SAFe SPC Concepts high level Exam Questions and Answers

Chapter 1. What is the problem to be solved? - ANSWER-based on the annual state of agile report: * Accelerate product delivery * enhance the ability to manage changing priorities * increase productivity * improve product visibility * enhance software quality * Improve business/IT alignment * reduce project risk * improve team morale * enhance delivery /predictability Chapter 1. What are the basic constructs of SAFe forming the basis of the new approach - ANSWER-Core Values: 1. Built in quality 2. Program execution 3. Aignment 4. Transparency Nothing beats an Agile Team * Empowered, self-organizing, self-managing, cross-functional team * Delivers valuable tested, working system every two weeks * Uses a team framework which combines the best of Scrum project management, xp-inspired technical practices and kanban for flow ** Agile teams are 5-9 people ** It's a fractal Nothing beats an Agile Team EXCEPT a team of agile teams! ***Allows for several programs to align with strategy and vision * Self-organizing, self-managing, team of agile teams * Deliver working, tested fully system increments every two weeks * Operates with Vision, architecture and UX guidance * Common iteration lengths and estimating * Face to face planning for collaboration Chapter 1. What are the various Configuration and implementation roadmap to start you thinking about the new approach - ANSWER-1. Essential SAFe: provides the basis for success. Program and team level 2. Portfolio SAFe: Adds lean Portfolio governance 3. Large Solution: slower but allows for very large teams of 400+ per solution. If you don't need it don't use it. 4. Full Safe Change is hard what do we do? - ANSWER-Issues per John Kotter's 8 step approach 1. allowing too much complacency 2. Failure to create a sufficiently powerful guiding coalition 3. Underestimating the power of vision 4. Under -communicating the power of vision by 10-100x 5. permitting obstacles to block the new vision 6. failure to create short-term wins 7. declaring victory too soon 8. neglecting to anchor changes firmly in the corporate culture Explain the house of lean - ANSWER-Achieve the sustainably shortest lead time by: 1. highest quality and value to people and society 2. high moral, safety and customer delight The Structure Roof: Value Pillars / Verticals: to change the culture you must change the Org. * Respect for people and culture: * Don't overload them * Don't make them wait * Don't force them to do wasteful work * Don't impose wishful thinking * Flow * optimize continuous and sustainable throughput of value * Avoid start, stop, start delays * Build quality in (flow depends on it * understand, exploit and manage variability * integrate frequently * informed decision -making via fast feedback * Innovation * Producers innovate: customers validate * Get out of the office (Gemba) * Provide time and space for creativity * apply innovation accounting * Pivot without mercy or guilt * Relentless improvement * A constant sense of danger * Optimize the whole * Consider facts carefully, act quickly * Apply lean tools to identify and address causes * Reflect on key milestones; identify and address shortcomings Foundation: Leadership * Lead the change * Know the way; life-long learning * Develop people * Inspire and align with missions: minimize constraints * Decentralize decision-making * Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers Review how to apply and suport the values and principles of agile manifesto while building systems of scale - ANSWER- Explain the marshmallow challenge - ANSWER-a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. 18 minutes given. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average? Forces team to collaborate. It reveals the following most teams build in an orient, plan build and add marshmallow. By adding the marshmallow last the tower falls over. business school grads do worst and kindergarten kids do best. Because no kindergartners are trying to be ceo. Also, they iterate, try try try by prototyping. ave 20 in business school grads: 10 in kindergarten: 25 in Architects and engineers: 40" in Above this: When you add a high stakes ($$$) the more the worst teams do. Incentives + low skills DNE Success Incentives + high Skills = Success What is the agile manifesto? - ANSWER-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 the manifesto Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation. Working software is the primary measure of progress. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility. Simplicity -- the art of maximizing the amount of work not done -- is essential. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. What are the Safe Lean-Agile principles? - ANSWER-#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 WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths #7 - Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning #8 - Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers #9 - Decentralize decision-making Take an economic view - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #1 Delivering the best value and quality for people and society in the shortest sustainable lead time requires a fundamental understanding of the economics of building systems. It's critical that everyday decisions are made in a proper economic context. The primary aspects include developing and communicating the strategy for incremental value delivery and creating the Value Stream Economic Framework. This defines the trade-offs between risk, Cost of Delay (CoD), and operational and development costs, while supporting decentralized decision-making. Apply systems thinking - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #2 Deming observed that the problems faced in the workplace require an understanding of the systems that workers use. Moreover, a system is complex. It has many interrelated components (people and processes) that have defined, shared goals. To improve, everyone must understand and commit to the purpose of the system. Optimizing one component does not optimize the whole. In SAFe, systems thinking is applied to the organization that builds the system, as well as to the system under development. It also acknowledges how that system operates in its end-user environment. Assume variability; preserve options - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #3 Traditional design and life cycle practices encourage choosing a single design-and-requirements option early in the development process. But if that starting point is wrong, then future adjustments take too long and can lead to a suboptimal long-term design. A better approach is to maintain multiple requirements and design options for a longer period in the development cycle. Empirical data is then used to narrow the focus, resulting in a design that creates better economic outcomes. Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #4 Develop solutions incrementally in a series of short iterations. Each iteration results in an integrated increment of a working system. Subsequent iterations build on the previous ones. Increments allow fast customer feedback and risk mitigation. They also may become minimum viable products (MVPs) or prototypes for market testing and validation. In addition, these early, fast feedback points help determine when to 'pivot,' where necessary, to an alternate course of action. Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #5 Business owners, developers, and customers have a shared responsibility to ensure that investment in new solutions will deliver economic benefit. The sequential, phase-gate development model was designed to meet this challenge, but experience shows that it does not mitigate risk as intended. In Lean-Agile development, integration points provide objective milestones in which to evaluate the solution frequently and throughout the development life cycle. This regular evaluation provides the financial, technical, and fitness-for-purpose governance needed to assure that a continuing investment will produce a commensurate return. Visualize and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #6 Lean enterprises strive to achieve a state of continuous flow, where new system capabilities move quickly and visibly from concept to cash. There are three keys to implementing flow: 1. Visualize and limit the amount of work in process (WIP) to limit demand to actual capacity. 2. Reduce the batch sizes of work to facilitate fast and reliable flow through the system. 3. Manage queue lengths to reduce the wait times for new capabilities Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #7 Cadence creates predictability and provides a rhythm for development. Synchronization causes multiple perspectives to be understood, resolved, and integrated at the same time. Applying development cadence and synchronization, coupled with periodic cross-domain planning, provides the tools needed to operate effectively in the presence of uncertainty, inherent in product development. Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #8 Lean-Agile leaders understand that ideation, innovation, and the engagement of knowledge workers can't generally be motivated by individual incentive compensation. After all, individual objectives cause internal competition and destroy the cooperation necessary to achieve the larger aim of the system. Providing autonomy and purpose—while minimizing constraints—leads to higher levels of employee engagement, resulting in better outcomes for customers and the enterprise. Decentralize decision-making - ANSWER-Lean-Agile principle #9 Achieving fast value delivery requires fast, decentralized decision-making. This reduces delays, improves product development flow, enables faster feedback, and creates more innovative solutions by those closest to the local knowledge. However, some decisions are strategic, global, and have economies of scale that justify centralized decision-making. Since both types of decisions occur, creating a reliable decision-making framework is a critical step in ensuring a fast flow of value. ART - ANSWER-The Agile Release Train is conducted by the RTE who ensure the PI planning and overall rhythm of work is sustainable and successful. The ART is a 10-12 week schedule of PI's made up of 5 total Sprints of two weeks each including one that is a IP sprint. Key agile economics - ANSWER-Deliver early and often, fail early, be able to adjust. By delivering value incrementally you get faster feedback, value at the increments instead of only at the end and meet customer needs better by building in feedback at each loop. What are the trade-off parameters - ANSWER-We have: * Cycle time * Product cost * Value * Developement expense underpinned by risk Explain system thinking - ANSWER-The solution itself is a system The enterprise building the system is a system as well Must optimize the full value stream to see the value ----------------------- In the end the sequence of steps that must happen to deliver value Can a flow system what is the key to economic outcomes - ANSWER-Job sequencing If you only quantify one thing what is it - ANSWER-Cost of delay What are two main things that a feature has - ANSWER-Hypothesis and acceptance criteria What is the timeline for one week - ANSWER-Fits with an a PI How do you calculate we did shortest job first - ANSWER-WSJF equals cost the delay divided by job size What makes up cost of delay - ANSWER-Use your business value plus time criticality plus risk reduction and opportunity value What is jobsite is a proxy for - ANSWER-Duration What are the main concepts of built in quality - ANSWER-Insurance at every increment of the solution reflects the quality standards and is required for high sustainable development velocity as well as sulfur quality practices like XP test first re-factoring paired work collective ownership and others What is the architectural runway - ANSWER-It allows for existing code hardware components and the like to be enabled for near term features and long-term success What is CALMR - ANSWER-An approach to DevOps Culture Automation Lean flow Measurement Recovery Explain optimal batch size - ANSWER-Part of lean flow. Lowest total cost at the intersection of cost and number of items where holding cost and transaction cost intersect