Roles Flashcards
What are the roles on an Agile Team?
- Scrum Master
- Product Owner
- Engineer / Team member
What are the roles in the Essential Troika?
- System Architect / Engineer
- Product Management
- Release Train Engineer (RTE)
What are the roles in the Large Solution Troika?
- Solution Architect / Engineer
- Solution Management
- Solution Train Engineer (STE)
What roles exist at the Portfolio level?
- Epic Owners
- Enterprise Architects
Describe Role: SAFe Program Consultants (SPCs)
Certified SAFe® Program Consultants (SPCs) are change agents who combine their technical knowledge of SAFe with an intrinsic motivation to improve the company’s software and systems development processes. They play a critical role in successfully implementing SAFe. SPCs come from numerous internal or external roles, including business and technology leaders, portfolio/program/project managers, process leads, architects, analysts, and consultants.
Describe Role: Enterprise Architect
The Enterprise Architect establishes a technology strategy and roadmap that enables a portfolio to support current and future business capabilities.
They drive design, engineering, reuse, application of patterns, and create Enabler Epics for the architectures that comprise the solutions in a portfolio. Relying on continuous feedback, these architects foster adaptive design, and engineering practices, and drive programs and teams to rally around a shared technical vision.
- Aligns architecture with business strategy
- Provides strategic technical direction across ARTs and teams
- Collaborates with Lean Portfolio Management
- Guides and supports Architectural Runway strategy
- Promotes modern technical and DevOps practices
- Synchronizes architecture functions across ARTs and teams
Describe Role: Epic Owners
Epic Owners are responsible for coordinating portfolio Epics through the Portfolio Kanban system. They collaboratively define the epic, its Minimum Viable Product (MVP), and Lean business case, and when approved, facilitate implementation.
Epic Owner works directly with the Agile Release Train (ART) and Solution Train stakeholders to define the Features and Capabilities that realize the value of approved Epics. They may also have some responsibility for supporting the initiative as it moves downstream through the Continuous Delivery Pipeline to Release on Demand.
Describe Role: Solution Architect/Engineer
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.
These individuals play a critical role in the Enterprise Solution Delivery (ESD) core competency by aligning the many solution builders across multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and Suppliers to a shared technical direction. To do this, they collaborate with the Agile teams within their solution train and those across the supply chain to elaborate the solution, validate technology assumptions, evaluate implementation alternatives, and converge on the final solution.
Solution AEs define the Solution Context and collaborate with Solution Management to develop the Solution Vision, Solution Roadmap, and the Capabilities required to meet them. They also work with Solution Management to align the Solution Train’s ARTs and Suppliers on what to build and how to build it by establishing the Solution Intent repository. And they play a critical role in solution train events, including Pre- and Post-PI Planning, Solution and System Demos, the Solution Train Sync, and the ART and solution train Inspect and Adapt (I&A) Workshops.
- Plans the Architectural Runway for a full Solution
- Actively supports designing and steering of Continuous Delivery Pipeline
- Establishes and supports definition of nonfunctional requirements (NFRs)
- Partners with System Architects to elaborate Capabilities and Features
- Fosters Built-in Quality for the entire solution
Describe Role: Solution Management
Solution Management is responsible for defining and supporting the building of desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable large-scale business solutions that meet customer needs.
Those responsible for this function achieve this by collaborating with a wide range of people to identify and define customer needs, understand the Solution Context, and develop the Solution Vision, Solution Roadmap, and the Capabilities required to meet them. Working with Solution Architect/Engineering, Solution Management aligns the Solution Train’s ARTs and Suppliers on what to build and how to build it by establishing the Solution Intent repository. They also play a critical role in solution train events including Pre- and Post-PI planning, Solution and System Demos, Solution Train Sync, and the ART and solution train Inspect and Adapt (I&A) Workshops.
Describe Role: Solution Train Engineer (STE)
The Solution Train Engineer (STE) is a servant leader and coach for the Solution Train, facilitating and guiding the work of all ARTs and Suppliers in the Value Stream.
To succeed in the Digital Age, organizations must efficiently build and evolve large, complex solutions that fulfill the most critical functions for their customers. This effort, which may involve hundreds or even thousands of knowledge workers, is rewarding and highly challenging. Building such solutions quickly, however, is difficult and requires a robust process of creating value, learning, and adapting. Systems of this complexity require a special role to coordinate, facilitate, and help to guide the constituent ARTs toward productive outcomes. That’s the role of a Solution Train Engineer (STE). STEs enable effective operations of the Solution Train’s ARTs, which require decentralized decision-making, alignment, and coordination for the entire Solution Train.
Describe Role: Business Owners
Business Owners are a small group of stakeholders who have the primary business and technical responsibility for governance, compliance, and return on investment (ROI) for a Solution developed by an Agile Release Train (ART). They are key stakeholders on the ART who must evaluate fitness for use and actively participate in certain ART events.
Describe Role: System Architect/Engineer
System Architect/Engineering is responsible for defining and communicating a shared technical and architectural vision for an Agile Release Train (ART) to help ensure the system or Solution under development is fit for its intended purpose.
System Architects describe the Solution Context and Solution Intent, analyze technical trade-offs, determine the primary components and subsystems, identify the interfaces and collaborations between them, define Nonfunctional Requirements (NFRs), guide Enablers through the Program and Solution Kanban systems, and work with Product Management, Solution Management, customers, and Suppliers to help ensure fitness for purpose.
They play a critical role in aligning teams on the Agile Release Train (ART) and Solution Train to a shared technical direction and partner with those teams in elaborating the Solution, validating technology assumptions, evaluating implementation alternatives, and creating the Continuous Delivery Pipeline. In ARTs that are not part of a Solution Train, System Architects also perform many of the activities of Solution Architect/Engineers (Solution AE).
- Plans the Architectural Runway
- Actively supports design and steering of CI/CD pipeline
- Establishes and supports the definition of NFRs
- Partners with Solution and Enterprise Architects to elaborate Epics, Capabilities and Business Capabilities
- Fosters Built-In Quality for the ART’s systems
Describe Role: 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.
To do this, they collaborate with a wide range of people to identify and define customer needs, understand the Solution Context, and develop the Program Vision, Roadmap, and Features required to meet these needs. Then, they support the Agile Release Trains (ARTs) in delivering value through the Program Kanban and Continuous Delivery Pipeline.
Describe Role: Release Train Engineer (RTE)
The Release Train Engineer (RTE) is a servant leader and coach for the Agile Release Train (ART). The RTE’s major responsibilities are to facilitate the ART events and processes and assist the teams in delivering value. RTEs communicate with stakeholders, escalate impediments, help manage risk, and drive relentless improvement.
Although Agile Release Trains (ARTs) are composed of self-organizing and self-managing teams, trains don’t drive or steer themselves on autopilot. That responsibility falls to the RTE, who operate most effectively as servant leaders. They have a solid grasp of how to scale Lean and Agile practices and understand the unique opportunities and challenges associated with facilitating and continuously aligning a large development program.
Describe Role: Product Owner (PO)
The Product Owner (PO) is a member of the Agile Team responsible for defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog to streamline the execution of program priorities while maintaining the conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components for the team.
The PO has a significant role in maximizing the value produced by the team and ensuring Stories meet the user’s needs and comply with the Definition of Done. For most enterprises moving to Agile, this is a new and critical role, typically translating into a full-time job, requiring one PO to support each Agile team (or, at most, two teams).
This role has significant relationships and responsibilities outside the local team, including working with Product Management, Customers, Business Owners, and other stakeholders.
