Glossary Terms Flashcards
What is the Portfolio Backlog?
The Portfolio Backlog is the highest-level backlog in SAFe. It provides a holding area for upcoming business and enabler Epics intended to create and evolve a comprehensive set of Solutions.
What is the Program Backlog?
The Program Backlog is the holding area for upcoming Features, which are intended to address user needs and deliver business benefits for a single Agile Release Train (ART). It also contains the enabler features necessary to build the Architectural Runway.
What role does the System Team play?
The System Team is a specialized Agile Team that assists in building and supporting the Agile development environment, typically including development and maintenance of the toolchain that supports the Continuous Delivery Pipeline. The System Team may also support the integration of assets from Agile teams, perform end-to-end Solution testing where necessary, and assists with deployment and Release on Demand.
Define Vision
The Vision is a description of the future state of the Solution under development. It reflects customer and stakeholder needs, as well as the Feature and Capabilities proposed to meet those needs.
What are Lean Budget Guardrails?
Lean Budget Guardrails describe the policies and practices for budgeting, spending, and governance for a specific portfolio.
What is Set-based Design?
Set-Based Design (SBD) is a practice that keeps requirements and design options flexible for as long as possible during the development process. Instead of choosing a single point solution upfront, SBD identifies and simultaneously explores multiple options, eliminating poorer choices over time. It enhances flexibility in the design process by committing to technical solutions only after validating assumptions, which produces better economic results.
What is the Team Backlog?
The Team Backlog contains user and enabler Stories that originate from the Program Backlog, as well as stories that arise from the team’s local context. It may include other work items as well, representing all the things a team needs to do to advance their portion of the system.
What is an IP?
The Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration occurs every Program Increment (PI) and serves multiple purposes. It acts as an estimating buffer for meeting PI Objectives and provides dedicated time for innovation, continuing education, PI Planning, and Inspect and Adapt (I&A) events.
What is an Iteration?
Iterations are the basic building block of Agile development. Each iteration is a standard, fixed-length timebox, where Agile Teams deliver incremental value in the form of working, tested software and systems. The recommended duration of the timebox is two weeks. However, one to four weeks is acceptable, depending on the business context.
What are Strategic Themes?
Strategic Themes are differentiating business objectives that connect a portfolio to the strategy of the Enterprise. They influence portfolio strategy and provide business context for portfolio decision-making.
What is a Solution Train?
The Solution Train is the organizational construct used to build large and complex Solutions that require the coordination of multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs), as well as the contributions of Suppliers. It aligns ARTs with a shared business and technology mission using the solution Vision, Backlog, and Roadmap, and an aligned Program Increment (PI).
What is Solution Intent?
Solution Intent is the repository for storing, managing, and communicating the knowledge of current and intended Solution behavior. Where required, this includes both fixed and variable specifications and designs; reference to applicable standards, system models, and functional and nonfunctional tests; and traceability.
What is an ART?
The Agile Release Train (ART) is a long-lived team of Agile teams, which, along with other stakeholders, incrementally develops, delivers, and where applicable operates, one or more solutions in a value stream
Define Metrics
Metrics are agreed-upon measures used to evaluate how well the organization is progressing toward the portfolio, large solution, ART, and team’s business and technical objectives.
Define Product Management
Product Management is responsible for defining and supporting the building of desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable products that meet customer needs over the product-market lifecycle.
What is meant by Continuous Exploration?
Continuous Exploration (CE) is the process that drives innovation and fosters alignment on what should be built by continually exploring market and customer needs, and defining a Vision, Roadmap, and set of Features for a Solution that addresses those needs.
What is Iteration Execution?
Iteration Execution is how Agile Teams manage their work throughout the Iteration timebox, resulting in a high-quality, working, tested system increment.
What is the System Demo?
The System Demo is a significant event that provides an integrated view of new Features for the most recent Iteration delivered by all the teams in the Agile Release Train (ART). Each demo gives ART stakeholders an objective measure of progress during a Program Increment (PI).
What is the Spanning Palette?
The Spanning Palette contains various roles and artifacts that may apply to a specific team, program, large solution, or portfolio context.
What is the purpose of the IP?
Iteration Planning is an event where all team members determine how much of the Team Backlog they can commit to delivering during an upcoming Iteration. The team summarizes the work as a set of committed Iteration Goals.
What are enablers?
An Enabler supports the activities needed to extend the Architectural Runway to provide future business functionality. These include exploration, architecture, infrastructure, and compliance. Enablers are captured in the various backlogs and occur throughout the Framework
What is a Lean Budget?
Lean Budgets provide effective financial governance over investments, with far less overhead and friction, and supports a much higher throughput of development work.
What does the term “Built-in Quality” mean?
Built-In Quality practices ensure that each Solution element, at every increment, meets appropriate quality standards throughout development.
Define Continuous Delivery Pipeline
The Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP) represents the workflows, activities, and automation needed to shepherd a new piece of functionality from ideation to an on-demand release of value to the end user
What are Epics?
An Epic is a container for a significant Solution development initiative that captures the more substantial investments that occur within a portfolio. Due to their considerable scope and impact, epics require the definition of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and approval by Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) before implementation.
Define DevOps
DevOps is a mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices. It provides communication, integration, automation, and close cooperation among all the people needed to plan, develop, test, deploy, release, and maintain a Solution.
What is Team and Technical Agility?
The Team and Technical Agility competency describes the critical skills and Lean-Agile principles and practices that high-performing Agile teams and Teams of Agile teams use to create high-quality solutions for their customers.
What does Continuous Deployment mean?
Continuous Deployment (CD) is the process that takes validated Features in a staging environment and deploys them into the production environment, where they are readied for release.
Define Organizational Agility?
The Organizational Agility competency describes how Lean-thinking people and Agile teams optimize their business processes, evolve strategy with clear and decisive new commitments, and quickly adapt the organization as needed to capitalize on new opportunities.
What are NFRs?
Nonfunctional Requirements (NFRs) define system attributes such as security, reliability, performance, maintainability, scalability, and usability. They serve as constraints or restrictions on the design of the system across the different backlogs.
Where are KPIs used?
At the Value Stream level
What constitutes Full SAFe?
Full SAFe is the most comprehensive configuration, including all seven core competencies needed for business agility.
What is the Architectural Runway?
The Architectural Runway consists of the existing code, components, and technical infrastructure needed to implement near-term features without excessive redesign and delay
What is a Solution Architect?
Solution Architect/Engineering is responsible for defining and communicating a shared technical and architectural vision across a Solution Train to help ensure the system or Solution under development is fit for its intended purpose.
What are Features?
A Feature is a service that fulfills a stakeholder need. Each feature includes a benefit hypothesis and acceptance criteria, and is sized or split as necessary to be delivered by a single Agile Release Train (ART) in a Program Increment (PI)
What are Capabilities?
A Capability is a higher-level solution behavior that typically spans multiple ARTs.
Capabilities are sized and split into multiple features to facilitate their implementation in
a single PI.
