SAFe Agilist (Leading SAFe) Free Sample Questions

Strategic Themes are the primary mechanism in SAFe for connecting the enterprise's strategic direction to the SAFe portfolio. They provide business context for portfolio decision-making, influencing the Portfolio Vision and the prioritization of Epics in the Portfolio Backlog. PI Objectives are short-term goals for a Program Increment, the Portfolio Backlog contains the work, and the Solution Intent is for solution design, but Strategic Themes provide the overarching strategic linkage.

Product Management is responsible for defining the Vision, the ART backlog, and presenting the top 10 features. System Architects are responsible for providing the architectural runway and technical guidance. While the RTE facilitates the event and Business Owners provide business context, the core content of vision and features falls to Product Management and the technical feasibility to the System Architect.

This is true. SAFe Principle #5 advocates for moving away from traditional phase-gate milestones, which are often based on documents and predictive plans. Instead, it promotes objective milestones based on the demonstration of a working system. The System Demo at the end of each iteration provides this objective evidence, allowing stakeholders to make decisions based on tangible progress rather than on subjective status reports.

SAFe advocates for Lean Budgeting, which involves funding value streams rather than traditional projects. This approach provides a more flexible and efficient flow of funds to the people and resources needed to deliver value. It empowers the Agile Release Trains within the value stream to make decisions on the highest priority work without the overhead and delays of project-based cost accounting.

Continuous Integration (CI) is a core practice of Built-in Quality and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline. By having teams integrate their work frequently (at least daily), integration issues are discovered early and locally, rather than late in the cycle at the System Demo. This prevents large, complex integration problems and reduces rework. While the IP Iteration can be used for integration, the goal is to integrate continuously, not just at the end of the PI.

In SAFe, Epics are justified through a Lean Business Case. Unlike traditional, lengthy business cases, the Lean Business Case is lightweight. Its primary purpose is to articulate the Epic's hypothesis, define a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to test that hypothesis, and outline the potential business outcomes. This allows for incremental investment and learning, aligning with Lean-Agile principles.

SAFe Principle #9 advises centralizing decisions that are infrequent, long-lasting, and have significant economies of scale. Decisions that are frequent, time-critical, and require local information should be decentralized. How a team splits a feature into stories is a frequent, time-critical decision that requires the local context of the team. Strategic direction, internationalization strategy, and value stream funding are all long-lasting, infrequent decisions that should be centralized.

Reaching the Tipping Point is the crucial first step where the organization recognizes and accepts that the need for change is undeniable. This is typically driven by a burning platform or a clear vision for the future that cannot be achieved with the current way of working. The outcome is a powerful sense of urgency that provides the momentum for the subsequent steps of the transformation, such as training leaders and change agents.

The Agile Product Delivery competency is centered on the customer and the products that meet their needs. It heavily emphasizes the use of Customer Centricity and Design Thinking to explore problems and design solutions that are not only desirable by customers but also viable for the business, technically feasible, and sustainable over time.

During the problem-solving workshop within the Inspect & Adapt event, teams perform a root cause analysis to identify the underlying causes of the most significant problem from the PI. The Fishbone Diagram, also known as an Ishikawa diagram, is a common and recommended tool for this. It helps teams brainstorm and categorize potential causes under categories like People, Process, Tools, and Program to find the true root cause.