Scaled Agile SAFe-Agilist SAFe 6 Agilist - Leading SAFe (SA) (6.0) Exam Practice Test

Features are found on an ART planning board. An ART planning board is a tool that helps teams visualize and manage the work items for an Agile Release Train (ART). An ART is a long-lived team of Agile teams that delivers value in a regular cadence. Features are high-level descriptions of system behaviors that provide business value to a stakeholder. Features are derived from epics and decomposed into user stories or enablers. Features are prioritized by business value using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) and planned for Program Increments (PIs) by the ART teams. References: Organizing Around Value with ARTs, ART Planning Board

This is how SAFe recommends using a second operating system to deliver value. A second operating system is a way of organizing an enterprise that combines two complementary structures: a traditional hierarchy that provides stability, alignment, and efficiency; and a network of empowered teams that provides speed, agility, and creativity. A second operating system helps enterprises achieve organizational agility, which is one of the core competencies of business agility in SAFe. Organizing development around the flow of value means creating cross-functional Agile teams and ARTs that deliver value in a regular cadence. Maintaining the hierarchies means preserving the existing roles and functions that provide governance, compliance, and support. References: Organizational Agility, Dual Operating System

SAFe emphasizes:

“Separate deploy to production from release… This enables testing in production before exposing new functionality and makes the timing of the release a business decision.”

This approach supports business agility by decoupling technical readiness from market timing.

Source: Workbook, Continuous Deployment, Page 4-86

SAFe follows Kotter's 8-step change model. The workbook notes:

"Culture change comes last, not first. It is the outcome, not the precondition, of a successful transformation. Culture changes only after you have successfully demonstrated that the new way is superior to the old."

This confirms that culture change follows behavioral change.

Source: SAFe Workbook, Section on Leading Change

The workbook defines the Enabling team as:

“Organized to assist other teams with specialized capabilities and help them become proficient in new technologies.”

This definition is found under SAFe’s use of “Team Topologies.”

Source: Workbook, Page 3-21

Lean Portfolio Management is responsible for managing the Portfolio Kanban. The Portfolio Kanban is a method for visualizing and managing the flow of portfolio epics from ideation to implementation and completion. The Portfolio Kanban helps align strategy with execution, prioritize demand with capacity, reduce cycle time and variability, and foster collaboration and feedback. Lean Portfolio Management is one of the core competencies of business agility in SAFe. Lean Portfolio Management aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking approaches to strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and governance. References: Lean Portfolio Management, Portfolio Kanban

The SAFe House of Lean is based on:

“Goal: Value in the shortest sustainable lead time, with the best quality and people morale.”

This guides decisions and continuous improvement.

According to the SAFe Agilist 6.0 domain of PI Planning, the confidence vote is a process where:

Each team conducts a vote using their fingers (fist of five) or a digital tool for remote events

The teams vote on the confidence level for the objectives as a set, and if confidence is high enough, the aggregate set of objectives becomes the committed ART plan

The Release Train Engineer summarizes the team objectives into the ART PI objectives in a format suitable for management communication

https://scaledagileframework.com/pi-planning/

One way Lean-Agile leaders lead by example is by modeling SAFe’s Lean-Agile Mindset, values, principles, and practices. A Lean-Agile Mindset is a way of thinking that embraces the values and principles of Lean thinking and Agile development. A Lean-Agile leader is someone who exhibits this mindset and applies it to lead others in achieving business agility. A Lean-Agile leader models SAFe’s four core values: Alignment, Built-in Quality, Transparency, and Program Execution; as well as its ten principles: Take an economic view; Apply systems thinking; Assume variability; preserve options; Build incrementally with fast integrated learning cycles; Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems; Visualize and limit WIP; reduce batch sizes; manage queue lengths; Apply cadence; synchronize with cross-domain planning; Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers; Decentralize decision-making; Organize around value; and Adopt a customer-centric mindset. References: Lean-Agile Mindset, SAFe Core Values, SAFe Lean-Agile Principles, Lead by Example

SAFe Principle #10 emphasizes:

“Organize around value” and states that enterprises must continuously adjust their organizational structure to optimize for the flow of value when market demands change.

This means reorganizing the network around the new value flow is the recommended approach.

The Lean Budget Guardrails defined in SAFe include "Guiding investments by horizon" as one of the main components. This ensures strategic alignment and responsible use of funds.

“Fund Value Streams; Lean budgets and Guardrails… Value Stream budgets adjusted dynamically…”

In the Design Thinking section, the workbook specifies:

“Use empathy maps to identify with Customers… This helps teams develop deep shared understanding and empathy for the Customer.”

This tool is essential in capturing user perspectives, making it a key Design Thinking practice.

Source: 01 Workbook SA (6.0).pdf, Pages 4-7 to 4-9

The workbook explains that ROAM stands for:

“Resolved – Addressed; no longer a concern

Owned – Someone has taken responsibility

Accepted – Nothing more can be done and if risk occurs, release may be compromised

Mitigated – Team has plan to adjust as necessary.”

Source: Workbook, Page 4-60

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The Agile Manifesto lists four core values:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

Working software over comprehensive documentation

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

Responding to change over following a plan

Option C is a direct verbatim value from the Agile Manifesto.

(Source: Agile Manifesto)

From the workbook section on forming cross-functional Agile Teams:

“Agile Teams are cross-functional self-organizing entities that can define, build, test, and—where applicable—deploy increments of value.”

“Optimized for communication and delivery of value” is also mentioned but for this question, the best indicators of a cross-functional team are the capabilities of the team members and their ability to deliver value independently.

Conducting a PI planning event is an example of applying cadence and synchronization in SAFe. Cadence is a regular and predictable pattern of events that provides a rhythm for development. Synchronization is the alignment of multiple perspectives and activities within a cadence. PI planning is a two-day event that occurs at the beginning of every Program Increment (PI), which is typically an 8-12 week timebox. PI planning brings together all the teams in an ART to align on a common vision, identify dependencies, plan features, establish objectives, and commit to a plan for the next PI. References: Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand, PI Planning

Decisions that deliver large and broad economic benefits are the type of decisions that should remain centralized even in a decentralized decision-making environment. Decentralized decision-making is a principle and practice that empowers individuals and teams to make decisions about their work without excessive interference or control from others. Decentralized decision-making fosters autonomy, agility, innovation, and ownership among knowledge workers. However, some decisions are better made centrally by those who have more authority, information, or expertise. These include decisions that affect the whole enterprise or portfolio, such as strategy, vision, budgeting, governance, compliance, etc. References: SAFe Lean-Agile Principles, SAFe Principle #9

The workbook details:

“At the end of PI Planning, teams vote on confidence using the Fist of Five method. A score of 3 or above signals commitment.”

Lean Portfolio Management, Agile Product Delivery, and Lean-Agile Leadership are SAFe core competencies. A SAFe core competency is a set of knowledge, skills, and behaviors that enable an organization to achieve business agility. Business agility is the ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative solutions. There are seven core competencies in SAFe: Team and Technical Agility, Agile Product Delivery, Enterprise Solution Delivery, Lean Portfolio Management, Organizational Agility, Continuous Learning Culture, and Lean-Agile Leadership. References: SAFe as an Operating System for Business Agility, Core Competencies of Business Agility

The primary goal of SAFe is to achieve business agility. Business agility is the ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative solutions. Business agility requires that everyone involved in delivering solutions—business and technology leaders, development, IT operations, legal, marketing, finance, support, compliance, security, and others—use Lean and Agile practices to continually deliver innovative, high-quality products and services faster than the competition. References: Thriving in the Digital Age, Business Agility

Mindset and principles is one of the dimensions of Lean-Agile Leadership. Lean-Agile Leadership is one of the core competencies of business agility in SAFe. Lean-Agile Leadership means exhibiting the behaviors that enable an organization to achieve business agility. Lean-Agile Leadership has three dimensions: mindset and principles; leading change; and developing people. Mindset and principles means adopting the values and principles of Lean thinking and Agile development, and applying them to lead others in achieving business agility. References: Lean-Agile Leadership, Mindset and Principles

Deploy, verify, monitor, and respond are all activities of Continuous Deployment. Continuous Deployment is one of the elements of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline, which is a key enabler of Agile Product Delivery. Continuous Deployment means automatically releasing every update to a production environment or a staging environment that is identical to production. Continuous Deployment involves four activities: deploy (releasing the solution to the target environment); verify (ensuring that the solution meets the quality standards and acceptance criteria); monitor (collecting feedback and data on the solution performance and usage); and respond (taking actions to improve or fix the solution based on the feedback and data). References: Agile Product Delivery, Continuous Delivery Pipeline, Continuous Deployment

During the PI Planning simulation, the workbook details that:

“In the second team breakout, Business Owners circulate and assign business value to PI Objectives from low (1) to high (10)... This reflects the importance of the objectives and helps prioritize based on business impact.”

The purpose is to guide teams in understanding what matters most to the business.

Reducing delays is the focus of Lean thinking. Lean thinking is a philosophy and a set of principles and practices that aim to eliminate waste and optimize value delivery. Waste is anything that does not directly contribute to customer value or that causes delays in delivering value. Delays are the primary cause of waste, as they increase inventory, risk, variability, overhead, and dissatisfaction. Reducing delays means minimizing the time between customer need and value delivery, which improves quality, efficiency, and customer satisfaction. References: Thriving in the Digital Age, SAFe Principle #2

In the workbook’s PI Planning agenda:

"After the draft plan review, the RTE facilitates a management review and problem-solving meeting with Business Owners, Product Management, and other stakeholders. Here, capacity and load adjustments, scope changes, and planning adjustments are agreed upon."

Source: Workbook, PI Planning Module, Page 4-70

This statement is true about batch size. Batch size is the amount of work that moves as a unit through a process or system. Large batch sizes increase variability by creating more uncertainty, complexity, dependencies, and unpredictability in the workflow. Large batch sizes also increase waste by causing delays, queues, handoffs, rework, overproduction, and inventory accumulation. Reducing batch size is one of the key ways to optimize value delivery and improve flow efficiency. References: SAFe Lean-Agile Principles, SAFe Principle #5

Transparency is one of the SAFe core values. SAFe core values are the fundamental beliefs that guide the behaviors and actions of SAFe enterprises. Transparency means that all the relevant information about the strategy, plans, progress, risks, and issues are openly shared and visible to everyone who needs it. Transparency helps build trust, alignment, collaboration, and learning among all the stakeholders in a SAFe enterprise. References: SAFe Core Values, Transparency

According to the SAFe Agilist 6.0 domain of Apply SAFe Principles, when basing decisions on economics, lead time, product cost, value, and development expense are used to:

Evaluate the economic impact of different design alternatives

Optimize the flow of value delivery by minimizing delays and waste

Maximize the return on investment by delivering the most valuable features first

Balance the tradeoffs between speed, quality, and cost

https://scaledagileframework.com/take-an-economic-view/

The SAFe workbook defines "Leading by Example" as a foundational behavior of Lean-Agile leaders. They do this through:

Insatiable learning

Authenticity

Emotional competence

Courage

Growing others

Decentralized decision-making

The workbook explicitly states:

“Leaders model desired professional and ethical behaviors… and apply SAFe's Lean-Agile Mindset, values, principles, and practices.”