Leading SAFe Exam Flashcards
12 Steps of Safe Implementation Roadmap
1) Reaching the tipping point
2) Train lean-agile change agents
3) train executives, managers, and leaders
4) create a lean agile center of excellence
5) Identify value streams and ARTs
6) create implementation plan
7) prepare for the art launch
8) train teams and launch the art
9) coach ART execution
10) launch more ARTs and Value Streams
11) extend to the portfolio
12) accelerate
Two conditions that usually lead organizations to a shared awareness of a need for change
1) A burning platform
2) visionary leadership
Three benefits of a vision for change
1) purpose
2) motivation
3) alignment
Eight stages for guiding organization transformation in Kotter’s “Leading the Change” book
1) establishing sense of urgency
2) creating the guiding coalition
3) developing a vision and strategy
4) communicating the change vision
5) empowering employees for broad based action
6) generating short term wins
7) consolidating gains and producing more change
8) Anchoring new approaches in the culture
What is an SPC
SAFe program consultant
What is the role of a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE)
small team of people dedicated to implementing lean-agile within an organization
Three types of LACE team distributions (order of smallest organizations to largest)
1) Central
2) decentralized
3) hub and spoke
Steps in identifying value streams and agile release trains (ARTs)
- Identify operational value streams
- identify the solutions for customers and people to support the solutions
- identify the people who develop and support the solutions
- identify the development value streams that build the solutions
- add people needed to build the full business solution
- realize development value streams into ARTs
Parts of a value stream
- Trigger
- Steps
- Value
What is the lead time of a value stream
time from the trigger to the delivery of the value
Two types of value streams (overall)
1) operational value streams
2) developmental value streams
operational value streams
sequence of activities needed to deliver a product or a service to a customer
developmental value streams
sequence of activities needed to convert a business hypothesis into a technology enabled solution that drives customer value
Four types of operational value streams
1) fulfillment
2) manufacturing
3) software product
4) supporting
What does a supporting value steam deliver?
business support like HR and financials
How many people are usually within an agile release train (ART)?
50-125
True or false, you want an Agile Release Train (ART) to be dependent on other ART(s)?
FALSE
True or False, ARTs should be long-lived, stable teams that consistently deliver value
TRUE
Three steps in creating SAFe implementation plan
1) pick the first value stream
2) select the first A.R.T.
3) create preliminary plan for additional ARTs and value streams
SAFe defitniton of business agility
The ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative, digitally enabled business solutions.
In Carlotta Perez’s “Technological Revolutions” she concludes that all technical revolutions have these three phases
1) Installation Period
2) turning point
3) deployment period
definition of minimum viable product (MVP)
initial solution sufficient to both test business hypothesis and deliver first solid increment of value
Seven Core Competencies of Business Agilityq
1) lean agile leadership
2) continuous learning culture
3) team and technical agility
4) agile product delivery
5) enterprise solution delivery
6) lean portfolio management
7) organizational agility
Three dimensions of lean-agile leadership
1) Leading by example
2) mindset and principals
3) leading change
How SAFe organizes around value
1) build technology portfolios of development value streams
2) realize value streams with product-focused agile release trains (ARTs)
3) Form Agile Teams that can directly deliver value
SAFe core values
- alignment
- Built-in Quality
- transparency
- program execution
Four Bodies of Knowledge for SAFe
Lean
Agile
systems thinking
Dev Ops
What is a mindset is important for lean and agile
openness to change
Roof or goal of the house of lean
value
four pillars of the house of lean
- Respect for people and culture
- Flow
- Innovation
- Relentless Improvement
Values of the agile manifesto
- individuals and interactions over processes and tools
- working software over comprehensive documentation
- customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- responding to change over following a plan
Agile Manifesto Principle 1:
Our highest priority is to satisfy the ___ through early and continuous delivery of ____ _____
- customer
- continuous software
Agile Manifesto Principle 2
Welcome _____ _____ even late in development
changing requirements
Agile Manifesto Principle 3
Deliver ____ ____ frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference for the shorter time scale
working software
Agile Manifesto Principle 4
____ ____ and ____ must work together daily throughout the project
- business people
- developers
Agile Manifesto Principle 5
Build projects around ____ ____. Give them the environment and support they need, and ____ them to get the job done
- motivated individuals
- trust
Agile Manifesto Principle 6
The most efficient and effective method of conveying information within a development team is _____
face to face conversation
Agile Manifesto Principle 7
____ ____is the primary measure of progress
Working Software
Agile Manifesto Principle 9
Continuous attention to technical excellence and ____ ____ enhances agility
good design
Agile Manifesto Principle 10
____ - the art of maximizing the amount of work not done - is essential
simplicity
Agile Manifesto Principle 11
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from ____ ____ ____
self organizing teams
Agile Manifesto Principle 12
At ____ ____, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly
regular intervals
Agile Manifesto Principle 12
At ____ ____, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly
regular intervals
Safe Agile Principal 1
take an ____ view
economic
Safe Agile Principal 2
apply ____ ____
systems thinking
Safe Agile Principal 4
Build _____ with fast, integrated learning cycles
incrementally
Safe Agile Principal 5
base milestones on objective evaluation of _____ _____
working systems
Safe Agile Principal 6
visualize and limit ____, reduce ____ ____, and manage ___ ____
- WIP
- batch sizes
- que lengths
Difference between agile and safe agile
SAFe is built for large scale implementations in organizations
Safe Agile Principal 7
apply cadence, synchronize with ____-____ planning
cross domain
Safe Agile Principal 8
unlock the ____ ____ of knowledge workers
intrinsic motivations
Safe Agile Principal 9
decentralize ____ ____
decision-making
Safe Agile Principal 10
organize around ____
value
Difference between agile and safe agile
SAFe is built for large scale implementations in organizations
what is the base of the house of lean?
leadership
characteristics of decisions that should be centralized
- infrequent
- long lasting
- provide significant economies of scale
characteristics of decisions that should be decentralized
- frequent
- time critical
- require local information
SAFe organizes around value through three parts
1) build technology portfolios of development streams
2) realize value streams with product focused agile release trains
3) form agile teams that can directly deliver value
What are business owners?
Small group of stakeholders who have the primary business and technical responsibility for governance, compliance, and ROI for a solution developed by an ART
Responsibilities of business owners prior to PI planning
- provide input to backlog
- understand business objectives
- ensure business objectives are understood by stakeholders of the train
- communicate business context (milestones and dependencies)
Responsibilities of business owners during PI planning
- provide business context
- available to participate in key activities
- watch for significant external dependencies
- actively circulate during planning
Who assigns business values during the PI planning process?
Business Owners
Responsibilities of business owner during PI execution
- participate in maintaining alignment
- help validate definition of minimum viable product
- attend system demo
- attend ART iteration planning and retrospective
- participate in release management
True or False: active participation of business owners is critical to the success of the agile release train
True
Five elements of customer centricity
- focus on the customer
- understand customer’s needs
- think and feel like the customer
- build whole product solutions
- know customer lifetime value
What type of research primarily drives product strategy (market research or user research)
Market Research
What type of research primarily drives product design (market research or user research)
user research
whole product thinking helps ensure that the ____ and ____ being created for customers fulfill their needs
products and solutions
generic product
minimal offering of a product that meets customer needs
expected product
customers minimal purchase conditions as informed by alternative or competing products
augmented product
goes beyond expectations
potential product
every possible thing that might be done to attract and keep customers
market rhythm
set of events that occur repeatedly on a predictable cadence
market event
one-time future event which has a high probability of materially affecting one or more solutions
two primary means by which a customer derives values from products and services
1) cost reduction
2) revenue enhancement
design thinking definition
customer centric development process that creates desirable products that are profitable and sustainable over their lifecycle
4 ways to measure efforts of design thinking
- desirable
- feasible
- viable
- sustainable
Two steps to exploring a problem in design thinking
- discover
- define
two steps in designing a solution in design thinking
- develop
- deliver
Why do you use personas in design thinking
to depict the different people who might use a product or solution, providing insights into how real users would engage with a solution
What is an empathy map
a design thinking tool that promotes customer identification
7 parts of an empathy map
1) Who are we empathizing with
2) what do they need to do
3) what do they see
4) what do they say
5) what do they do
6) what do they hear
7) what do they think and feel
Journey map
captures high level experience of the customer through the operational value stream
_____ are implemented through one or more user stories
features
user stories
primary means of expressing needed functionality
4 benefits of prototypes to product teams
- fast feedback
- risk reduction
- intellectual property
- models for requirements
continuous integration (CI)
process of taking features from the program backlog and developing, testing, integrating, and validating them in a staging environment where they are ready for deployment and release
4 parts of the continuous delivery pipeline
- continuous exploration
- continuous integration
- continuous deployment
- release on demand
4 activities associated with continuous integration
- develop
- build
- test end to end
- stage
developing the solution
implementation of stories by refining features from the program backlog then coding testing and commting the work product into the source control sustem
Seven practices associated with developing the solution
1) break features into stories
2) behavior driven development (BDD)
3) test driven development (TDD)
4) version control
5) built in quality
6) application telemetry
7) threat modeling
five practices in building the solution
1) continuous code integration
2) build and test automation
3) trunk based development
4) gated commit
5) application security
practices which can help in end to end system testing
- test and production environment congruity
- test automation
- test data automation
- service virtualization
- service virtualization
- testing nonfunctional requirements
- continuous integration with suppliers
suggestions to build successful CI culture and practice
- integrate often
- make integration results visible
- fixing failed integrations is a top priority
- establish common cadence
- develop and maintain proper infrastructure
- apply supportive software engineering practices
DevOps is the combination of which two words
development and operations
without DevOps there is a significant tension between those who ____ ____ and those who ____ and ____ those solutions
- build solutions
- support and maintain
solution demo
- integrates development efforts from all ARTs
- makes development visible to customers and stakeholders for feedback
attendees for a solution demo
- solution management
- solution train engineers
- system and solution engineers/architects
- customers
- ART representatives
- LPM representatives
- Large Solution SAFe stakeholders
- deployment operations representatives
highlights of a portfolio
1) ______ streams
2) ______ budgets
3) ______ kanban
4) ______ Vision
5) ______ canvas
1) value streams
2) lean budgets
3) portfolio kanban
4) portfolio vision
5) portfolio canvas
Role of enterprise architect
work across value streams and ARTs to help provide strategic technical direction that can optimize portfolio outcomes
strategic themes
specific itemized objectives that connect the portfolio to the evolving enterprise business strategy
portfolio vision
description of the future state of a portfolio’s value stream/solutions and describes how they will cooperate to reach the portfolio’s objectives and broader aim of the enterprise
solution investments by horizon
assists the portfolio in ensuring managing near and long term investment solution investments
guardrails (portfolio solution set)
portfolio’s policies and practices for budgeting, spending, and governance
business epics
new business capabilities that can only be provided through cooperation among value streams
enabler epics
architectural, technology, and business process initiatives that are necessary to enable new features and capabilities
Portfolio kanban
system for visualizing the flow of epics
portfolio backlog
highest level backlog in SAFe. Holds approved business and enabler epics that are required to create a portfolio solution set
portfolio canvas
defines value streams that are included in a safe portfolio and
- the solutions they deliver
- customers served
- budgeting
- other activities and events
