Lesson 1: Thriving in the Digital Age with Business Agility (2-3 questions)

Question 1

What is Business Agility?

Answer 1

Business Agility is 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.

Question 2

What are the four SAFe configurations?

Answer 2

1. Essential
2. Large Solution
3. Portfolio
4. Full

Essential SAFe is the basic building block for all SAFe configurations and is the most straightforward starting point for implementation. It builds on the principles and practices of Lean-Agile Leadership, Team and Technical Agility, Agile Product Delivery, and Continuous Learning Culture competencies.

The Large Solution SAFe configuration introduces the Enterprise Solution Delivery competency, which supports those building the largest and most complex solutions that require multiple ARTs and Suppliers but do not require portfolio-level considerations. Such solution development is typical for aerospace and defense, automotive, and government industries, where the large solution—not portfolio governance—is the primary concern.

The Portfolio SAFe configuration is the minimum set of competencies and practices that can fully enable business agility. Portfolio SAFe provides two additional competencies, Organizational Agility and Lean Portfolio Management, beyond those included in Essential SAFe.

The Full SAFe configuration (Figure 14) is the most comprehensive configuration, including all seven core competencies for Business Agility. The world’s largest enterprises typically use it to maintain portfolios of large and complex solutions.

Question 3

SAFe draws from what (four) primary bodies of knowledge?

Answer 3

1. Agile Development,
2. Systems Thinking,
3. Lean Product Development
4. DevOps.

Question 4

What are the seven core competencies for achieving business agility?

Answer 4

1. Team and Technical Agility (TTA)
2. Agile Product Delivery
3. Enterprise Solution Delivery
4. Lean Portfolio Managment (LPM)
5. Organization Agility
6. Continuous Learning Culture
7. Lean Agile Leadership

While each competency can deliver value by itself, true business agility is only present when the enterprise achieves significant mastery of all.

Question 5

SAFE has identified three measurement domains suitable for measuring and improving value streams. What are the three domains?

Answer 5

1. Flow,
2. Outcomes,
3. Competency

Flow metrics help determine how fast the value stream creates and delivers value, represented by flow distribution, velocity, time, load, efficiency, and predictability.

Outcomes metrics help ensure the solution delivered benefits the customer and the business. Value Stream KPIs are primarily used to measure these outcomes.

Competency measures evaluate organizational proficiency on two levels:

1. The SAFe Business Agility Assessment offers business and portfolio stakeholders a way to assess their overall progress toward business agility.
2. The individual SAFe Core Competency Assessments help teams and ARTs improve their technical and business practices.