SAFe-SASM Questions and Answers

Integration points in agile development serve as critical junctures where progress is reviewed, and decisions can be made on whether to continue on the current path or pivot based on new information.

Integration Points:Regular integration points help in verifying progress, ensuring alignment with objectives, and assessing whether the current approach is delivering the desired outcomes.

Pivot or Persevere:These points provide the opportunity to pivot if necessary. Teams can change their course of action based on feedback, new insights, or changing requirements, ensuring that the final product meets the needs effectively.

Risk Mitigation:Regular integration reduces the risk of late discovery of issues and ensures that the product evolves in a way that adds value continuously.

SAFe Scrum Master References:

SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Training Material, Chapter on Iteration Execution​​.

Continuous Integration (CI) is a practice where code changes are automatically built, tested, and merged into a shared repository multiple times a day. The main purpose of CI is to ensure that the codebase is always in a state that could be potentially deployable. This means that any integration issues are identified and addressed as soon as possible, reducing the chances of bugs slipping into production.

Frequent Integration:Developers frequently integrate their code changes into the main repository, often several times a day.

Automated Builds:Each integration is verified by an automated build to detect integration errors as quickly as possible.

Automated Testing:Along with building, automated tests are run to ensure new changes do not break existing functionality.

Feedback Loop:Quick feedback is provided to the development team, allowing them to fix issues promptly.

By maintaining a potentially deployable codebase, teams can deliver high-quality software more rapidly and with greater confidence.

SAFe Scrum Master References:

SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Training Material, Chapter on Continuous Integration​​.

Decentralized decision-making is a principle in SAFe aimed at distributing decision authority to the people closest to the information and most affected by the decisions. The primary goal of decentralized decision-making is to reduce delay in the decision-making process, which can often occur when decisions need to pass through multiple layers of hierarchy. By empowering individuals and teams to make decisions quickly, organizations can respond faster to changes, improve agility, and maintain a steady flow of work.

One way a Scrum Master leads the team's efforts for relentless improvement is by helping teams become better problem solvers. This involves coaching and mentoring the team in effective problem-solving techniques, facilitating problem-solving workshops, and encouraging a mindset of continuous improvement. By empowering teams to identify and address issues autonomously, the Scrum Master supports the development of a high-performing, self-sufficient team.

SAFe Scrum Master References

SAFe 5.0 framework: role of the Scrum Master in promoting continuous improvement

SAFe Advanced Scrum Master learning materials: techniques for improving problem-solving skills within teams

In SAFe, systems builders and customers bear a significant responsibility to ensure that investments in new solutions deliver the necessary economic benefit. This means that any investment should provide value that justifies the costs and efforts involved. The focus on economic benefit helps ensure that resources are used effectively and that the solutions developed contribute positively to the organization's financial health.

SAFe Scrum Master References

SAFe Lean-Agile Principles: economic view and value delivery

SAFe 5.0 framework: ensuring investments align with economic benefits

Agile Team Composition:According to SAFe, an Agile Team is composed of cross-functional members who work together to deliver value. The team includes:

Scrum Master:Facilitates the team’s processes, helps remove impediments, and supports continuous improvement.

Product Owner:Represents the customer and stakeholders, prioritizes the backlog, and ensures the team is working on the most valuable items.

Developers:The team members who design, build, and test the product.

Key Role:The Product Owner is essential to the Agile Team as they provide the vision, set priorities, and ensure that the team is delivering value that aligns with the customer and business needs.

SAFe Scrum Master References:

The SAFe framework emphasizes the critical role of the Product Owner within the Agile Team, ensuring alignment and effective backlog management.

Inspect and Adapt (I&A) Event:This event includes a retrospective aimed at reviewing the past Program Increment (PI) and identifying issues that need to be addressed.

Purpose of Retrospective:The retrospective helps the team reflect on what went well, what didn’t, and why. It is used to identify specific problems and root causes that will be addressed in the subsequent problem-solving workshop.

Outcome:The issues identified during the retrospective form the basis for the problem-solving workshop, where the team collaboratively develops action plans to improve processes and outcomes.

SAFe Scrum Master References:

The I&A event in SAFe is designed to foster continuous improvement by systematically identifying and addressing issues through structured retrospectives and problem-solving workshops.

Problem Statement:The ART has nothing to show at the System Demo, indicating potential issues with integration, quality, or coordination among teams.

Recommended Action:Stopping new development work to focus on integrating and testing the system allows the team to identify and resolve integration issues, ensuring that the system is in a stable state.

Scope Adjustment:Based on what is learned during integration and testing, the scope can be adjusted to focus on delivering a coherent and functional system increment.

SAFe Scrum Master References:

SAFe emphasizes the importance of a stable, integrated system increment to demonstrate progress and ensure quality. Addressing integration issues promptly is crucial for maintaining stakeholder confidence and delivering value.

Large stories, often referred to as "epics," pose a challenge to iterative development because they encompass too much work to be completed within a single iteration. This contradicts the principles of Agile, which emphasize small, incremental deliveries to ensure continuous progress and feedback. By breaking down large stories into smaller, more manageable pieces, teams can better align with iterative development practices, allowing for more frequent delivery of value, better risk management, and easier progress tracking.

In SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), lead time is an essential metric used to measure the efficiency and effectiveness of a process. Lead time is defined as the total time it takes for a work item to move through the entire process from the moment it is initiated until it is completed. To measure lead time accurately using a Team Kanban board, two specific timestamps are crucial:

When the Agile Team pulls a Story onto the board (Timestamp C):

This is the starting point of the lead time. It marks the moment when the team commits to working on a particular story by pulling it into the workflow. This action indicates that the story is now in progress and the clock starts ticking from this point.

When the Story is accepted by the Product Owner (Timestamp D):

This is the endpoint of the lead time. It signifies that the story has been completed to the satisfaction of the team and has met the acceptance criteria defined by the Product Owner. When the Product Owner accepts the story, it indicates that the work is done and the lead time measurement stops.

These two timestamps effectively capture the duration a story takes to go through the development process, providing valuable insights into process efficiency and identifying areas for improvement.

SAFe Scrum Master References

SAFe Advanced Scrum Master learning materials

SAFe 5.0 Scrum Master Certification resources

The 2020 Scrum Guide:Scrum Guide 2020

This information aligns with the principles and practices outlined in the SAFe framework and the Scrum Guide, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of lead time measurement within a Team Kanban board context.

Organizing teams around Features can significantly reduce dependencies between teams. When teams are aligned to deliver specific features, they have more autonomy and can work more independently, without needing to wait for other teams to complete their parts. This alignment minimizes coordination and dependency management overhead, enabling faster and more efficient delivery. It also allows teams to focus on delivering end-to-end functionality, which enhances the quality and coherence of the product.

SAFe Scrum Master References

SAFe 5.0 framework: principles of organizing teams around features to reduce dependencies

SAFe Agile Teams: benefits of feature-based team organization

The ROAM risk management framework categorizes risks to ensure they are managed appropriately. When a risk is mitigated, a plan is put in place to reduce or eliminate the threat posed by the risk.

ROAM Framework:

Resolved:The risk is no longer an issue.

Owned:Someone is assigned to manage the risk.

Accepted:The risk is acknowledged, and its impact is accepted without further action.

Mitigated:Actions are taken to reduce the likelihood or impact of the risk.

Mitigation involves proactive planning and actions to reduce the severity or likelihood of a risk.

SAFe Scrum Master References:

SAFe Advanced Scrum Master Training Material, Chapter on Risk Management​​.

In SAFe, the Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration is reserved for activities such as innovation, planning, and preparation for the next Program Increment (PI), as well as for holding the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event. It is not intended for completing work that should have been finished during regular iterations. Planning work for the IP Iteration can lead to a lack of focus on essential planning and innovation activities and may indicate poor planning and risk management practices. Therefore, relying on the IP Iteration to complete Feature work is considered an anti-pattern.

SAFe Scrum Master References

SAFe 5.0 framework: guidelines on the purpose and use of the IP Iteration

SAFe Advanced Scrum Master learning materials