Combined Leading SAFe
PRINCIPLE #5: BASE MILESTONES ON OBJECTIVE EVALUATION OF WORKING SYSTEMS
** Base Milestones on Objective Evidence - Integration Points can be objectively measured, assessed, and evaluated by the relevant stakeholders frequently throughout the solution development life cycle.
PRINCIPLE #8: UNLOCK THE INTRINSIC MOTIVATION OF KNOWLEDGE WORKERS
+ Leverage Systems Thinking + Understand the Role of Compensation + Create an Environment of Mutual Influence + Provide Autonomy with Purpose, Mission, and Minimum Possible Constraints
Features have Benefits & Acceptance Criteria
- Benefits justify Feature implementation cost, provide Business perspective when making scope decisions. - Business benefits impact Economic Prioritization of the Feature. - Acceptance Criteria typically defined during Program Backlog refinement - Reflect Functional & Non-functional Requirements.
Estimating Epics
- Broken down into potential Features during the Portfolio Kanban analysis stage - Potential Features are estimated in Story Points - Feature estimates are aggregated back into the Epic estimate as part of the Lean Business Case
Transformational Leadership - Innovation
- Challenge the Status Quo - Encourage learning, creativity, exploring new ways of doing things - Decentralize decision making - Expect relentless improvement - Encourage innovative thinking - Create a safe environment of mutual influence
CALMR approach to DevOps
- Culture - establish a culture of shared responsibility - Automation - Automate the continuous delivery pipeline - Lean Flow - Keep batch sizes small, limit WIP and provide extreme visibility - Measurement - Measure the flow through the pipeline. Implement application telemetry - Recovery - Architect and enable low-risk releases. Establish fast recovery, fast reversion and fast fix forward
(Test) A Portfolio Epic does what? Need more detail
- Cuts across Value Streams - Delivers Value
Which 2 types of decisions should remain centralized even in a decentralized decision-marking environment?
- Decisions unlikely to change in the short term/in-frequent decision - Decisions that deliver large and broad economic benefits
DevOps goal
- Deliver value more frequently - Ends the Silo approach - Deliver small batches of functionality in a flow process called the Continuous Delivery Pipeline - Improve collaboration between IT and Delivery - Faster time to market - Take an economic view and decentralize decision making applies to DevOps
The program board shows which 2 items?
- Dependencies - Features
ARTs power the Solution Train
- Each ART within A Solution Train contributes to the development of a large solution
What are the top two reasons for adopting agile in a organization?
- Enable changing priorities - Acelerate product delivery
Decouple release elements from the total solution
- End-user functionality (released every 2 weeks) - Security updates (released on demand) - Back-office functionality (released every month) - Entire solution (major release every quarter)
Build quality in
- Ensures every increment of the solution reflects quality standards
Without the IP iteration
- Lack of delivery capacity buffer - Little innovation - Technical debt grows uncontrollably - People burn out - No time for teams to plan, demo or improve together
If small batches go through the system faster with lower variability, then which statements is true about bath size?
- Large batches can cause projects to miss targets
Solution: Lean-Agile budgeting
- Organize and fund value streams - Fund value streams, not projects - Provides for full control of spend, with: - No costly and delay inducing project cost variance analysis - No resource reassignments - No blame game for project overruns
Coordinate and integrate multiple ARTs and suppliers
- Prepare with Pre- and Post-PI Planning meetings - Typically attended by customers, STE, Solution Mgmt, Solution Architects, etc.
Lean portfolio management empowers the portfolio
- Strategy & Investment funding - Lean Governance - Agile Portfolio Operations
What are two ways to describe a cross-funcional Agile Team?
- They can define, build and test - They are optimized for communication and delivery value
IP Iteration Calendar - Innovation & Planning
- Validation (If Shipping) - Innovation/Hackathon/Spikes for next PI - PI Planning Readiness - PI Planning: Continuing Education & I&A Workshop
Four dimensions of a transformational leader
- Vision - Authenticity - Growth - Innovation
CALMR
-Culture of Shared Responsibility -Automation of Continuous Delivery Pipeline -Lean Flow Accelerates Delivery -Measurement of everything -Recovery enables low risk releases
Each Epic
-Has a hypothesis - Defines MVP
What are the three dimensions of lean agile leadership?
-Lead by example -Lead the Change -Mindset and principles
(Test) A Program Epic is within? Need more detail
1 PI
The ways Design Thinking measures success
1) Desirable 2) Feasible 3) Viable 4) Sustainable
Kotter's Steps for Leading Organizational Change
1) Establish a sense of urgency 2) Create a powerful guiding coalition 3) Develop the vision and strategy 4) Communicate the vision 5) Empower employees for broad-base action 6) Generate short-term wins 7) Consolidate gains and produce more wins 8) Anchor new approaches in the culture
SAFe Configurations
1) Full Configuration 2) Large Solution Configuration 3) Portfolio Configuration 4) Essential Configuration
Characteristics of an Innovation Culture
1) Innovative People 2) Time & Space 3) Go See 4) Experimentation & Feedback 5) Pivot Without Mercy or Guilt 6) Innovation Riptides
Dimensions of a Continuous Learning Culture
1) Learning Organization 2) Innovation Culture 3) Relentless Improvement
Six recommended practices for Continuous Development
1) Maintain development and test environments to better match production 2) Maintain a staging environment that emulates production 3) Deploy to staging every iteration 4) Automate testing of features and nonfunctional requirements 5) Automate deployment 6) Decouple deployment from release
SAFe Implementation Roadmap Steps
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 the Implementation Plan 7) Prepare for 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
Critical ART success factors
1) SAFe Lean-Agile Principles 2) Real Agile Teams and Trains 3) Cadence and Synchronization 4) PI Planning 5) Customer Centricity, DevOps and Release on Demand 6) System Demo 7) Inspect & Adapt 8) IP Iteration 9) Architectural Runway 10) Lean-Agile Leadership
The Core Competencies of Business Agility
1) Team and Technical Agility 2) Agile Product Delivery 3) Enterprise Solution Delivery 4) Lean Portfolio Management 5) Organizational Agility 6) Continuous Learning Culture 7) Lean-Agile Leadership
What are the three dimensions of agile product delivery?
1- customer centricity and design thinking, 2- develop on cadence, release on demand, 3- dev ops and the continuous delivery pipeline
What are 3 primary purposes of PI planning?
1- milestone to assess current state of a solution; 2- realigns all stakeholders to a shared tech and biz vision; 3- teams plan and commit to next PI.
A Product Owner can support?
1-2 Teams
In what time increments do agile teams work?
1-2 weeks
What are the 10 SAFe lean agile principles?
1-Take an economic view; 2- apply systems thinking; 3- assume variability and preserve options; 4- build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles; 5- base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems; 6- visualize and limit Work in Progress, reduce batch sizes and manage queue lengths; 7- apply cadence- synchronize with cross domain planning; 8- unlock the motivation of knowledge workers; 9- decentralize decision-making; 10- organize around value
(Test) Strategic Themes influence what 4 things?
1. ART Funding 2. Portfolio Backlog 3. Program Vision 4. Roadmap
Business Needs to Forecast
1. Ability to do effective Agile forecasting is a key economic driver for the enterprise 2. Solution Vision both define and track to enterprise strategy 3. Roadmaps capture strategic intent in forecasted deliverables
(Test) 3 Dimensions/Questions to Measure Progress are?
1. Are we doing what we said (Progress) 2. Are we doing the right things (Product) 3. Are we improving our process (Process)
(Test) 3 things to Motivate?
1. Autonomy 2. Mastery 3. Purpose
How should we measure progress?
1. Base working systems 2. Objective evaluations
Culture is what 6 things?
1. Behaviors 2. Values 3. Processes 4. Habits 5. Rewards & Punishment 6. Leadership
Features have 2 things?
1. Benefits (Justify cost & Business benefit) 2. Acceptance Criteria
2 techniques to avoid physical Branch (Stay on the Mainline)?
1. Branching by Abstraction 2. Feature Toggles
(Test) 4 Core Values of SAFe
1. Built In Quality 2. Program Execution 3. Alignment 4. Transparency
(Test) WSJF Stakeholders are?
1. Business Owners 2. Product Managers 3. Product Owners 4. System Architects (job size) - The job with the Highest WSJF provides the greatest economic benefit.
Split large Value Streams into multiple ARTs?
1. By customer or market segment 2. By Solution Capabilities 3. By sub-systems/applications/components/platform 4. By sub-set value: Enabling flows or Value Stream segments 5. Other: Source of Funding; Location/Geography
(Test) Assume Variability; Preserve Options includes what 5 things?
1. Can't know everything 2. Requirements must be flexible 3. Decision must be flexible 4. Preserve options 5. Improve economic results
(Test) Synchronization does what 5 things?
1. Causes multiple events to happen at same time 2. Cross-Functional tradeoffs 3. Routine Dependency Mgt 4. Supports full system, Integration, & Assessment 5. Provides Multiple Feedback perspectives
(Test) Sprint Goals do what?
1. Communication Vehicle 2. Team Focus 3. What is planned to accomplish in a PI
8 Big Mistakes of Change
1. Complacency 2. No guiding coalition 3. Underestimate power of vision 4. Not communication vision 5. Permitting obstacles 6. Not creating short-term wins 7. Declaring victory to soon 8. Not anchoring changes in the corporate culture
(Test) Cadence does what 6 things?
1. Creates predictable events 2. Lowers Cost 3. Regular Planning & Coordination 4. Limits Batch Size to Single Interval 5. Limits new work and makes it predictable 6. Provides scheduled integration points
(5) Roles in the Large Solution Level:
1. Customer 2. Solution Architect 3. Solution Management 4. Solution Train Engineer 5. Supplier
Capabilities do what 2 things?
1. Cut across Release Trains 2. Fit into 1 PI
Team events include?
1. Daily Stand-up 2. Backlog refinement 3. Team Demo 4. Iteration Retro 5. Iteration Planning
ART Steps to deliver solutions (4)
1. Define new functionality 2. Implement 3. Acceptance Test 4. Deploy
(Test) Cross-Functional Teams do what 3 things?
1. Define, Build and Test a feature or component (DBT) 2. Optimize Communication & Value delivery 3. Deliver every 2 weeks
(Test) PI Demos are orchestrated to deliver what 3 things?
1. Deliver objective progress (Objectives) 2. Product (Performance & Customer Feedback) 3. Process metrics (Improvement Stories)
(Test) 2 mechanisms to measure Value between teams?
1. Delivering on a Cadence 2. Design cycles must be Synchronized
(Test) A Capability is? Know more about Capabilities.
1. Describe Solution behaviors 2. Maintained in the Value Stream backlog & are prioritized using WSJF 3. Must be structured to fit into 1 PI - PI Time Boxed 4. Capabilities are split into Features for implementation
Architecture principles (7)
1. Design emerges. Architecture is a collaboration. 2. The bigger the system, the longer the runway. 3. Build the simplest architecture that can possibly work. 4. When in doubt, code or model it out. 5. They build it, they test it 6. There is no monopoly on innovation 7. Implement architectural flow
(Test) Stretch Objectives means?
1. Don't count in Velocity/Capacity 2. Are Planned 3. Not Committed too 4. Team has Low Confidence to complete, encourage moving to Stretch. - If any items has many unknowns, move it to Stretch & put it in early Spikes
2 types of Agile Architecture
1. Emergent Architecture 2. Intentional Architecture - Every Team deserves to see the bigger picture, Every team is empowered to design their part. - A balance between emergent design & intentional architecture is required for speed of development and maintainability.
Agile Teams are what?
1. Empowered, Self Organizing, Self Managing, cross-functional team. 2. Delivers Valuable, Tested, Working System every 2 wks 3. Uses Team framework which combines the best of Scrum project mgt, XP inspired technical practices, and Kanban for Flow 4. Value Delivery via User Stories 5. Operates with Vision 6. Common Iteration lengths & estimating 7. Face-to-face planning for collaboration, alignment, & adaption 8. Value Delivery via Features & Benefits
Business Results (4 Areas)
1. Engagement 2. Time to market 3. Quality 4. Productivity
Building Quality in includes what (Built-in Quality)?
1. Ensures every increment of the solution reflects quality standards 2. Is required for high, sustainable development velocity 3. Software quality practices (most inspired by XP) include Continuous Integration, Test-First, Refactoring, Pair-Work, Collective Ownership, and more... 4. Hardware quality is supported by exploratory, early iterations, frequent system level integration, design verification, MBSE and Set-based Design.
Portfolio Content Authorities?
1. Epic Owners 2. Program Portfolio Mgt 3. Enterprise Architect
Manage Queue Lengths has what 4 things?
1. Epics (Portfolio Backlog) 2. Capabilities (Value Stream Backlog) 3. Features (Program Backlog) 4. Stories (Team Backlog) - Refinement is down and across all 4 above.
Estimating Epics in SAFe
1. Epics are broken down into potential Features during the Portfolio Kanban Analysis Stage 2. Potential Features are estimated in story Points - Typically performed at the PM-System Architect level, based on history & relative size 3. Feature Estimates are aggregated back into the Epic estimate as part fo the lightweight business case.
Portfolio Backlog holds Epics approved for Implementation
1. Epics have made it through the Portfolio Kanban with Go Approval 2. Low Cost holding pattern for upcoming implementation work 3. Sizing Estimates are in Story Points 4. Avoid Excess WIP, await implementation capacity
(Test - exactly) Enablers support 3 types of work?
1. Exploration 2. Architecture 3. Infrastructure - Enabler Stories get Points & Demo
(4) Goals of PI
1. Facilitate planning 2. Limit WIP 3. Summarize newsworthy value for feedback 4. Assure consistent, Program Level retrospectives
(2) effects of cadence
1. Fast synced short iterations that are integrated into larger PIs 2. Assures important events like PI Planning, System and Solution Demos and A&I happen or a regular, predictable schedule
(Test) Feature Teams has 3 things?
1. Fastest Velocity 2. Minimize Dependencies 3. Develop T-shaped skills
(Test) The Program Board includes what 3 things?
1. Feature Delivery 2. Dependencies 3. Milestones - Use in Scrum of Scrums - Can have Feature to Feature dependencies
(Test) A Team can be organized around what 2 things?
1. Features 2. Components - Optimize for the larger purpose: Maximize velocity by minimizing dependencies and handoffs, while sustaining architectural robustness & system qualities. - Less desirable to organize a team around: 1. Architectural layer 2. Platform, middleware, UI, DB, business logic 3. Programming language, spoken language, technology, location
(Test) The 4 Problems of Phase Gate Milestones?
1. Forces early design decisions 2. Assumes a "point" solutions exists an is right the 1st time 3. Creates huge batches & long queues 4. Centralizes requirements & design in program mgt.
(Test) De-Centralized decision making includes what 3 things?
1. Frequent & common (ex: team & program backlog) 2. Time Critical (ex: point release to customer) 3. Require local information (ex: Feature criteria)
(Test) Kanban Value Stream: Epics go through 3 steps?
1. Funnel 2. Review 3. Analysis - Capabilities of Kanban is managed by Solution Mgt - Analysis refines business benefit, acceptance criteria, gross estimate, WSJF. - Prioritize Capabilities can go through implementing & completion.
(Test) What are the 7 states of Kanban? Need to know more of each of the 7 states.
1. Funnel (All big ideas welcome) 2. Review (Epic Value Statement & calculate WSJF) 3. Analysis (light weight business case for ROI) - Go/No Go Decision 5. Portfolio Backlog (Epics approved by PPM) 6. Implementation 7. Done (Epic criteria met)
Lean Budget Guardrails
1. Guiding investments by the horizon. This ensures portfolio investments in solutions are aligned with the right allocations in SAFe's four investment horizons—evaluating, emerging, investing and extracting, and retiring. 2. Applying capacity allocation to optimize value and solution integrity. This helps value streams determine how much of the total capacity should be allocated for each type of activity (e.g., epics, features, enablers, tech debt, and maintenance). 3. Approving significant initiatives. Epics above a predefined threshold must be approved by LPM to provide appropriate financial oversight. Example thresholds
(Test) Component Teams has 2 things?
1. High reuse, high technical specialization, critical NFRs 2. Create each component as a "potentially replaceable part of the system, with well-defined interfaces".
(Test) Features are?
1. Identified 2. Prioritized 3. Estimated 4. Maintained in Program Backlog
(Test) Reducing Batch Size does what 4 things?
1. Increases Predictability 2. Accelerates Feedback 3. Reduces rework 4. Lowers cost It probably saves twice what you think.
Agile Manifesto (4) parts:
1. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools 2. Working software over comprehensive documentation 3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation 4. Responding to change over following a plan
(Test) 4 keys of the Agile Manifesto?
1. Individuals/interactions over processes & tools 2. working software over comprehensive documentation 3. customer collaboration over contract negotiation 4. respond to change over following a plan.
(Test) Centralized decision making includes what 3 things?
1. Infrequent 2. Long Lasting 3. Significant economies of scale
(Test) Retrospective has 2 parts?
1. Inspect & Adapt 2. Problem Solving Workshop
(Test) Epics deserve a light weight Business Case. Should include what 6 things?
1. Just the right amount of analysis 2. Avoid over-specificity 3. Understand ROI 4. Understand Implementation Impact 5. Develop incremental implementation strategy 6. Gain Approval
(Test) The Agile PMO does what 6 things?
1. Leads the Lean-Agile transformation 2. Applies Objective Milestones 3. Leads the move to Lean-Agile Budgeting 4. Coaches ARTs in effective practices 5. Fosters Agile Contracts 6. Develops Lean models for Supplier and Customer partnerships.
(3) Roles in the Portfolio Level
1. Lean Portfolio Management 2. Epic Owners 3. Enterprise Architect
(Test) Long Queues create what 5 things?
1. Longer Cycle times 2. Increased Risk 3. More Variability 4. Lower Quality 5. Less Motivation
Portfolio Kanban system manages the Flow of Epics:
1. Makes largest business initiatives visible 2. Brings structure to analysis & decision making 3. Provides WIP limits to ensure the teams analyze responsibly 4. Helps prevent unrealistic expectations 5. Helps drive collaboration amongst key stakeholders 6. Provides a transparent & quantitative basis for economic decision making.
Solution Portfolio Strategy Formulation
1. Mission, Vision, Core Values 2. Portfolio Context 3. Competitive Environment 4. $ money 5. Enterprise Business Drivers 6. Financial Goals Total Enterprise Budget = Investment in Program Portfolio - Drive Portfolio Budgets - Portfolio Strategic Themes
Realize Value Streams via ARTs
1. Multiple, smaller Value Streams can be realized by a single ART 2. Some Value Streams fit well w/in the limit, and can be realized by a single ART (i.e. System) 3. Larger Value Streams require multiple ARTs (Large Solution)
Outputs of the SAFe process are?
1. Objectives - team is comfortable to complete 2. Stretch Objectives - team is not comfortable to complete
(Test) Team Backlog does/includes what?
1. Organizes the Team's work 2. All Things 3. Opportunities (Not Commitments) 4. May be Estimated 5. Single Owner - Product Owner 6. Driven by Program Priorities
(Test) 3 parts of Inspect & Adapt Workshop?
1. PI Predictability Quantitative Measure (80-100%) 2. System Demo PI 3. Problem Solving Workshop (Root Cause Analysis) - Attendees: Teams & Stakeholders
4 types of Epics?
1. Portfolio Epics (cut across trains) 2. Program Epics (can be implemented in a single train) 3. Business Epics (customer facing) 4. Enabler Epics (enable solutions to address bus needs) - Are developed & analyzed in the Portfolio Kanban System
SAFe set of connected Kanban Systems?
1. Portfolio Kanban 2. Value Stream Kanban 3. Program Kanban 4. Team Kanban
The PM/PO team steers the Train
1. Product Manager owns the Program Backlog (content authority for the Release train). 2. Product Owner owns the Team Backlog 3. Team implements Value
(Test) Who are the Content Authorities at the Portfolio Level?
1. Program Portfolio Mgt 2. Epic Owner 3. Enterprise Architect
The Team Iteration Demo provides?
1. Provides the true measure of progress by showing working software functionality, hardware components, etc. 2. Preparation for the demo starts with planning. 3. Teams demonstrate every Story, Spike, Refactor, and NFR 4. Attendees are the Team and its Stakeholders.
Plan & Commit has 4 steps?
1. Purpose (Define & commit what will be built in the iteration 2. Process (Product Owner defines What; Team defines how & how much) 3. Result (Iteration goals & backlog of the Team's commitment) 4. Reciprocal Commitment (team commits to delivering specific priorities; Business commits to leaving priorities unchanged during the Iteration)
(Test) ART roles include? Know the what each role does & why.
1. RTE acts as Chief Scrum Master 2. Product Management (Content owner): owns, defines, & prioritizes the Program Backlog. 3. System Architect/Engineer (Technical Solution Owner): provides architectural guidance & technical enablement to the teams on the train. 4. System Team (Makes sure Features come together): provides processes & tools to integrate & evaluate assets early & often. 5. Business Owner (Makes sure the train delivers the value the business needs): Key stakeholders on the Agile release train.
(Test) PO Sync does what 4 things?
1. Refines Backlog 2. Resolves Issues 3. Roadmap 4. Vision Updates
Program Events include?
1. Release Mgt Meetings 2. System Demo 3. Prepare for PI Planning 4. Inspect & Adapt 5. PI Planning - Program events create a closed loop system to keep the train on the tracks.
(Test) What does ROAM stand for to address program risks? When do you use it?
1. Resolved 2. Owned 3. Accepted (Business Owner Accepts) 4. Mitigated - Review in Scrum of Scrums
Difference between funding in SAFe and Non-SAFe environments?
1. SAFe = Fund Value Stream 2. Non-SAFe = Fund Project
(Test) 3 SCRUM roles are?
1. Scrum Master 2. Product Owner 3. Agile Team
When would you use Kanban & Scrum together?
1. Scrum is the best choice for new features 2. Kanban for small changes and defect resolution 3. Produces a sense of continuous product "flow" with frequent delivery. - Visualize & Limit WIP; Reduce Batch Size; Manage Queue Lengths.
Economics based decisions (5 things) are?
1. Sequence jobs for Max. benefit 2. Don't consider money already spent 3. Make Economic choices continuously 4. Empower Local decision making 5. Quantify cost of Delay
5 "key" things when considering Economics?
1. Sequence jobs for max benefit 2. Do not consider Money already spent 3. Make economic choices continuously 4. Empower local decision making 5. Quantify the Cost of Delay
4 things to Facilitate Continuous Integration?
1. Single Branch Development 2. Frequent Checking 3. Full Stack of User Slices 4. STUB - Development by Intention
(Test) Backlog contains User Stories which are?
1. Small increments of Value 2. Easy to estimate 3. Just in time 4. No large documents 5. May be safely discarded after implementation
I&A Workshop at the Value Stream Level has 3 parts?
1. Solution Demo 2. Retrospective 3. Problem Solving Workshop Attendees: RTEs, Value Stream Engineers, System/Solution Architects, Product & Solution Mgt, Customers, Portfolio stakeholders may attend.
System Thinking has 3 things?
1. Solution itself is a system 2. The Enterprise building the system is a system 3. Optimize the full value stream
(Test) Every PI (Program Increment) does what 2 things?
1. Solving the problem via process 2. Improving the Process
(Test) PPM (Program Portfolio Management) 3 responsibilities? Who attends and purpose?
1. Strategy & Investment Funding 2. Program Management 3. Governance
Business Context SWOT stands for?
1. Strengths 2. Weaknesses 3. Opportunities 4. Threats - Presented by the Executive
(Test) Where are Buffers build into SAFe? Know more about Buffers.
1. Stretch Goals 2. HIP Sprints
(4) Roles at the Program Level
1. System Architect/Engineer 2. Product Manager 3. RTE 4. Business Owners
(Test) PI Planning process Outputs
1. Team & Program PI Objectives 2. Program Board
Building the Release (4) increments
1. Team Increment 2. System Increment 3. Solution Increment 4. Release Increment
SAFe definition of Done has 4 things?
1. Team Increment: - Stories satisfy acceptance criteria - Acceptance tests passed - Unit & component tests coded, passed, & included in BVT - Assets under version control - Cumulative unit tests passed - Engineering standards followed - NFRs met - No Must-Fix defects - Stories accepted by Product Owner 2. System Increment - Stories completed by all teams in the ART & Integrated - Competed Features meet Acceptance Criteria - NFRs met - No Must-Fix defects - Verification & validation of key scenarios - Included in build definition & deployment process - Increment demonstrated, feedback achieved - Accepted by Product Mgt 3. Solution Increment - Capabilities completed by all trains & meet acceptance criteria - Deployed/Installed in the staging environment - NFRs met - System end-to-end integration, verification, & validation done - No must-fix defects - Included in build definition & deployment/transition process - Documentation updated - Solution demonstrated, feedback achieved - Accepted by Solution Mgt 4. Release - All Capabilities done & meet acceptance criteria - end-to-end integration & solution V&V done - Regression testing done - NFRs met - No Must-Fix defects - Release documentation complete - All standards met - Approved by Solution & Release Mgt.
Final Plan Review is done by who?
1. Teams 2. Business Owners Agenda: - changes to Velocity/Capacity - Final PI Objectives w/Business Value - Program Risks & Impediments - Q & A
(Test) Features are described by?
1. Teams on the train deliver 2. Implemented incrementally via Stories 3. Deliver stories on a regular Cadence 4. Features fit into 1 PI for 1 ART 5. Stories fit into 1 Iteration for 1 Team
If a situation arises that some of the Features on the Roadmap can not be implemented?
1. The RTE know this early because he is in frequent contact with product owners, scrum masters and teams 2. The RTE chooses the most relevant features
The Purpose of Solution Intent?
1. Track History to hand-off 2. All parties are aligned 3. Compliance & Traceability 4. Single Source of Truth
(Test) Value Streams are what 2 things?
1. Typically Permanent 2. Via Epics decide investment amount of each Value Stream
(Test) 3 Components of Cost of Delay?
1. User and Business Value 2. Time Criticality (value decays over time) 3. Risk Reduction & Opportunity Enablement (RR & OE)
(Test) 3 components of Cost of Delay?
1. User and Business Value (User) - Value to the customer or business (preference, Revenue Impact, Penalty or other negative impacts) 2. Time Criticality (User) - User/Business Value decays over time (fixed deadline, will wait or move to another solution, current effect on customer satisfaction) 3. (RR&OE)Risk Reduction & Opportunity Enablement (Producer) - What else does this do for our business (Reduce risk of this or future delivery, is there value in the info. we will receive, enable new bus. opportunities)
The Value Stream has 3 primary roles?
1. Value Stream Engineer (Execution) 2. Solution Management (Content) 3. Solution Architect/Engineer (Technical Content)
(Test) Agile Release Train includes what?
1. Virtual organization of 5-12 teams (50-125pp) 2. Program Increment (PI) is a fixed timebox (10 wks avg) 3. Synchronized Iterations & PIs 4. Aligned to a common mission via Single Program Backlog 5. Operates under architectural & UX guidance 6. Frequently produces valuable & evaluable system-level solutions
(Test) PI Planning process Inputs
1. Vision 2. Top 10 Features
(Test) Use Kanban to improve flow by?
1. Visualize Workflow (ready states help show bottlenecks) 2. Establish WIP Limits 3. Use Buffers to control Variability 4. Apply classes of service to improve responsiveness 5. Measure flow with Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) 6. Continuously improve based on empirical flow data Flow: - Team Backlog - Analyze - Subject Matter Expert - Build - Integrate & Test - Accepted
(Test) Estimate Stories w/relative story points based on?
1. Volume 2. Complexity 3. Knowledge 4. Uncertainty
To Optimize Flow, you should visualize and limit ____________ and reduce _______________ and manage ____________________.
1. WIP 2. Batch Sizes 3. Manage Queue Lengths
(Test) PI Planning Meeting Retrospective
1. What went well 2. What didn't 3. What can we do better next time
Forecast provides what 2 things?
1. Where you are Heading 2. What you are Planning
Agile Manifesto: 12 areas
1. satisfy customer, 2. welcome change, 3. deliver frequently, 4. work together, 5. build around motivated people, 6. face-to-face conversation, 7. working software measures progress, 8. sustainable development, 9. technical excellence, 10. simplicity, 11. self-organized teams, 12. reflect & adjust.
SAFe Lean-Agile Principles (10 total)
1.- Take an economic view. 2.- Apply systems thinking. 3.- Assume variability; preserve options. 4.- Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles. 5.- Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems. 6.- Visualize and limit Work In Process (WIP), reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths. 7.- Apply cadence; synchronize with cross-domain planning. 8.- Unlock the motivation of knowledge workers. 9.- Decentralize decision-making. 10.- Organize around value.
How many principles of the agile manifesto are there?
12
What is the last step in Kotter's approach to change management?
1: Create Urgency. 2: Form a Powerful Coalition 3: Create a Vision for Change. 4: Communicate the Vision 5: Remove Obstacles 6: Create Short-Term Wins 7: Build on the Change 8: Anchor the Changes in Corporate Culture
A Product Manager can support?
2-4 Product Owners
(Test) Where do we start to ID Multiple Value Streams?
4 Dimensions? Significant Opportunity, Clear products/solutions, Leadership support, Collaborating Teams.
Cadence
5 Sprints per increment Develop on cadence; release on demand
How big are agile teams?
5-11 people
How large is an agile release train?
50-125 people
Estimating story points: largest point is__________--
8
How many elements are in the spanning palette?
8
Which two quality practices apply to Agile teams? (Choose two.)
???
Features happen within?
A Program Increment
Program Increment (PI) Planning
A cadence-based event that serves as the heartbeat of the Agile Release Train (ART), aligning all the teams on the ART to a shared mission and Vision.
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)
A comprehensive model called to prioritize work based on the economics of product development flow. Is calculated by dividing the Cost of Delay (CoD) of a job by the duration. Jobs that can deliver the most val- ue (or CoD) in the shortest period are typically selected
Agile Product Delivery
A customer-centric approach to defining, building, and releasing a continuous flow of valuable products and services to customers and users. (Business Agility Core Competency).
Design Thinking
A customer-centric development process that creates desirable products that are profitable and sustainable over their lifecycle.
Vision
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 is gemba?
A go-see where the products and solutions are created and used (no useful improvement was ever invented at a desk)
Capability
A higher-level solution behavior that typically spans multiple ARTs. A ____________ is sized and split into multiple features to facilitate their implementation in a single PI.
SAFe for Lean Enterprises
A knowledge base of proven, integrated principles, practices, and competencies for achieving Business Agility by implementing Lean, Agile, and DevOps at scale.
Scrum Masterr
A member of the agile team, they are servant leaders and the Agile Team coach. They help remove impediments, facilitate team events and foster and environment for high performing teams
Customer Centricity
A mindset and a way of doing business that focuses on creating positive experiences for the customer through the full set of products and services that the enterprise offers.
DevOps
A mindset, a culture, and a set of technical practices, that provides communication, integration, automation, and close cooperation among all the people needed to plan, develop, test, deploy, release, and maintain a Solution.
What is a minimum viable product?
A minimal version of a new product used to test a hypothesis
Transformational leadership
A model in which leaders inspire and motivate followers to achieve high performance
Capabilities are expressed using:
A phrase and a benefit hypothesis
Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)
A prioritization model used to sequence jobs (e.g., Features, Capabilities, and Epics) to produce maximum economic benefit.
Roadmap
A schedule of events and milestones that communicate planned solution deliverables over a timeline. Includes commitments for the planned, upcoming PI and offers visibility into deliverable forecasted for the next few PIs
Feature
A service that fulfills a stakeholder need. Each _______ 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).
Feature
A service that fulfills a stakeholder need. Each ____________ includes a benefit hypothesis and acceptance criteria, and is sized or split as necessary to be delivered by a single ART in a PI
Objectives represent what?
A set of Features you are Planning to do
Committed PI Objectives
A set of SMART objectives that are created by each team with the business value assigned by the business owners
Continuous Learning Culture
A set of values and practices that encourage individuals—and the enterprise as a whole—to continually increase knowledge, competence, performance, and innovation.
Agile Architecture
A set of values and practices that support the active evolution of the design and architecture of a system while implementing new system capabilities
Features fit in to?
A single PI (Program Increment)
Business Owners:
A small group of stakeholders who have the primary business and technical responsibility for fitness for use, governance, ROI etc. They are the key stakeholders on the ART.
The "flow" principle of the SAFe house of lean means that?
A team at whatever level of scrum tackles tasks and problems in a short concentrated effort whenever possible
Which statement correctly describes one aspect of the team's commitment at the end of PI Planning?
A team does not commit to uncommitted objectives
PI
A timeline during which an ART delivers incremental value in the form of working, tested software and systems--this is like the sprint/iteration in an Agile TEa,
Automate Everything - DevOps Tools
ALM - CA Agile Central, Version One, Agile Craft Build - Ant, Maven, Bamboo, Jenkins Continuous Integration (CI) - CruiseControl, Jenkins, Continuum Continuous Development - Capistrano, UrbanCode, Ansible, Puppet
Control costs with increased flexibility
ART budgets and resources are unaffected by Features cost overruns or changing priorities - Delay feature as necessary
Reasons for adopting Agile - Top 3
Accelerate Product Delivery Enhance ability to manage changing priorities Increase Productivity
Agile Definition of done
Acceptance criteria have been met, tests are automated, all tests have been passed, NFRs have been met, no must fix defects, relevant documentation updated. These DOD agreements line teams around what quality means and how it is built into the solution.
House of Lean: VALUE (the Roof) means?
Achieve sustainably shortest lead time: Best quality & value to people & society; High morale , safety and customer delight.
Consider facts carefully then
Act quickly
Vision Inspires what?
Action - Will our Solution solve larger customer problems - How will it differentiate us - Future context our solution will operate - What is current business context and must we evolve to meet future state
RTE
Acts as the Chief Scrum Master
Dynamic budgeting
Adjust budgets dynamically to meet changing business needs
On day two of PI Planning, management presents adjustments based on the previous day's management review and problem solving meeting. What is one possible type of adjustment they could make?
Adjust business priorities
A in PDCA:
Adjust: Inspect and Adapt. Reflect and ID improvement backlog items via a structured and problem-solving workshop
PI Management Review
After PI Planning Day 1, Management meets to adjust as needed. What did we just learn? Adjust Vision, Scope, Resources? Bottlenecks? Decisions that need to be made before tomorrow?
ART
Agile Release Train, primary vehicles for value delivery at the program level. Delivers a value stream for the organization.
What is the basic building block when organizing around value?
Agile Teams
Primary bodies of knowledge on which SAFe is based
Agile development, systems thinking, Lean product development, and DevOps.
Build cross functional Agile teams
Agile teams are cross-functional, self organizing Optimized for communication Deliver value every 2 weeks
What is the continuous delivery pipeline?
Agile teams use it to ensure flow: new pieces of functionality are ushered through from ideation to on-demand release of value to the customer. Small features go through this pipeline to provide feedback and allow course correction
Who facilitates Agile Release Train execution?
Agile teams, plus: Release train engineer, product management, system architect/ engineering, business owners, customers, (sometimes: system teams and shared services)
Metrics
Agreed upon measures used to evaluate how well the organization is progressing toward the portfolio, large solution, program and team's business and technical objectives
What is the primary focus of lean portfolio management?
Align strategy and execution
(4) Core Values of SAFe
Alignment Built-in Quality Transparency Program Execution
SAFe Core Values
Alignment, Built-in Quality, Transparency, Program Execution
What are SAFe core values?
Alignment, quality, transparency, program execution
What aid DevOps?
Aligns dev, ops, biz, info security, alert by sharing work and responsibility for accelerating delivery
Lean Portfolio Management
Aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking approaches to strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and governance.
What is considered an anti-pattern when assigning business values to team PI Objectives?
All PI Objectives are given a value of 10
Epic
An _________________ 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, an _______________ requires the definition of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and approval by Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) before implementation.
What is DevOps
An agile approach to bridge the gap between development and operations to deliver value faster and more reliably
What happens during PI planning?
An agile team reviews and estimates stories, defines acceptance criteria, splits into smaller stories as needed, determines what they can deliver during iteration based on story points, commits to iteration goals
Minimal Viable Product (MVP)
An early and minimal version of a new product or business solution that is used to prove or disprove the epic hypothesis.
Transparency
An enabler of trust.
System Increment
An integrated stack of new functionality, representing all the backlog items completed by the ART during the current and previous iterations
What is the last step in Kotter's approach to change management?
Anchor new approaches in the culture
Planning Adjustments PI Planning (Day 2)
Any changes to planning scope and resource constraints, dependencies and people
Avoid organizing Teams around what?
Architectural Layers
Measurements
Are an important part of DevOps
ART Budgets and Resources
Are unaffected by Feature Cost overruns or changing priorities. - Fixed Cost per PI - Scope Varies
User voice statement:
As a (user role), I want (activity) to _________ so that (business value)
How is a user story framed
As a (user role), I want (activity) to, so that (business value)
Program Performance Reporting
As part of the Solution Demo, Teams compare Planned vs. Actual PI Objectives. - Teams meet with their Business Owners to self-asses the business value they achieved for each objective. - Each Team's planned vs. Actual Business Value is then rolled up to the Program Level in the Program Predictability measure.
Program performance reporting
As part of the solution demo, teams compare planned vs. actual PI objectives
A Roadmap does what?
Assigns Business Value to Features & Objectives
Iteration Retrospective means?
At regular intervals, the Team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. - Quantitative: Did the team meet its goals, collect & review agreed-to iteration metrics. - Qualitative: what went well, What Didn't, What can we do better next time.
PI system demo
At the end of a PI, teams demonstrate the current state of the solution to the appropriate stakeholders
PI System Demo
At the end of the PI, teams demonstrate the current state of the Solution to the appropriate stakeholders. - Often led by Product Management, POs, and the System Team - Attended by Business Owners, Program Stakeholders, Product Mgt, RTE, Scrum Masters, & Teams.
What are the characteristics of a generative culture?
Authenticity, emotional intelligence, lifelong learning, growing others, decentralized decision making
Automation of continuous deliveyr pipeline:
Automate everything mindset because manual processes are the enemy of fast value delivery
Test First
Automate now Automated tests are implemented in the same iteration as the functionality
Measure the Flow of the Value through Telemetry
Automated collection of real-time data regarding the performance of solutions - helps to quickly assess the impact of frequent application changes
House of Lean Flow
Avoid start and sop Build quality in Integrate frequently Fast feedback
(Test) Energy we want a team to develop?
Ba - Fuel of Ba is it's self-organizing nature - Ba is energized with intentions, vision, interest, & mission
Portfolio Canvas
Based on the Business Model Canvas; defines Development Value Streams that are included in the SAFe portfolio, the value propositions and the Solutions they deliver, the customers they serve, the budgets allocated to each value stream, and other key activities and events required to achieve the portfolio vision.
Capacity
Based on your velocity, how many story points you're planning for--accounts for setbacks like PTO
House of Lean Purpose
Best quality High morale
BVIR
Big Visible Information Radar
BVIR stands for?
Big Visible Information Radiator - this facilitates flow and helps Visualize & limit WIP.
Flow:
Build a foundation for value delivery. Establish a continuous _____________ of work that supports incremental value delivery from constant feedback and adjustment. Faster value delivery, better built in quality practices, relentless improvement and evidence based governance
Respect for People and Culture:
Build partnerships on trust and mutual respect
Release Increment
Building solutions incrementally affect this increment as a whole. All capabilities are finished and they meet acceptance critera
What is defined as the ability to complete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunity?
Business Agility
(Test) Product Management
Business Content Owner
(Test) The Business Owner provides what?
Business Context
Who are the key stakeholders on the ART?
Business Owners
What is considered an anti-pattern when assigning business values to team PI Objectives?
Business Owners assign high values to important enabler work
Business Value with PI Objectives:
Business Owners collaboratively assign bv to each of the team's individual objectives in a face to face convo--communicates the strategy and context behind these weighting decisions
WSJF Stakeholders
Business Owners, Product Managers, Product Owners, System Architects
What does a day 1 agenda of PI planning typically comprise?
Business context (biz owner or at exec), product vision (by upcoming features, presented by PM), architecture vision and dev practices (systems architect/ engineering or cto), planning context (RTE), team breakouts (capacity, backlog, plans, for each iteration), draft plan review, mgmt review and problem solving
(Agile principle) who must work together throughout the project? With what frequency?
Business people and developers- daily!
PI Objectives
Business summaries of what each team intends to deliver in the upcoming PI Typically map to features, but now always
How does SAFe provide a second operating system that enables Business Agility?
By focusing on customers, products, innovation, and growth
What is one-way Lean agile leaders lead by example?
By modeling SAFe's lean agile mindset, values, principle and practices.
PRINCIPLE #10: ORGANIZE AROUND VALUE
By organizing the enterprise around the flow of value instead of the traditional organizational silos, SAFe provides a second, networked operating system + Faster learning + Shorter time to market + Higher quality + Higher productivity + Leaner budgeting mechanisms
What are five concepts of DevOps
CALMR Culture of shared responsibility Automation of continuous delivery pipeline Lean Flow Measurement of everything Recovery enables low-risk releases
SAFe's approach to DevOps
CALMR 1) Culture of shared responsibility 2) Automation of continuous delivery pipeline 3) Lean flow accelerates delivery 4) Measurement of everything 5) Recovery enables low risk releases
How do we measure Flow?
CFD (Cumulative Flow Diagram)
Each PI uses ___________________ and _________________
Cadence and syncronization
(Test) PI Planning is what?
Cadence based and are the "Pacemaker" of the Agile Enterprise. - 2 days every 8-12 wks - Everyone attends in-person. - Backlog Items get Committed - Product Mgt owns Feature priorities - Development teams own Story planning & high-level estimates - Architect/Engineering & UX work as intermediaries for governance, interfaces, & dependencies.
Apply cadence, synchronize with cross domain planning
Cadence creates predictability and provides a rhythm for development. Synchronization causes multiple perspectives to be understood, resolved and integrated at the same time
PRINCIPLE #7: APPLY CADENCE; SYNCHRONIZE WITH CROSS-DOMAIN PLANNING
Cadence makes routine everything that can be routine so teams can focus on managing the variable parts of solution development. Synchronization allows multiple solution perspectives to be understood, resolved, and integrated at the same time.
PI Planning
Cadence-based PI planning meetings are the pacemaker of the Agile Enterprise - Two days every 8-12 weeks. 10 weeks typical - Everyone attends if possible - Product Management owns the features if possible - Development owns Story Planning and HLE - Arch/Eng and US work as intermediaries for governance, interfaces and dependencies
What has dependence on the Solution Kanban
Capability
(Agile principle) what do agile processes harness for the customer's competitive advantage?
Change / welcome changing requirements
C in PDCA
Check: System Demo
Solution Architect/Engineer
Collaboratively defines the technology and architecture that connects the solutions across ARTs
PI Final Plan
Collected at the front of the room Reviewed by all teams Business owners asked if they accept the plans If so, okay. If not, continue to plan.
What must management do for a successful Agile transformation?
Commit to quality and be the change agent in the system
Last step in Sprint Planning?
Commitment
What's the output of PI Planning? (2)
Committed PI Objectives and a Program Board
Responsibilities SPCs can take on to drive? Why?
Communication, Form the team, Teach leaders & stakeholders, Train the Teams, Launch ARTs, Coach ARTs, Scale wins. Why? Connect the dots in the enterprise.
PI - Confidence Vote
Completed after dependencies are resolved and risks are addressed Range of 1-5 1 = No confidence 5 = Very high confidence
What is an example of applying cadence and synchronization in SAFe?
Conducting a PI planning meeting
Fist of Five is a ?
Confidence Vote 1 = Low Confidence 5 = High Confidence
(Test) Strategic Themes do what? Know the 3 items and more detail.
Connect each SAFe portfolio to the enterprise business strategy. Influence: 1. ART Funding 2. Portfolio Backlog 3. Program Vision & Roadmap - Assist with Epic evaluation & decision making
SAFe Implementation Roadmap
Consists of an overview graphic and a twelve-article series that describes a strategy and an ordered set of activities that have proven to be effective in successfully implementing SAFe.
Architectural Runway
Consists of the existing code, components and technical infrastructure needed to implement near-term features without excessive redesign and delay
Solution Train Inspect & Adapt
Consists of three parts: 1) Solution Demo 2) Retrospective 3) Problem-solving workshop
(Test) House of Lean: Relentless Improvement means?
Constant sense of danger, optimize the whole, consider facts quickly then act quickly, apply lean tools, reflect at key milestones.
Continuous Exploration:
Continually exploring the market and user needs and defining a vision, roadmap and a set of features of address those needs
What is one Guardrail on Lean Budget spend?
Continuous Business Owner engagement
What is one Guardrail on Lean Budget spend? Learning Milestones as objective measurements Participatory budgeting Spending caps for each Agile Release Train Continuous Business Owner engagement
Continuous Business Owner engagement
What is one component of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline?
Continuous Exploration
Components of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline
Continuous Exploration (CE) Continuous Integration (CI) Continuous Delivery (CD) Release on Demand (RoD)
What is one component of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline?
Continuous Exploration (CE), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), and Release on Demand.
(4) parts to the continuous delivery pipeline
Continuous Exploration, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, Release on Demand
If a program repeatedly shows separate Feature branches rather than a true System Demo, which practice should be reviewed to address the issue?
Continuous Integration
(Agile principle) what enhances agility?
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design
What are the three core elements of the continuous delivery pipeline?
Continuous exploration, continuous integration, continuous deployment- as realized by an Agile Release Train
System Increment
Continuous functionality building
(Test) House of Lean: FLOW means?
Continuous sustainable throughput of value, avoid start-stop-start delays, build in quality, understand & manage variability, integrate frequently, informed decision making via fast feedback.
ARTs
Continuously deliver value 5 - 12 teams (50 - 125+ individuals) Common cadence, PI Common mission, Program Backlog
ARTs
Continuously deliver value Continuous Exploration Continuous Integration Continuous Deployment
Having Budgets for Development, testing etc. does what?
Contradicts Agile
Little's Law: Control Wait Time by ____________________
Controlling Queue Length
What is weighted shortest job first?
Cost of Delay / job duration (SAFe uses relative job size as a proxy for duration).
Cost of Delay:
Cost of not getting the product out immediately, aka how important it is to get it done now
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM):
Create a standardized environment for communication and collaboration between development
Agile team
Cross functional and self-organizing. Can define, build and test valuable things Applied Agile SW Engineering practices with XP, Scrum and Kanban Delivers value every 2 weeks
Release Management Team
Cross functional teams that approves frequent releases of quality solutions to customers.
(Test) Scrum includes a?
Cross-Functional Team of 5-9 people
The Agile Release Train uses which type of teams to get work done?
Cross-functional teams
Agile Manifesto: _________________________ over contract negotiation
Customer Collaboration
A business epic is for:
Customer Facing
What is DSU?
Daily stand up employed by agile teams during an iteration period to remove blockers and reports on advancement in iteration goals
(Test) Principle#3: Assume Variability & Preserve Options means? Know more about it.
Defer commitment to the last possible moment Traditional design and life-cycle practices encourage choosing a single design-and-requirements option too early in the development process. Unfortunately, if that starting point proves to be the wrong choice, then future adjustments take too long and can lead to a suboptimal outcome.
Decentralize decision making
Define economic logic behind a decision Empower others to actually make them
Pivot or Preserve (Preserve)
Define features to further develop and refine innovation
Epic
Define large development initiatives that encapsulate the new development necessary to realize the benefits of investment themes
(Test) De-Centralize Decision Making defines what?
Define the economic logic behind a decision; empower others to actually make them
DBT
Define, Test, Build teams comprised of 5-9 members that deliver working, fully tested software every two weeks
(Test) What is Purpose of Little's Law?
Defines the relationship between Work in Progress (WIP), Throughput and Lead Time. It is the reason why Kanban teams try to limit WIP. 1. Reduce Queue Lengths 2. Faster processing time decreases wait 3. Control wait times by controlling queue lengths
Optimizing flow means identifying what?
Delays
How can trust be gained between the business and development?
Deliver predictability
SAFe's first lean agile principle includes "Deliver early and often" and what else?
Deliver value incrementally
What is the biggest benefit of decentralized decision-making?
Delivering value in the shortest sustainable lead time
Demo
Demo the full system increment every two weeks - Features are functionally complete or toggled so not to disrupt the demonstrable functionality - New Features work together, and with existing functionality - Happens after the team' demo (may lag by as much as one iteration) - Demo from a staging environment, resemble production as much as possible
System Demo every 2 weeks (throughout PI).
Demonstrate the Full Solution Increment to Stakeholders every Iteration. - An Integrated Solution Demo - Happens after the Teams Demo (may lag by as mush as 1 Iteration, max) - Demo from the staging environment, or the nearest proxy.
DevOps
Deployment and Operations--end the silo approach by providing an enterprise with the ability to develop and release small batches of functionality to this business or customer
What do enabler stories do?
Describe work needed to build architectural runway for dev and delivery of future business features
Acceptance Criteria includes what?
Describes each Feature in a short phrase, with a statement of Benefits
Enterprise Solution Delivery
Describes how to apply Lean-Agile principles and practices to specification, development, deployment, operation, and evolution of the world's largest and most sophisticated software applications, networks, and cyber-physical systems. (Business Agility Core Competency)
Capability
Describes the higher level behavior of a solution
How does design thinking measure success of products or solutions?
Desirability, feasibility, viability, sustainability
Design Thinking identifies at least four new ways to measure success. What are two of those ways? (Choose two.)
Desirability;Sustainability Desirable - Do customers and users want the solution? Feasible - Can we deliver the right solution through a combination of build, buy, partner, or acquire endeavors/activities? Viable - Is the way we build and offer the solution creating more value than cost? For example, in a for-profit enterprise, are we profitable? Sustainable - Are we proactively managing our solution to account for its expected product-market lifecycle?© Scaled Agile, Inc.Include this copyright notice with the copied content.Read the FAQs on how to use SAFe content and trademarks
Design Thinking identifies at least four new ways to measure success. What are two of those ways? (Choose two.)
Desirability;Sustainability;
Which statement is true about DevOps?
DevOps is an approach to bridge the gap between development and operations
What is DevOps
DevOps is the adoption of a mindset, culture, and set of practices that provide solution elements to the customer without handoffs and without requiring excessive production or operations support.
Chaos Monkey
Developed by NEtflix
Develop on Cadence. Release Any Time
Development Cadence limits variability to a single PI interval. Release on Demand. - Adjust plans based on releases, but don't change sprints Order: Customer preview, Major Release, Sub-system release, Major release, New Feature.
Assume variability, preserve options:
Development occurs in an uncertain world; aggressively evaluate alternatives
(Test) Development Value Stream means?
Development of Systems & Capabilities that enable the operational value streams
Which statement is true about DevOps?
Devops is an approach to bridge the gap between development and operations
Strategic Themes
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.
Strategic themes
Differentiating, specific and itemized business objectives that connect a portfolio to the strategy of the enterprise
What are the 2 types of Customers?
Direct (customer that will directly use the solution) In-Direct (The Solution builder is the Proxy)
Contracts
Do not build design deliverables into a contract
D in PDCA
Do: PI Execution
(Test) What drives the upper limit to 125?
Dunbar's Number: Maintain stable social relationships
Most important factor is WSJF:
Duration
During the PI planning event, when are planning adjustments agreed upon?
During the management review and problem-solving
DOD (Definition of Done)
E.g. Do not close story unless all defects closed
Strategic Themes connect?
Each SAFe Portfolio to the Enterprise Business Strategy. - Enterprise - Portfolio Context - Strategy - Portfolio Budgets - Strategic Themes
Leader as a conductor
Effective when coordination is a prerequisite for maximum performance - Central decision maker - Subtle and indirect manipulation Challenges - Narrows focus of direct reports to their own areas - Use systems and procedures to control work
Leader as an expert
Effective when manager has greater knowledge than direct people - Technician or master craftsman - Problem-solver - Understands the domain and the technology Challenges - Limits learning and growth
(Test) Fixed and Variable Intent is done with? Know more about enablers.
Enablers
Alignment
Enables autonomy and decentralized decision making
Which team type is "organized to assist other teams with specialized capabilities and help them become more proficient in new technologies?
Enabling team
Relentless Improvement
Encourages learning and growth through continuous reflection and process enhancements. Optimize the whole, not the parts, of the organization and development process. Consider facts carefully, then act quickly.
Epics
Enterprise initiatives sufficiently substantial in scope so to warrant analysis, understanding ROI, a lightweight business case, and approval. - Portfolio Epics cut across Value Streams - Program Epics can be implemented in a single train - Business Epics are customer-facing - Enabler Epics enable solutions to address business needs - Developed and analyzed in the Kanban systems
Four levels in SAFe (Top to bottom)
Enterprise, Large Solution, Program, Team
What's the largest initiative within a portfolio?
Epic
Product Owner is to Team Level as ____________ is the Portfolio Level
Epic Owner
Leader as 'developer of people'
Escape the trap with a post-heroic, Lean leadership style - Creates a team jointly responsible for success - How can each problem be solved in a way to develop people Benefits - Increased direct report ownership and responsibility - Increased employee engagement and motivation - Allows leader to spend more time managing laterally and upward - There is no limit to the power of getting things done
Develop on cadence:
Essential method for managing the inherent variability of systems development in a flow-based system by making sure important events and activities occur on a regular, predictable schedule
What are user story maps?
Establish a relationship between user activities and features and user stories - help organize and prioritize stories
Which two quality practices apply to Agile teams? (Choose two.)
Establishing flow;Peer review and pairing;
WSJF=
Estimated COD/Job Size (also known as job duration)
New System Increment every 2 weeks.
Every 2 weeks, Teams evaluate the status of the New, Integrated System Increment. - Features are functionally complete or "toggled" so as not to disrupt demonstrated functionality - New Features work together, and w/existing functionality - Architecture Runway work in Process is scaffolded & toggled - System is continually verified via Story & Feature acceptance tests - All practical NFR testing is done continuously
Architectural Runway means?
Existing code, hardware components, etc. that technically enable near-term business features. 1. Enablers build up the runaway 2. Features consume it 3. Must be continuously maintained 4. Use capacity (Kanban) allocation for Enablers that extend the runway.
Architectural Runway
Existing code, hw components, etc. that enables near-term business features Enablers build up the runway Features consume it Must be continuously maintained
Leadership styles
Expert Conductor Developer of people
(4) types of leaders
Expert, Conductor, Commander, Developer of People
(Test) Management Styles (3 types)
Expert, Conductor, Developer
Enabler Stories
Exploration Architecture Infrastructure Compliance
(Agile principle) what's the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team?
Face to face conversation
Scrum Master (ATF) does what 3 things?
Facilitate Issues, Risks, & Dependencies
Objective Milestones
Facilitate learning and allow for continuous cost-effective adjustments towards and optimal solution
(Test) Spikes are?
Facilitated by Small Batch Sizes
Program Kanban
Facilitates the flow of features through the continuous delivery pipeline
(Test) RTE (Release Train Engineer)
Facilitator of the Train
T/F: Architecture is SAFe covers only the program and team levels?
False
T/F: Architecture is the sole domain of the System Architects?
False
T/F: Design must be grown incrementally by the enterprise architect?
False
T/F: Emergent design is enough to scale software?
False
T/F: There is one instance of SAFe at the Enterprise?
False
T/F: User stories are prescribed by Scrum?
False - Scrum has no prescribed design or requirements format.
T/F: Architectural features do not fit into a PI?
False, they do fit into 1 PI
Learning cycles
Fast feedback accelerates knowledge Small batch sizes Shorter cycles = faster learning
What is found on a program board?
Features
Program Roadmap has what on it?
Features - Recommended to plan 2 PIs out.
Continious Story Integration
Features Enablers - Functionality needed for a feature to work Spike - research enabler
Define Solution Features for the Program Backlog
Features are services that fulfill user needs. - Feature is an industry-standard term familiar to Marketing & Product Management - Expressed as a Phrase, "Value" is expressed in terms of Benefits - Identified, Prioritized, estimated & Maintained in the Program Backlog - Fits in a PI
Release on Demand Cycle
Features deployed into production are released incrementally or immediately to customers based on market demand (whenever the stakeholder says)
(Test) Why do we want to organize around Value?
Fewer handoffs, drive alignment, easier to build in quality, optimize the whole system
(Test) Estimating / Planning Poker. when is it used and for what type of planning/estimating?
Fibanache numbers
Story Points 2
Find a small Story that would take about a half-day to develop and a half-day to test and validate. Call it a 1 Estimate every other Story relative to that one Never look back (don't worry about recalibrating)
Phase Gates
Fix requirements and designs too early
What is customer centricity ask of teams?
Focus on the customer, understand the customer's needs, think and feel like the customer, build whole product solutions, create customer lifetime value
Prioritize Features
For Optimal ROI What is the Cost of Delay (CoD) in delivering value What is the cost to implement the valuable thing? - Business impact, missed revenue, delay other project, opportunity enablement
(Test) Intentional Architecture does what?
Fosters team alignment and defines Architectural runway
Base of the House of Lean:
Foundation: Lean-Agile Leadership
You Control Variability within a?
Framework
decentralized decision making
Frequent. These decisions are common and occur often. Time critical. A delay in these types of decisions comes at a high cost. Require local information. These decisions need specific local context.
(Agile principle) when should working software be delivered?
Frequently- couple weeks to a couple months with preference for shorter timescale
Value Stream is a?
Fundamental thinking construct in Lean
Solution Intent contains 3 things?
Future & Current 1. Specifications 2. Design 3. Tests
Gemba Walk
Getting out of the office
Serial Delivery:
Getting value incrementally but not getting value UNTIL you've delivered the first feature
House of Lead Innovation
Give members time and capacity to think Producers innovate, customers validate
Small batches
Go through the system faster Most important batch is the handoff batch
What is the House of Lean?
Goal (roof): Value, Foundation: Leadership, (pillars): Respect for People and culture, Product Development Flow, Innovation, relentless improvement
Pre-Planning structure
Goal - Align Product Managers, System Architects and other ART stakeholders to a common vision Input - Results of the previous PI execution Output - A set of features for every ART
Post-Planning structure
Goal - Understand the PI plan for the entire Solution team Input - Program PI objectives from all ARTs; Train board and risks Output - Consolidated solution train PI objectives
Capacity Buffer means?
Guard Band
Roadmap
Guides the deliver of features over time PX - Committed PX+2 - Foretasted
(Test) The Road Map does what?
Guides the delivery of Features over time. Purpose: - Directional Intent - 3 PIs Captured - Show Releases
What is 'inspect & adapt'?
Happens at end of PI during IP iteration where current state of solution is demo'd and evaluated by ART. The adapt part is ID'ing improvement backlog via workshop/ restrospective
HIP stands for?
Hardening, Innovation, Planning
Principle #9: Decentralize decision-making
Has the benefit of local context and reduces delays and improves product development flow. It enables faster feedback, more innovative solutions, and higher levels of empowerment.
Product Owner Sync
Held for POs and Product Managers, timeboxed 30-60 min, get visibility into how well the ART is progressing toward meeting the program PI objectives to discuss problems or opportunities with feature development and assess any scope adjustments
PI - Retrospective
Help continuously evolve
Stretch Objectives
Help improve predictability of delivering business value since they are not included in the team's commitment or counted against teams in program predictable measures
Minimum Marketable Feature (MMF):
Helps limit the scope and investment, enhances agility and provides fast feedback
Capbilitiy
Higher-level solutions behavior that typically spans multiple ARTs. They are sized and split into multiple features to facilitate their implementation in a single PI.
Program Board
Highlights the new feature's delivery dates, feature dependencies among teams and with other ARTs and relevant milestones
(Test) Un-Deployed software increases what?
Holding Cost
Velocity
How many story points you could normally produce
Benefits of features
Hypothesis Acceptance criteria
Teams evaluate the MVP against_____________, not based on ___________________
Hypothesis, ROI
Test First: Automate Now
If not: Velocity is bottlenecked, quality is speculative, scaling is impossible. - Automated Tests are implemented in the same Iteration as the Functionality. - The Team that builds Functionality also Automates the tests. - Create an isolated automated test environment. Actively maintain test data under Version Control. Passing vs. Not-Yet-Passing and Broken Automated Tests are the Real Iteration progress indicator. - Great to pair the Product owner & Developer.
What are customer journey maps?
Illustrate Customer experiences that they have as we navigate a product from first engagement to achieving their objectives
Goal of DevOps
Improve collab between Development and IT operations by developing and automating a continuous delivery pipeline
PRINCIPLE #2: Apply Systems Thinking says?
In SAFe, systems thinking is applied to the solution being developed, and the organization that builds the system. ** The Solution Is a System - Team members should clearly understand the boundaries of the system - Optimizing a solution component does not optimize the system as a whole. - The value of a system passes through its interconnections. - A system can evolve no faster than its slowest integration point. ** The Enterprise Building the System Is a System, Too ** Understand and Optimize the Full Value Stream
What is the spanning palette?
In SAFe, the various roles and artifacts and roles that may apply to a specific team, ART, large solution or portfolio context. Can be small or large and configurable based on needs of the org.
Prioritize Features for Optimal ROI
In a Flow System, job sequencing is the key to economic outcomes. - To Prioritize based lean economics, we need to know 2 things? 1. What is the Cost of Delay (CoD) in delivering value 2. What is the Cost to Implement the Valuable thing.
Empathy maps
In design thinking, it's A way to better understand a users needs and mindset when interacting with a new interface or system- (who, what they do; hear, see, needs, think/ feel, say?)
How is the flow of Portfolio Epics managed?
In the Portfolio Kanban
Enterprise, Lean and Large
In the large Enterprise, there may be multiple SAFe portfolios.
Value Stream definition?
Includes people, tools, etc. to deliver from Concept to Value
Large batches
Increase variability High utilization increases variability Severe project slippage is the most likely result
INVEST stands for?
Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable
INVEST
Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable
Customers are inseparable from the development process
Indirect - General solutions. Example. End-user purchaser of a CRM System. MS Office Direct - Custom- built solutions. Example. Government purchaser of a defense system
System Architect/Engineer:
Individual or small cross discipline team that truly applies systems thinking. They define the overall architecture of the system, NFRs, determine the major elements and subsystems and help define the interfaces and collaborations among them
Agile Manifesto:___________________ over processes and tools
Individuals and interactions
Culture of shared responsibility
Infrastructure empowers development and operations to act independently without blocking each other
Which 3 types of decisions should remain centralized even in a decentralized decision-making environment?
Infrequent. These decisions aren't made often and typically aren't urgent. Thus, deeper consideration is appropriate. Long-lasting. Once reached, these decisions are unlikely to change. Provide significant economies of scale. These decisions provide large and broad economic benefits.
values of the agile manifesto
Inidivudals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; responding to change over following a plan
Gemba Walk is a part of which pillar
Innovation
The House of Lean is a classic metaphor describing the mindset essential for Lean thinking. Which one of the four pillars advocates a 'Go See' mindset?
Innovation
What is one pillar of the SAFe house of Lean?
Innovation
IP stand for what?
Innovation & Planning
PI Planning Process
Input - Vision and Top 10 features Output - Team and Program PI objectives and program board
I&A
Inspect and Adjust
Transformational leadership - Vision
Inspire and align with the mission, minimize constraints Lead change - Establish a sense of urgency - Create a powerful guiding coalition
(Test) Principle#4: Build Incrementally w/Fast integrated learning cycles is what 4 things? Are Iterations a form of a learning cycle?
Integration Points Create Knowledge from Uncertainty Integration Points Occur by Intent Faster Learning Through Faster Cycles 1. Plan 2. Do 3. Check 4. Adjust (act) - Requires increased investment in development environment ; shorter cycles = faster learning
Program Execution
Intense focus on working systems and business outcomes.
Supplier:
Internal or external organization that develops and delivers components, subsystems or services, which help the Solution Trains deliver solutions to customers
Product Manager:
Internal voice of the customer and works with customers and product owners to understand and communicate their needs, define system features and participate in validation. Responsible for the program backlog.
What is one guardrail on lean budget spend?
Investiment horizons
Features
Is an industry-standard term familiar to marketing and Product Management Have Benefit Hypothesis and Acceptance Criteria Reflect functional and non functional requirements Fitsin one PI
(Test) A Value Stream Epic is with in a? Need more detail
Is within a Value Stream
When should new approaches be anchored in an organization's culture?
It comes last as a results of changing work habits
What is a program backlog?
It defines the work of a train, consists of features intended to address user needs and deliver biz benefits. Comprised of features and benefit hypotheses
What is the innovation and planning iteration?
It is an estimating buffer for meeting PI objectives and provides time for innovation, continuing education, PI planning and inspect and adapt events
What is one issue when organizing around hierarchical functions?
It is not how value flows
Which statement is true when continuously using devops model?
It lessons the severity frequency of release failures
What is an attribute of an application built with DevOps in mind?
It overlays measurements with events (deployments, releases)
What is ans attributes of an application built with DevOps in mind?
It overlays measurements with events (deployments, releases)
The analyzing step of the portfolio Kanban system has a new Epic with a completed lean business case. What best describes the next step for the Epic?
It will be moved to the portfolio backlog if it receives a "go" decision from the lean portfolio management.
Agile Manifesto values __________ more than ___________
Items on the left more than items on the right
Benefit Hypothesis
Justify Feature implementation cost, and provides business perspective when making scope decisions
Primary mechanism to achieve SAFe principle #6
Kanban Systems
How are epics managed?
Kanban systems
Business Owners
Key Stakeholders on the ART
(Test) Taking the Leading SAFe training is a? Know other training for different resources.
Key thing to get Leadership buy-in.
Knowledge Worker?
Know more about the work they perform than their boss
House of Lean Base?
LEADERSHIP
Who has financial accountability for a SAFe Portfolio?
LPM (Lean Portfolio Management)
Capabilities are on what level?
Large Solution
What level Solution Management?
Large Solution Level
What level is the Customer?
Large Solution Level
What level is the Solution Architect?
Large Solution Level
What level is the Solution Train Engineer?
Large Solution Level
What level is the Supplier
Large Solution Level
What are program increments?
Larger time box (8-12 wks) / planning interval that consists of multiple iterations during with an ART delivers incremental value in form of working, tested solutions. 3-5 development iterations in one PI followed by one IP (innovation and planning) iteration
What are the last three steps of the SAFe Implementation Roadmap?
Launch more Agile Release Trains and Value Streams, extend to the portfolio, accelerate
House of Lean Leadership
Lead the change Develop people Intrinsic motivation
Transformational leadership - Authenticity
Lead the change, know the way Be a role model Be a lifelong learner Create an environment of trust and respect Act with integrity
(Test) House of Lean: LEADERSHIP (the Base) means?
Lead the change, know the way, develop people, inspire & align w/mission, decentralize decision making, unlock intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers.
Responsibility Trap
Leader has to know everything
Innovation:
Leaders must get out of the office and into the actual workplace where the value is produced. You must provide time/space for people to be creative
What is the foundation of the SAFe House of Lean?
Leadership
What is the SAFe house of lean foundation?
Lean Agile Leadership
Which of the core competencies of the Lean Enterprise helps align strategy and execution?
Lean Portfolio Management
Who is responsible for managing the Portfolio Kanban?
Lean Portfolio Management reviews and manages the epics within the portfolio kanban "portfolio sync event"
Who is responsible for managing the portfolio Kanban?
Lean Portfolio management
Set an Integration-based Point means?
Lean machine to ensure components are coming together
What is scrum?
Lightweight, team-based process fostering fast feedback and quick iterative dev of a solution (teams define, build, test and maybe even deploy in fast sprints)
WIP
Limit of three user stories IP. If a developer is done, help other developers or test in order to move the stories forward Limit WIP, reduce batch sizes and manage queue lengths
Queues
Long queues are back Committed work
Optimum batch size
Lowest total cost Example of U curve optimization Total costs are the sum of holding costs and transaction costs Higher transaction costs shift optimum batch size higher Higher holding costs shift batch size lower
Solution demo
Major event for the life of the solution. E.g. Boeing getting a plane off the ground.
What are the three primary keys to implementing flow? (Choose three.)
Manage queue lengths;Reduce the batch sizes of work;Visualize and limit work in process (WIP);
Lean Portfolio Management helps with what in the budget?
Manage the budget for each of the value streams. They adjust budgets for each value stream, based on changing business conditions
Aligning ARTs and suppliers, the Solution Train helps do what?
Manage the inherent risk and variability of large-scale solution development
Management Review and Problem Solving in PI Planning (Day 1)
Management may negotiate scope changes and resolve other problems by agreeing to various planning adjustments
Foundation: Lean-Agile Leadership
Managers become leaders who embrace the values of Lean, they are competent in the basic practices, they eliminate impediments, they take an active role in driving organizations change and facilitation of unrelenting improvement
Portfolio Kanban
Manages the flow of Epics
Scrum of Scrums
Meeting that coordinates of the dependencies of the ARTs and provides visibility into progress and impediments
(Test) Management Review & Problem Solving asks what?
Mgt meets to make adjustments to Scope & Objectives: 1. What did we just learn 2. Where do we need to adjust Vision, Scope, Resources 3. Where are the Bottlenecks 4. What Features must be De-Scoped 5. What Decisions must we make quickly
MVP
Minimum Viable Product
MVP
Minimum Viable Product-The minimum effort necessary to sufficiently validate or invalidate the hypothesis
What else does the SAFe principle, unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers, require besides purpose and mission?
Minimum possible constraints
MBSE
Model Based Systems Engineering
(Agile principle) around whom should we build projects?
Motivated people- give them environment, support, and trust needed to get the job done
Set Based Design (Agile) means?
Multiple Choice Design options
Backlog Matching - Portfolio Epic
Multiple Value Streams and multiple PIs
Set based approach
Multiple design options Learning points
Features are designed for ________________
Multiple roles
Non Functional Requirements
NFR Put into Definition of Done
Lean Flow Accelerates Delivery
New features can move quickly from concept to cash
GEMBA means?
No useful product/improvement was created at a desk; Walk leadership around on the floor.
(Test) Is Job Size always a good proxy for duration?
No, not the case when resources are limited
Parallel delivery:
Not getting any value until you deliver everything--can't recognize it until the end
Load
Number of story points you plan for
What is a system demo?
Occurs every two week to provide integrated view of all teams' work delivered by ART over past iteration (fact based measure of system level progress and velocity within the PI). Everyone up to execs attend and give feedback
Characteristics of Alignment
Occurs when everyone is working toward a common direction. Enables empowerment, autonomy, and Decentralized Decision-making, allowing those who implement value to make better local decisions.
Transformational leadership - Growth
Offer personalized support, coaching and encouragement Keep communication open Offer direct recognition Exhibit genuine care and concern Build an environment of mutual influence
How do you Represent and Model Suppliers?
On a Separate Release Train
Confidence Vote PI Planning (Day 2)
Once program risks have been addressed, teams vote on their confidence in meeting their program PI objectives with a first of five vote
Backlog Matching - Program Epic
One ART across multiple PIs
Backlog Matching - Feature
One ART within one PI
Backlog Matching - Solution Epic
One Solution Train across multiple PIs
Backlog Matching - Capability
One Solution Train within one PI
Backlog Matching - Story
One team, one interation
What does the continuous delivery pipeline CDP enable?
Ongoing Learning
(2) Types of Value Streams
Operation Value Streams, Development Value Streams
Innovation and Planning iteration
Opportunity for innovation hackathons, and infrastructure improvements Provides for cadence-based planning Estimating guard band for cadence-based delivery
Value Stream
Optimize Focus on delays Deliver customer value
Goal of Systems Thinking
Optimize the Full Value Stream
House of Lean Relentless improvement
Optimize the whole A constant sense of danger
(House of lean) What are key parts of relentless improvement?
Optimize the whole, it parts of an org and dev process; reinforce problem solving mindset of org; apply retrospectives at key milestones; apply lean tools and techniques to determine fact based root cause of problems,; base improvements on facts
Which is an aspect of systems thinking?
Optimizing a component does not optimize the system
Aspects of systems thinking
Optimizing a component does not optimize the system A system can evolve no faster than its slowest integration point
System Demos
Orchestrated to deliver objective progress, product and process metrics
How does SAFe reccomend using a second operating system to deliver value?
Organize the enterprise around the flow of value while maintaining the hierarchies.
Empathic Design
Our ability to put aside our preconceived ideas and develop solutions from the perspective of our customers.
When does a PI planning event occur?
Over two days, usually during the IP iteration of a PI
Product Management
Owns, defines and prioritizes the Program Backlog
The iterative learning cycle
PDCA Plan, Do, Check, Adjust
During which event are the team PI objectives agreed upon?
PI Planning
Three parts to the I&A
PI System Demo, Quantitative measurement, Retrospective and problem solving
Who has the ultimate decision over features?
PM
Who has the ultimate decision over stories?
PO
PO Sync
POs and Product Managers meet and get visibility into how well the ART is progressing toward meeting the program PI objectives, discuss problems or opportunities with feature development and assess scope adjstments
(Test) Base decisions on Economics includes 5 things?
Parameter Tradeoffs: 1. Cycle Time 2. Product Cost 3. Value 4. Development Expense 5. Risk
What are the three types of culture in organizations?
Pathological, bureaucratic, generative
(Test) House of Lean: Respect for People & Culture means?
People do all the work, customer is whomever consumes the work, Build long-term partnerships based on trust, Culture change comes last, not first, to change the culture you have to change the organization.
Feature expressed by:
Phrase, Benefit Hypothesis and acceptance criteria
PDCA
Plan, Do, Check and Adjust
P in PDCA
Plan: the PI Planning Event
Day 2 PI planning agenda?
Planning adjustments (mgmt), team breakouts (finalize objectives for PI), final plan review and lunch, program risks (ID problems, apply ROAM), confidence vote (fist of 5), plan rework (if needed), planning retrospective and moving forward (led by RTE)
Epics are on what level?
Portfolio
No RTE or VSE at what Level?
Portfolio
No Time-Box at what Level?
Portfolio
What can be used to capture the current state of the portfolio?
Portfolio Canvas
(Test) Epics get approved via? Who approves and what happens following approval?
Portfolio Kanban System - Approved Epics form the Portfolio Backlog. - Portfolio Epics cut across trains - Program Epics can implemented in a single train - Business Epics are customer facing - Enabler Epics enable solutions to address Business needs - Developed & Analyzed in the Portfolio Kanban system
Innovators are typically at what Level?
Portfolio Level
How is the flow of Portfolio Epics managed?
Portfolio epics are made visible, developed, and managed through the Portfolio Kanban system where they proceed through various states of maturity until they're approved or rejected. Before being committed to implementation, epics require analysis. Epic Owners take responsibility for the critical collaborations required for this task, while Enterprise Architects typically shepherd the enabler epics that support the technical considerations for business epics.© Scaled Agile, Inc.Include this copyright notice with the copied content.Read the FAQs on how to use SAFe content and trademarks. Ans: portfolio kanban
Enterprise Architects define enablers at which level?
Portfolio level
Where are strategic themes in the SAFe big picture?
Portfolio level
Planning Adjustments from previous day's Mgt Review & Problem Solving mtg may include what?
Possible Changes: 1. Business Priorities 2. Adjustment to Plan 3. Changes to Scope 4. Movement of People
(Test) Value Stream Alignment at the PI Level via what 2 things? Who attends each meeting?
Pre & Post PI Meetings - Pre-Meeting builds an aligned plan for the next PI & match solution demand to ART capabilities. Output: Set of features for every ART; Updates ART Visions. - Post-Meeting reviews, recaps, communicates, and provides feedback. Output: Value Stream PI Objectives; Adjust for ART plans; Value Stream Roadmap updates.
Move from variable to fixed solution intent
Preserve flexibility to enable evolution towards optimum solution alternative
Weighted Shortest Job First
Prioritization model used to sequence jobs to produce maximum economic benefit
(Test) Product Owner does what 2 things?
Prioritize Backlog & Accepts Work
(Test) Backlog is ?
Prioritized but not Committed
A System Increment should be?
Produced no more than 1 Sprint in front of Team increment
House of Lean: INNOVATION means?
Producers innovate, customers validate, GEMBA, provide time & scope for creativity, apply innovation accounting, pivot w/out mercy or guilt (make controlled decisions).
Who defines capabilities and splits them into features?
Product Management and Solution Management
Product/Solution Vision Meeting in PI Planning (Day 1)
Product Management presents the current program vision and highlights any changes from the previous PI Planning Meeting
(Test) Features & Feature Descriptions (Referenced only) are presented by the?
Product Manager
(Test) Vision is presented by the? Who Owns the Vision?
Product Manager
Product Owner is to Team Level as _________ is to Program Level
Product Manager
Who coordinates the PO Sync
Product Manager or RTE
Who has content authority to make decisions at the User Story level during Program Increment (PI) Planning?
Product Owner
Who is the only team member empowered to accept user stories as done?
Product Owner
Solutions
Products, services, or systems delivered to the customer, whether internal or external to the Enterprise. Each Value Stream produces one or more of these.
Features are on what level?
Program
What highlights new features?
Program Board
Closed Loop
Program Events create a closed loop system to keep the train on the tracks - PI Planning - Scrum of Scrums - PO Sync - System Demo - Prepare for PI Planning - Inspect & Adapt
PI stands for what
Program Increment
Solution Vision is done at what SAFe level?
Program Level
What level are the Business Owners
Program Level
What level is the Product Manager?
Program Level
What level is the RTE?
Program Level
What level is the System Architect/Engineer?
Program Level
System and Solution architects define enablers at which level?
Program and Large Solution Levels
System Demo
Provides an integrated view of new features for the most recent iteration delivered by all the teams in the ART. Gives ART stakeholders an objective measure of progress during a PI
System Architect/Engineering
Provides architectural guidance and technical enablement to the teams on the train
What is PI planning?
Provides opp for biz and technical arms of a solution to be integrated and evaluated in one time (~6 times) on a cadence
System Team
Provides processes and tools to integrate and evaluate assets early and often
Why is the Architectural Runway necessary?
Provides the technical foundation for developing business initiatives and implementing new features/capabilities
Intentional Architecture
Purposeful, planned architectural initiatives, which enhance solutions design, implementation and synchronization
Program Risks
ROAM Resolved - Has been addresses. No Longer a concern. Owned - Someone has taken responsibility Accepted - Nothing more can be done. If risk occurs, release may be compromised Mitigated - Team has plan to adjust as necessary
Scrum Master is to Team Level as _________ is to Program Level
RTE
Scrum of Scrums is coordinated by who:
RTE
Who facilitates the Scrum of Scrums
RTE
What are ART syncs?
RTE facilitates weekly scrum and scrums and PO syncs - sometimes together, sometimes apart
Build a Deployment Pipeline (Dev Ops)
Real value occurs only when the end users are successfully operating the Solution. Deployment Pipeline Streamlines delivery: - Staging environment emulates production - Development & test environments match production to the extent feasible - Working System is deployed to staging every iteration - Supporting Activities: - Everything under Version Control - Ability to automatically build Environments - Automated the Actual Deployment Process
Little's Law
Reduce queue lengths Faster processing time decreases wait Shorter queue lengths decreases wait Control wait times by controlling queue lengths
What are the three primary keys to implementing flow? (Choose three.)
Reduce the batch sizes of work;Visualize and limit work in process (WIP);Manage queue lengths;
Improving the process to increase Average Completion Rate while maintaining the same WIP
Reduces Lead Time
Reducing WIP, while maintaining the same Average Completion Rate
Reduces Lead time
Why decentralize decision making
Reduces delays, improves product development, enables faster feedback and creates more innovative solutions by those closest to the local knowledge
Reducing optimum batch size
Reducing transaction costs reduces total costs and shifts optimum batch size lower Reducing batch size - Increases predicstibility - Accelerates feedback - Reduces rework - Lowers cost
(Agile principle) what must teams do at regular intervals?
Reflect on how to become more effective- tune and adjust behavior accordingly
Lean Thinking: Become relentless in:
Reflection and Continuous improvement
Which role serves as the servant leader for the ART?
Release Train Engineer
Decouple deployment from release
Release on demand Develop on cadence
Value Streams
Represent the sequence of steps that an enterprise uses to deliver value to its customer.
Value Streams
Represent the series of steps that an organization uses to build Solutions that provide a continuous flow of value to a cusomter
Solution Architect:
Represents an individual or small team that defines a common technical and architectural vision for the solution under development
Enterprise
Represents the business entity to which each SAFe portfolio belongs. In charge of the budget, strategic themes and the portfolio context
Solution Management
Represents the customer's overall needs across ARTs as well as communicating with the portfolio's Strategic Themes. Collab with Product Management to define capabilities and split them into features.
Lean Portfolio Management
Represents the individuals with the highest level of decision making and financial accountability for the SAFe portfolio
Uncerainty
Requirements must be flexible Designs must be flexible Preservation of options improves economic results
(Test) House of Lean 4 Pilars?
Respect for People & Culture, Flow, Innovation, Relentless Improvement
Four (4) Pillars in the House of Lean:
Respect for People and Culture, Flow, Innovation, Relentless Improvement
House of Lean
Respect for people and culture Flow Innovation Relentless Improvement
Which statement is a value from the Agile Manifesto?
Respond to change
Agile Manifesto: _________________ over following a plan
Responding to change
Product Owner
Responsible for defining stories and prioritizing the team backlog. Only team member empowered to accept user stories as done.
Product Management
Responsible for the Program Backlog
Solution Management
Responsible for the Solution Backlog
Solution Demo
Results of the development efforts from the Solution Train are integrated, evaluated and made visible to Customers and other stakeholders
Integration Points reduce what 1 thing?
Risk - setting integration points will reduce the risk curve
What can be used as a template for putting SAFe into practice within an organization?
SAFe Implementation Roadmap
Scrum is to agile team as
SAFe is to the agile enterprise
Lean Flow
SAFe teams strive to achieve a state of continuous flow, enabling new features to move quickly from concept to cash. Three primary keys: 1) Visualize and limit WIP 2) Reduce the batch sizes of work items 3) Manage queue lengths
PI objectives should be:
SMART
Scrum Master is to Team Level as ___________ is to Large Solution Level
STE
(Agile principle) what is highest priority?
Satisfy customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
SAFe stands for?
Scaled Agile Framework enterprise
What does SMART stand for?
Scientific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-bound
Teams execute iterations with Scrum
Scrum is built on transparency, inspection and adaption
(Test) ART Sync includes what 2 parts? Who owns each Sync meeting and what are the outcomes?
Scrum of Scrums & PO Sync - Scrum of Scrums: Visibility into progress & impediments; Facilitated by RTE; Participants are Scrum masters, other select team members, SMEs in needed; Weekly or more frequently (30-60 min); Time boxed followed by meet after. - PO Sync: Visibility into progress, scop, and priority adjustments; Facilitated by RTE or Product Mgr; Participants are PMs, POs, other Stakeholders, & SMEs as needed; Weekly or more frquently; Time Boxed & followed by meet after.
Art Sync is comprised of which two meetings?
Scrum of Scrums and PO Sync
What is one of the Agile Release Train sync meetings?
Scrum of scrums
Business Context Meeting in PI Planning (Day 1)
Senior executives describe the current state of the business and present a perspective on how well existing solutions are in addressing current customer needs
Solution Train Engineer:
Servant leader and coach who facilitates and guides the work of all ARTs and suppliers
Solution Train Engineer
Servant leader of the train, allows the train to run smoothly by identifying and resolving bottlenecks across the entire solution
Apply a Comprehensive Economic Framework
Set of decision guidelines that align everyone with the financial objectives of a portfolio and inform the decision-making process * Leveraging suppliers. * Sequencing jobs for the maximum benefit. * Understanding economic trade-offs. * Operating within Lean budgets and guardrails.
Lean Budget
Set of practices that minimize overhead by funding and empowering Value Streams, rather than projects, while maintaining financial and fitness for use governance
Pre-PI Planning Meeting
Sets the context and input objectives for the individual ART PI Planning and is used to integrate the planning results of the ARTs that contribute to the solution
Kanban technique of forcing Swarming is?
Setting WIP Limits
If higher or lower funding is needed in future PIs?
Shift capacity by trying to move Whole Teams
PI Predictability measure
Shows weather achievements fall into an acceptable process control band
PI Predictability Meaasure
Shows whether achievements fall into an acceptable control band (80-100). - Target: Effective process control range - Predictability sufficient to run the business - Handles common variables - Special causes may still cause excess variation
Value doesn't follow what?
Silos - Mgt challenge is to connect the silos. Problems with Silos: 1. Optimized for vertical communication 2. Friction across silos 3. Location via function 4. Political boundaries between functions
(Agile principle) what is essential to maximize in agile processes?
Simplicity! The art of work not done
Which statement is a principle of the Agile Manifesto?
Simplicity-the art of maximizing the amount of work not done-is essential
Point Based Design (waterfall) means?
Single Design Option
Solution Intent
Single source of truth as to the intended and actual behavior of the solution - Record and communicate requirements - Facilitate continuous exploration - Align the customer - Support compliance
Story Points
Singular number that represents Volume, Complexity, Knowledge, Uncertainty Relative - Not connected to a unit of measure 8 point story should take 4x longer than a 2 point story
Hypothesis Tested over Time
Small experiments that are validated as soon as possible by customers or their proxies
Features are implemented by Stories
Small increments of value that can be delivered in days and provide value Teams collaborate to deliver Features incrementally via User Stories Features fit in one PI for one ART Stories fit in one Iteration (Sprint) for one team
XP Practices include?
Software: 1. Test First 2. Continuous Integration 3. Pair Work 4. Refactoring 5. Selective Ownership Hardware: 1. Co-Location 2. Set Based Design 3. Design Verification
System Architect is to Program Level as _________________ is to Large Solution Level
Solution Architect
(Test) Agile Release Trains deliver what?
Solutions
What are SMART goals?
Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time Bound
SMART
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Bound
What are the start and end points in a value stream?
Start with a customer need, and end in cash
Pivot or preserve (pivot)
Stop doing that work and start doing something else
Continuously Integrate
Stories and Features
The Solution Vision communicates what?
Strategic Intent - Captures Capabilities - Where are we headed - What problem does it solve - What Features & Benefits does it provide - For whom does it provide them - What non-functional requirements does the solution deliver (performance, reliability, platforms, etc.)
Culture Eats?
Strategy for Breakfast (Peter Drucker)
(Test) A Tool to get teams to a Commitment? Know more about Stretch Objectives.
Stretch Objectives
PI Objective
Summary of the business and technical goals that an Agile Team or Train intends to achieve in the upcoming PI.
(Test) Spanning Pallet is?
Support functions, Metrics, Milestones, Roadmap, Vision, etc.
Enabler
Supports the activities needed to extend the Architectural Runway to provide future business functionality
(Agile principle) what do agile processes promote?
Sustainable development. Sponsors, developers and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely
What does SAFe do?
Synchronizes alignment, collaboration and delivery for large numbers of teams Deal in smaller chuncks
Level of architects:
System (Program), Solution (Large Solution), Enterprise (Portfolio)
Architecture and UX briefing are presented by the?
System Architect
What is the best measure of progress for complex system development?
System Demo
(Test) Who does the System Demo? Know more as to when it's done and what is the outcome.
System Team
Who drives the Interim Solution Demo?
System Team
Releasing includes additional activities:
System Validation: - User Acceptance Testing - Final NFR testing - Integration testing with other systems - Regulatory standards & requirements Documentation: - Release communications - End user documentation - Bill of Materials - Training support personnel - Installation/deployment instructions - Legal, regulatory, & other approvals.
Work is synced by what (2) events:
System and Solution demos
______________________ is the source of the bottleneck, NOT the __________________
System; People
Continuous Deployment
Takes validated features from continuous integration and deploys them into the production environment where they are tested and readied for release
Story points are on what level?
Team
Product Management has content authority over the Program Backlog. What do Product Owners have content authority over?
Team Backlog
System Teams support at what Level?
Team Level
Which core competency of the lean enterprise helps drive built-in quality practices?
Team and Technical agiltiy
Which statement is true about ART events?
Team events run inside the ART events and the ART events create closed-loop system.
What is an agile team comprised of?
Team members, plus a product owner (manages backlog with eye on customer needs); plus a scrum master (team coach removing impediments, keeping flow, strives at relentless improvement)
What is an example of applying cadence-based synchronization in SAFe?
Teams align their Iterations to the same schedule to support communication, coordination, and system integration
What is an example of applying cadence-based synchronization in SAFe?
Teams align their iterations to the same schedule to support communication, coordination, and system integration
Problem solving workshop
Teams conduct a short retrospective, then systematically address the larger impediments that are limiting velocity
The Problem Solving workshop (Program Level)
Teams conduct a short retrospective, then systematically address the larger impediments that are limiting velocity. - Agree on the problem to solve - Apply root cause analysis (5 whys) - Identify the biggest root cause using Pareto analysis - Restate the new problem for the biggest root cause - Brainstorm solutions - Identify improvement backlog items
PI Planning
Teams estimate what will be delivered and highlight their dependencies on other Agiles teams and trains
(Test) Emergent Design
Teams grow the system design as user stories require.
System Architect
Technical Content Owner
(2) Types of Spikes
Technical Spike and Functional Spike
An architectural epic is for:
Technology solutions
TDD stands for?
Test Driven Development
What is the CALMR approach?
The 5 concepts of dev ops: culture (of shared responsibility), automation (of continuous delivery pipeline), lean flow (accelerates delivery), measurement (of everything), recovery (enables low risk releases)
What is one of the Agile Release Train sync meetings?
The Agile Release Train meeting (Art-Sync) helps to follow up the progress of the program and to solve important problems (impediments). The following is handled in this meeting: Global progress on objectives and features. Risks and issues that need to be escalated to other teams or to the program level. Ans: scrum of scrums
House of Lean: Roof
The Goal: Value
What can be used to script the change to SAFe?
The Implementation Roadmap
Who is responsible for the program backlog?
The Product Manager
Features are in which level's backlog?
The Program Level
The Solution Vision is prepared at what Level?
The Program Level Common Formats: - Rolling Wave Briefings - Vision Document - Preliminary Data Sheet - Draft Press Release
Which level do features originate?
The Program level or epics at the portfolio level
What is this statement defining: "A series of activities that have proven to be effective in successfully implementing SAFe"?
The SAFe Implementation Roadmap
What is this statement defining "a series of activities that have proven to be effective in succesfully implementing SAFe"?
The SAFe implementation roadmap
(Test) Vision (Spanning Pallet) results in what for the Team?
The Teams start thinking about how to apply their strengths in order to get there.
Program Backlog
The _______________________ is the holding area for upcoming Features, that will address user needs and deliver business benefits for a single Agile Release Train (ART).
Portfolio Backlog
The ______________________________ 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 Business Agility?
The ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative business Solutions
What is Business Agility?
The ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative business Solutions.
(Agile principle) what emerges from self organizing teams?
The best architectures, requirements and designs
Team and Technical Agility
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. (Business Agility Core Competency)
What can be used to capture the current state of the portfolio?
The current state canvas represents the as-is state for the portfolio, enabling alignment of the organization on its structure, purpose, and status. One way to capture the current state is to assemble one or more teams to create a shared understanding. The team should include the Agile Release Train (ART) and value stream Business Owners, Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), Epic Owners, Architects. RTEs, Product and Solution Managers, Product Owners and other portfolio stakeholders© Scaled Agile, Inc.Include this copyright notice with the copied content.Read the FAQs on how to use SAFe content and trademarks here:https://www.scaledagile.com/about/about-us/permissions-faq/Explore Training at:https://www.scaledagile.com/training/calendar/
Team Increment
The first step in this process is that each agile team ensures that it produces a working increment for the stories, features and components they are responsible for
Solution Backlog
The holding area for upcoming Capabilities and Enablers, each of which can span multiple ARTs and is intended to advance the Solution and build its architectural runway.
Solution Train
The organizational construct used to build large, complex solutions that requires the coordination of multiple ARTs as well as the contributions of suppliers
Suppliers play a key role in large solution development
The overall value stream is dependent on the suppliers' agility
Tipping Point
The point at which the overriding organizational imperative is to achieve the change, rather than resist it
Emergent Design
The process of discovering and extending the architecture only as necessary to implement and validate the next increment of functionality
Who is responsible for developing and maintaining the backlog?
The product manager
Benefit hypothesis:
The proposed measurable benefit to the end user or benefit
Systems Thinking
The solution itself is a system, the enterprise building the system is a system too--optimize the full value stream
Development Value Streams
The steps used to develop new products, systems or services capabilites
Operation Value Streams
The steps used to provide goods or services to a customer, be they internal or external. This is how the company makes its money.
Program PI Objectives come from?
The synthesis of each Team's PI Objectives
Budget
The total funding provided to a portfolio for operating and capital expenditures
Measure and Grow
The way portfolios evaluate their progress towards business agility and determine their next improvement steps.
(Test) Pareto Analysis is useful when?
There are many possible sources and actions are competing. 80/20 Rule.
Cross Functional Iterations look like?
These are NOT sequential, they overlap. 1. Iteration 1: Design, Build Test 2. Iteration 2: Design, Build, Test 3. Iteration 3: Design, Build, Test
Which statement accurately characterizes Strategic Themes?
They are business objectives that connect the SAFe portfolio to the Enterprise business strategy
Release Train Engineer
They are the uber scrum masters
What is the mission of the agile release train?
They develop, deliver and (maybe) operate one or more solutions, based around a common business and technology mission centered on value
Maintain predictability with Stretch objectives
They do count in velocity/capacity They are planned However, not included in the commitment Low confidence or many unknowns - move to a stretch
Product Manager
They have content authority at the program level, they define and prioritize the program backlog.
System Architect
They provide user interface design and user experience guidelines and design elements for the team. They ensure that NFRs are met.
UX and Shared Resources
They provide user interface design, user experience guidelines and design elements for the teams. They could provide security, performance and database administration across teams.
Epic Owners
They take responsibility for coordinating portfolio epics through the portfolio kanban system
Enterprise Architect
This person works across value stream and programs to help provide the strategic technical direction that can optimize portfolio outcomes
Inspect and Adapt
Three parts: 1) PI System Demo 2) Quantitative measurement 3) Problem-solving workshop
An Epic is not?
Time Boxed
Lead Time:
Time between when a customer decides they want something to when they are delivered the product
Cycle Time:
Time between when you start work and when you deliver the project
SAFe Implementation Roadmap (first three steps)
Tipping Point-->Train Lean Agile Change Agents-->Train Executives
What is part of the role of the scrum master?
To coach the agile team
Why is it important to decouple deployment from release?
To enable releasing upon demand
In the Program Kanban some steps have work in process (WIP) limits. Why is this necessary?
To ensure large queues are not being built
When basing decisions on economics, how are lead time, product cost, value, and development expense used?
To identify different parameters of the economic framework
U Curve
To improve the economics of handling smaller batches—and thus increase throughput—teams must focus on reducing the transaction costs of any batch. This typically involves increasing the attention to and investment in infrastructure and automation, including things such as Continuous Integration and the build environment, DevOps automation, and system test setup times. This is integral to systems thinking (Principle #2) and a critical element in long-view optimization.
What is part of the role of Product Management?
To prioritize the Program Backlog
What is one benefit of unlocking the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers?
To provide autonomy with purpose, mission, and minimum constraints
Recover - Enable Low-Risk Releases
To support release on demand, the system must be designed for low-risk component or service-based deploy, fast recovery, etc. To support fast recovery: - Stop-the-line mentality - Everyone swarms to fix any problem - Plan for and rehearse for failures - Chaos Monkey - Build the environment and capability to fix forward or roll back
What is the impact of Customer Centricity?
To understand the Customer's needs
Problem: Cost-center budgeting
Traditional project-based, cost center budgeting creates overhead and friction, lowers velocity
(Test) SAFe 1,2,3
Train Teams, Train Leaders, Release Train
T/F: 1 release train could support multiple Value Streams?
True
T/F: Complexity of large software makes centralized decision-making highly inefficient?
True
How often is the Lean Budget adjusted
Twice annaully
PRINCIPLE #1: Take an Economic View means?
Two Lean-Agile practices: to deliver incrementally, early, and often, and to apply a comprehensive economic framework
Spike
Type of exploration enabler story in SAFe--They represent activities such as research, design, investigation, exploration and prototyping
Acceptance Criteria
Typically defined during the backlog refinement
Customer:
Ultimate buyer of every solution
Which two statements are true about uncommitted objectives? (Choose two.)
Uncommitted objectives help improve predictability;Uncommitted objectives are not included in the team's commitment
Which two statements are true about uncommitted objectives? (Choose two.)
Uncommitted objectives help improve the predictability of delivering business value since they are not included in the team's commitment or counted against teams in the program predictability measure. Uncommitted objectives are used to identify work that can be variable within the scope of a PI
What are the three main activities in design thinking?
Understand the problem (discover, define), design the right solution (develop, design), validate that the solution is sustainable (returns more than cost to dev and maintain)
Daily Stand Up
Understand where the team is, escalate the problems and get help from other team members. Each team member describes what they did yesterday to advance iteration goals and what they're going to work on today to achieve the goals, as well as any blocks they've encountered
(House of lean) key principles of flow
Understanding full value stream, visualizing and limiting WIP, reducing batch sizes, managing queue lengths, eliminating waste and removing delays
(3) Principles of Flow:
Understanding the full value stream, visualizing and limiting WIP, Reducing Batch Sizes and managing queue lengths
Solution
Uniquely associated with one Value Stream. It is defined by Solution Intent.
What is a program board?
Used during PI planning, visualizes and tracks dependencies and oops to eliminate or reduce them
Functional Spike
Used to analyze overall solution behavior and determine how to break it down, how to organize work, where risk is, etc
ART Sync
Used to coordinate progress Programs coordinate dependencies through sync meetings
Operational Value Stream is?
Used to deliver end customer value
Deployment pipeline
Used to deploy environments as well as solutions
Technical Spike
Used to research various approaches in the solution domain such as build versus buy, evaluate the potential performance or load impact of a new user, Evaluate the specific technical implementation approaches, develop confidence about design solution path
Cost of Delay=
User Business Value +Time Criticality + Risk reduction and/or opportunity enablement
Features decompose into what?
User Stories
System validation
User acceptance testing Final NFR testing Integration testing with other systems Regulatory standards and requirements
Components of CoD
User and business value - Relative value to the customer or business Time criticality - How user/business value decays over time Risk Reduction & Opportunity enablement (RR & OE) - What else does this do for our business
What comprises an agile team backlog?
User and enabler stories
What are the three components used to quantify cost of delay?
User business value + time criticality + risk reduction and opportunity enablement
Stories are expressed as:
User-voice statement and acceptance criteria
House of Lean Roof?
VALUE
PRINCIPLE #6: VISUALIZE AND LIMIT WIP, REDUCE BATCH SIZES, AND MANAGE QUEUE LENGTHS
VISUALIZE AND LIMIT WIP: Visible to all stakeholders and limited to avoid burnout, late product launches, reduced profits. Reduce Batch Size: Small batches flow through the system faster and with more predictability, which results in more rapid learning and value delivery. Manage Queue Lengths: Reduce the length of the work queue. Long queues of work create all sorts of undesirable results.
What Role drives execution at the Value Stream Level?
VSE (Value Stream Engineer)
(Test) Enabler Stories support what?
Value
Agile Manifesto
Value Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working SW over comprehensive documentation Customer Collaboration over contract negoiation Responding to change over following a plan
(Test) The Solution is Built at what SAFe Level?
Value Stream Level - A Solution is uniquely associated with one Value Stream.
Value doesn't follow silos
Value delivery is inhibited by hand-offs and delays Political boundaries can prevent cooperation Silos encourage geographical distribution of functions Communication across silos is difficult
DevOps is IN the Value Stream
Value occurs only when the end users are operating the solution Define, Implement, Deploy - REPEAT DevOps is not optional
Scrum of Scrums
Visibility into progress and impediments Facilitated by RTE
PO Sync
Visibility into progress, scope and priority adjustments Facilitated by RTE
What elements are in the spanning palette?
Vision, roadmap, milestones, shared services, COP (community of practice), system team, lean UX, metrics
Gemba Walk
Visiting the place where the customer work is done
Little's Law: Lead Time=
WIP (units) / ACR (Average Completion Rate)
How are features prioritized?
WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First)
WSJF
Weighted Shortest Job First
WSJF
Weighted Shortest Job First Give preference to jobs with shorter duration and higher CoD using WSJF WSJF = CoD / Duration
(Test) WSJF stands for? Know the need for it at each level and who uses it and for what decisions.
Weighted Shortest Job First WSJF = CoD Job Size User Business Value + Time Criticality + RR/OE Value Job Size
How does SAFe prioritize the program backlog?
Weighted shortest job first
Trade-off Parameters
What you're balancing as you're making economic decisions
Solution Increment
When developing large solutions, ARTs typically contribute to only a part of the solution
Problem: Projects increase Cost of Delay
When overruns happen, project accounting and re-budgeting increases Cost of Delay and impacts culture
PI (Program Increment) is over when?
When the Time ends
Confidence Vote
Whether or not you believe that the whole ART can accomplish the entire PI plan, not just what your team is committing to
Estimation is done by the?
Whole Team 1. Increases Accuracy 2. Builds Understanding 3. Creates Shared Commitment
How do agile teams estimate their work?
With story points - a single number representing combo of qualities: volume, complexity, knowledge, uncertainty. They are measured relative to each other.
Which statement is true about the Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration?
Without the IP Iteration, there is a risk that the 'tyranny of the urgent' outweighs all innovation activities
Queue
Work committed to
Backlog
Work not committed too
(Agile principle) what is the primary measure of progress?
Working software
Agile Manifesto: ________________________ over comprehensive documentation
Working software
(Test) Little's Law
Wq = Lq y (up-side down) 1. Avg Wait time = Avg queue length/Avg processing rate - Faster processing time decreases wait - Control wait times by controlling queue lengths
Triangle
You can have fixed dates and fixed cost, just not fixed scope
Which statement fits with the SAFe Core Value of Built-in Quality?
You cannot scale crappy code
Don't define a feature in ________, because ___________
a story voice format, it will only support one user role and features are designed for multiple roles
(Test) Which of the following are principles of agile architecture?
a. Architecture emerges b. Implement design patterns c. They build it, they test it d. There is a monopoly on innovation d. All of the above
Choose one: Which of the following is not true of the principle of Respect for People?
a. Empower only managers b. Develop people and teams c. Build partnerships
What are inputs for Iteration Planning?
a. Feedback from the prior sprint b. The teams PI plan backlog, which consists of stories that were planned during release planning c. Feedback from the System Demo, which will have occurred sometime during the prior sprint d. All of the above e. None of the above
(Test) Choose all that apply: Which of the following is true about spikes?
a. They are useful b. We should reserve time for them during PSI Planning c. They fill out architectural features d. The are created in technical stories and refactors.
Which of the following are not a principle of agile architecture?
a. When in doubt, code or model it out b. Build the simplest architecture that can work c. The bigger the system, the longer the runway d. All of the above are principles
Which meetings can architects attend?
a. backlog refinement mtgs b. sprint planning mtgs c. demo mtgs
(Test) Which of the following things enable Design Simplicity?
a. keep the model close to the domain b. follow design principles (open/close single responsibility) c. Continuous refactoring d. all of the above
(Test) According to Kaizen, we should become relentless in:
a. reflection b. developing people c. creating the sustainably shortest lead time d. continuous improvement
(Test) What is the goal of Lean Thinking?
a. speed, value, product development flow b. speed, quality, value c. agility, speed quality
In the Iteration Planning, if there are more stories on the team backlog than the teams capacity allows?
a. the scrum master orders the pizzas b. the team decides how much overtime they will make c. the product owner and team decide together which stories are taken up in this sprint d. the development team decides what they an achieve in the sprint
Choose one: Which is not a part of the house of lean?
a. value b. respect for people c. longest lead time d. kaizen
What is the biggest benefit of decentralized decision-making?
delivering value in shortest sustainable lead time
PI objectives are built _______________
from the bottom up by Agile teams who estimate and ID their part of the solution during PI planning
Holding cost
holding cost (the cost for delayed feedback, inventory decay, and delayed value delivery)
DevOps
is a cultural change
What happens at the end of an iteration period?
iteration review (team demo of software), and team retrospective
Which of the core competencies of the Lean Enterprise helps align strategy and execution?
lean portfolio management
If you opt to preserve, work continues until _______________
new epic inspired features that hit the backlog can't compete with other features
Manage queue lengths to ____________
reduce the wait times for new capabilities
Which statement is a value from the Agile Manifesto?
respond to change
What is the Fibonacci sequence?
this is the series of numbers in which the first two terms are 0 and 1 and each number that follows it eh sum of the previous two. Used as a measure of relativity in agile. ,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21..
Primary role of a SAFe portfolio is:
to fund and nurture a set of development value streams
What is the impact of Customer Centricity?
to understand the customer's needs
Transaction cost
transaction cost (the cost of preparing and implementing the batch)
Optimize the ________, not the ___________
whole, not the parts of the organization and development process
