plans of all the teams in the ART, identifies any issues or risks that need to be resolved, and proposes any changes or adjustments that are necessary to achieve the program objectives. The management team then communicates their feedback and recommendations to the teams on day two of the PI planning event. References: PI Planning, Management Review and Problem-Solving

The SAFe Workbook outlines the elements of enterprise strategy formulation and emphasizes:

“Enterprise Strategy Formulation includes Vision, Mission, Core Values, Business Drivers, Competitive Environment, Financial Goals, and Distinctive Competence.”

Among these,Portfolio Visionis identified as a direct outcome that aligns the portfolio with strategy.

Source:01 Workbook SA (6.0).pdf, Page 5-12

This statement is one of the values from the Agile Manifesto. The Agile Manifesto is a declaration of four values and twelve principles that guide Agile software development. The four values are: individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and responding to change over following a plan. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation means that Agile teams value building strong relationships with their customers based on trust, feedback, and shared understanding, rather than relying on rigid contracts that limit flexibility and creativity. References: Thriving in the Digital Age, Agile Manifesto

According to the SAFe Agilist 6.0 domain of Lean Thinking, a value stream is triggered by a demand for some value, such as a new feature, a change request, or a defect fix1. A feature is a service that fulfills a stakeholder need2. Therefore, a feature request is a valid trigger for a value stream.

A spike request is a type of exploration enabler that addresses technical uncertainty or risk3. A user story request is a type of backlog item that represents an end user goal or function4. These are not triggers for a value stream, but rather work items that flow through a value stream.

SAFe follows Kotter's 8-step change model. The workbook notes:

"Culture change comes last, not first. It is the outcome, not the precondition, of a successful transformation. Culture changes only after you have successfully demonstrated that the new way is superior to the old."

This confirms thatculture change follows behavioral change.

Source:SAFe Workbook, Section on Leading Change

Empathy maps are a tool associated with design thinking that help to understand the user’s needs, goals, pain points, and emotions. Empathy maps are visual representations of what the user thinks, feels, sees, hears, says, and does in relation to a problem or a solution. Empathy maps help to create a shared understanding of the user among the team and stakeholders, and to generate insights for designing user-centric solutions. Empathy maps can be created based on user research, interviews, observations, or personas123.

 1: Design Thinking - Scaled Agile Framework 2: TEN TOOLS FOR DESIGN THINKING - culturepartnership.eu 3: The Most Complete Design Thinking Tools & Resource Collections - Mockplus

User business value and time criticality are components of cost of delay. Cost of delay is a way of quantifying the economic impact of delaying the delivery of a product or feature. Cost of delay consists of four factors: user or customer value, time criticality, risk reduction or opportunity enablement value, and job size or duration. Cost of delay is used to prioritize features using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF), which is a method that maximizes the economic value delivered by a product development flow. References: ART Backlog and WSJF, SAFe Principle #1

From the workbook's role definitions:

"Scrum Master/Team Coach Responsibilities: Supporting Iteration Execution, Improving ART Performance, Facilitating PI Planning, Building High-Performing Teams."

This makes "supporting iteration execution" a primary responsibility.

Source:Workbook, Lesson 3.1, Page 3-7

Conducting a PI planning event is an example of applying cadence and synchronization in SAFe. Cadence is a regular and predictable pattern of events that provides a rhythm for development. Synchronization is the alignment of multiple perspectives and activities within a cadence. PI planning is a two-day event that occurs at the beginning of every Program Increment (PI), which is typically an 8-12 week timebox. PI planning brings together all the teams in an ART to align on a common vision, identify dependencies, plan features, establish objectives, and commit to a plan for the next PI. References: Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand, PI Planning

Product Owner sync (PO sync) is a key event within the Agile Release Train (ART) that aligns Product Owners and other stakeholders to ensure they are working towards a common vision and goals.

It facilitates collaboration, knowledge sharing, and decision-making, ultimately leading to better outcomes for the ART.

The workbook details:

“At the end of PI Planning, teams vote on confidence using the Fist of Five method. A score of 3 or above signals commitment.”

The SAFe Implementation Roadmap provides an ordered sequence of transformation activities. After training leaders, the next step is:

“Identify Value Streams and ARTs – this step is essential to organizing around value, ensuring future trains are aligned with value delivery.”

Guiding investments by horizon is the Lean budget guardrail that helps ensure the appropriate allocation of budgets to balance near-term opportunities with long-term strategy and growth. A Lean budget guardrail is a policy or guideline that governs how the portfolio operates within the Lean budgeting system. Guiding investments by horizon means allocating budgets across three time horizons: Horizon 1 (current value streams), Horizon 2 (emerging opportunities), and Horizon 3 (exploration and innovation). This helps the portfolio balance the exploitation of existing markets with the exploration of new ones, and foster a culture of experimentation and learning. References: Lean Portfolio Management, Traditional and Lean Budgeting Approaches

Restoring the speed and innovation of the entrepreneurial network while leveraging the stability of the hierarchical system is a benefit of adopting a dual operating system. A dual operating system is a way of organizing an enterprise that combines two complementary structures: a traditional hierarchy that provides stability, alignment, and efficiency; and a network of empowered teams that provides speed, agility, and creativity. A dual operating system helps enterprises achieve organizational agility, which is one of the core competencies of business agility in SAFe. References: Organizational Agility, Dual Operating System

The reason why business owners assign business value to team PI objectives is to empower teams to make decisions around work. Business value is a relative measure of the importance of a work item or an outcome to the business. Team PI objectives are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals that reflect the value that each team intends to deliver in a PI. Business owners assign business value points to each team PI objective based on their alignment with the program vision and objectives. This helps teams prioritize their work, balance their capacity, negotiate dependencies, and make trade-offs based on value delivery. References: PI Planning, Business Owners

A SAFe portfolio is a collection of development value streams. A development value stream is a long-lived series of steps that an enterprise uses to continuously deliver value to a customer or stakeholder. A development value stream typically consists of one or more ARTs and Solution Trains that build and deliver solutions. A SAFe portfolio aligns and governs one or more development value streams that share a common business mission, vision, strategy, and funding. A SAFe portfolio helps enterprises achieve Lean Portfolio Management, which is one of the core competencies of business agility in SAFe. References: SAFe Portfolio, Development Value Streams

Trust is developed by:

“Delivering value consistently and predictably… Predictability builds confidence between teams and stakeholders.”

This is reinforced during PI Planning and Iteration Reviews.

An enabling team is a type of cross-functional Agile team that is organized to assist other teams with specialized capabilities and help them become more proficient in new technologies. Enabling teams provide coaching, mentoring, training, and technical guidance to other teams in areas such as DevOps, test automation, security, compliance, etc. Enabling teams help other teams achieve the core competency of Technical Agility in SAFe. References: Cross-functional Agile Teams, Technical Agility

According to the SAFe Agilist 6.0 domain of Apply SAFe Principles, when basing decisions on economics, lead time, product cost, value, and development expense are used to:

Evaluate the economic impact of different design alternatives

Optimize the flow of value delivery by minimizing delays and waste

Maximize the return on investment by delivering the most valuable features first

Balance the tradeoffs between speed, quality, and cost

According to the SAFe Workbook:

“The Continuous Delivery Pipeline represents the workflows, activities, and automation needed to deliver new functionality more frequently… It enables continuous exploration, integration, deployment, and release on demand—fosteringongoing learning.”

Source:01 Workbook SA (6.0).pdf, Pages 4-81 to 4-84

SAFe’s core mission is to support enterprises in achieving Business Agility.

“Business Agility is the ability to compete and thrive in the digital age… requires the entire organization to deliver innovative business solutions faster than the competition.”

Source:01 Workbook SA (6.0).pdf, Page 1-21

The four SAFe Core Values listed in the workbook are:

Alignment

Transparency

Respect for People

Relentless Improvement

“Transparency: Create a trust-based environment, communicate directly, turn mistakes into learning moments.”

“Relentless Improvement: Build a problem-solving culture, reflect and adapt frequently.”

Autonomy is one of the requirements besides purpose and minimum possible constraints for unlocking the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers. Autonomy is the ability of individuals and teams to self-organize, self-manage, and make decisions about their work without excessive interference or control from others. Autonomy fosters creativity, innovation, ownership, and engagement among knowledge workers. Autonomy is one of the aspects of the Lean-Agile mindset and one of the SAFe core values. References: Lean-Agile Mindset, SAFe Core Values, SAFe Principle #8

Mindset and principles is one of the dimensions of Lean-Agile Leadership. Lean-Agile Leadership is one of the core competencies of business agility in SAFe. Lean-Agile Leadership means exhibiting the behaviors that enable an organization to achieve business agility. Lean-Agile Leadership has three dimensions: mindset and principles; leading change; and developing people. Mindset and principles means adopting the values and principles of Lean thinking and Agile development, and applying them to lead others in achieving business agility. References: Lean-Agile Leadership, Mindset and Principles

The Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) plays a key role in enabling transformation and follows the SAFe Implementation Roadmap.

“LACE uses the SAFe Implementation Roadmap to guide the transformation… The roadmap outlines a step-by-step strategy from reaching the tipping point to sustaining and accelerating SAFe.”