Sec 2 and 3 Becoming a Lean-Agile Leader

Question 1

What are the 4 SAFe core values?

Answer 1

Alignment, Transparency, Built-in Quality, and Program Execution.

Question 2

Explain Alignment

Answer 2

Communicate mission, vision and strategy whenever possibly, participating in PI, managing backlog, help with value stream organization and coordination.

Question 3

Explain Transparency

Answer 3

Visualize work, take ownership of errors, never punish the messenger and praise those who learn from their mistakes.

Question 4

Explain Built-in Quality

Answer 4

Refuse to accept or ship low-quality work; support investments in capital planning for maintenance and reduction of tech debt. Make UX, architecture, operations and security all part of the flow.

Question 5

Explain Program Execution

Answer 5

Participate in PIs execution, celebrate high quality and predictable delivered PIs; aggressively remove impediments and demotivators

Question 6

What is the Roof Top in the SAFe House of Lean Model

Answer 6

Value

Question 7

What is the foundation of the SAFe House of Lean

Answer 7

Leadership

Question 8

What are the 4 pillars?

Answer 8

Respect for People and Culture, Flow, Innovation, and Relentless Improvement.

Question 9

What is Value in terms of the house of lean

Answer 9

With the shortest sustainable lead-time, provide the best quality and value to people and society; leads to high morale and customer delight. Everyone is happy when value delivered is as good as expected.

Question 10

What is mean by “Respect for people and culture?

Answer 10

People do all the work and the customer is whoever consumes the work. Build partnerships based on trust.

Question 11

What is meant by “Flow” in the SAFe House of Lean Pillar

Answer 11

Optimize sustainable value delivery, build-in quality, move from projects to products, manage varablility

Question 12

What is meant by “Innovation” in the SAFe House of Lean Pillar

Answer 12

Allow innovation to flow, give room and time, allow for experimentation and feedback and pivot without guilt.

Question 13

What is meant by “Relentless Improvement” in the SAFe House of Lean Pillar

Answer 13

Learning organization, constant sense of danger, optimize the whole, problem-solving culture, base improvements on facts and reflect at key milestones.

Question 14

What is meant by “Leadership” in the SAFe House of Lean

Answer 14

Lead by example, growth mindset, develop people, lead the change, foster psychological safety, uphold SAFe values

Question 15

What are some principles of the agile manifesto? There are 12 total.

Answer 15

Satisfy customer, welcome changing requirements, deliver working software frequently, business and developers must work together, build projects around motivated individuals and trust them to get the work done, fact to face conversations, progress is measured through working software, promote sustainable development, get work done instead of starting, self-organized teams, regular reflections, technical excellence

Question 16

Why does early delivery have higher value?

Answer 16

Because Market value of a feature goes down overtime.

Question 17

Explain systems thinking

Answer 17

Optimizing a component does not optimize the system. the system is only as strong as the weakest link, value of a system passes through its interconnections.

Question 18

How do you optimize the value stream?

Answer 18

Focus on the delays and remove them from the value stream.

Question 19

How can you structure development processes to be more successful?

Answer 19

Build in flexibility: requirements must be flexible to make economic design choices, design must be flexible to support changing requirement.

Question 20

What does it meant to apply a Set-based approach?

Answer 20

Have several options up front to make adjusting easier if needed.

Question 21

What is the iterative learning cycle?

Answer 21

Plan - Do - Check - Adjust: Improvement comes through synchronization of the design loops and faster learning cycles.

Question 22

What is the problem with phase-gate milestones?

Answer 22

Forces decisions very early on and that the solution is the correct one and will be built correctly. Creates huge batches, long queues and centralize requirements and design in program management. Use Objective Milestones instead.

Question 23

How are Objective Milestones better?

Answer 23

The facilitate learning and allow for continuous cost-effective adjustments toward and optimum solution.

Question 24

What are small batches important?

Answer 24

Small batches go through the system faster with lower variability.

Question 25

How do you find the Optimal Batch size?

Answer 25

Optimal batch size is found by figuring out the lowest total cost. Total cost is the sum of holding costs and transaction costs. Batch size reduction save twice of what you would think.

Question 26

What are some kinds of decisions that are good to decentralize?

Answer 26

Program Backlog (routine, everyday work), Time Critical, Requires local information

Question 27

How do you calculate the average wait time? Little’s Law. Control wait time by controlling queue lengths (defer commitments).

Answer 27

Commitment/items done per quarter = average wait time.

Question 28

What are the two specialty roles of a cross-functional agile team?

Answer 28

Scrum Master and Product Owner

Question 29

Why do you need synchronization with cadence?

Answer 29

Even if you have regular planning, limited batch sizes, can predict the wait times for new work - you still need to have synchronization: causes multiple events to happen at the same time, analyze and decide on trade-offs and dependencies

Question 30

What do ARTs and how are they structured?

Answer 30

Agile Release Trians continuously deliver value and are 5-12 teams of 50-125+ people.

Question 31

How do Arts Operate?

Answer 31

Synchronized on a common cadence (PI) and aligned to a common mission via a single Program Backlog