SAFe-Agilist SAFe 6 Agilist - Leading SAFe (SA) (6.0) Questions and Answers

From the “Leading by Example” section:

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

Attributes include insatiable learning, courage, and emotional competence.

Uncommitted objectives are counted when calculating load. Load is a measure of how much work a team can realistically accomplish in a PI. Load is calculated by adding up the story points of all the committed and uncommitted objectives of a team. Committed objectives are SMART goals that reflect the value that each team intends to deliver in a PI with high confidence. Uncommitted objectives are stretch goals that reflect additional value that each team may be able to deliver in a PI if they have extra capacity or time. Uncommitted objectives are not included in the commitment or the business value scoring, but they are included in the load to account for their potential impact on team capacity. References: PI Planning, Team PI Objectives

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

Empathy maps are a tool associated with design thinking that help to understand the user’s needs, goals, pain points, and emotions. Empathy maps are visual representations of what the user thinks, feels, sees, hears, says, and does in relation to a problem or a solution. Empathy maps help to create a shared understanding of the user among the team and stakeholders, and to generate insights for designing user-centric solutions. Empathy maps can be created based on user research, interviews, observations, or personas123.

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

The System Team is a specialized Agile team that:

Builds and maintains development environments

Provides infrastructure and tooling support

Supports continuous integration (CI), test automation, and system-level testing

Helps ARTs integrate and validate their work

This makes the System Team the correct answer.

(Source: Scaled Agile Framework – System Team)

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 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…”

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 workbook clearly outlines:

"Business Owners assign business value (BV) scores to PI Objectives from 1 (low) to 10 (high) after negotiation. These scores help teams understand what is most important to the business."

Source: SAFe Workbook, PI Planning Simulation Section

The business owner is the person who decides the team PI objective business value scoring after negotiation. The business owner is a key stakeholder who has the primary business and technical responsibility for governance, compliance, and return on investment (ROI) for a specific value stream. The business owner participates in the PI planning event and assigns business value points to each team PI objective based on their alignment with the program vision and objectives. The business owner also reviews and approves the final plan and value scores after the team and program risks are resolved. References: PI Planning, Business Owners

ROAM is an acronym for Resolved, Owned, Accepted, Mitigated. ROAM is a technique for categorizing and managing PI risks during the final plan review in the PI planning event. PI risks are potential events or conditions that may have a negative impact on the PI objectives or outcomes. ROAM helps teams address their PI risks by assigning them to one of four states: Resolved (the risk has been eliminated or is no longer relevant); Owned (the risk has been assigned to a person or a team who is responsible for managing it); Accepted (the risk has been acknowledged and its impact has been factored into the plan); Mitigated (the risk has been reduced or its likelihood has been lowered). References: PI Planning, Final Plan Review

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

Customer Centricity is described as:

“A mindset and way of doing business that focuses on creating positive experiences for the customer by understanding their needs, behaviors, and preferences.”

This drives innovation and aligns solutions to real customer problems.

The SAFe workbook explicitly describes how ART events form a feedback-driven cycle:

“ART events, such as PI Planning, Iteration Planning, Reviews, and Retrospectives form a plan-do-check-adjust (PDCA) learning cycle.”

This continuous improvement cycle enables adaptation and learning throughout the ART’s execution.

Under the “Team and Technical Agility” competency, the workbook details:

“Built-in Quality ensures that every element and increment of the solution reflects quality standards throughout development.”

This competency supports Agile practices such as pairing, automation, and Definition of Done to embed quality at every level.

Source: 01 Workbook SA (6.0).pdf, Pages 3-13 to 3-15

From the workbook's role definitions:

"Scrum Master/Team Coach Responsibilities: Supporting Iteration Execution, Improving ART Performance, Facilitating PI Planning, Building High-Performing Teams."

This makes "supporting iteration execution" a primary responsibility.

Source: Workbook, Lesson 3.1, Page 3-7

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

In SAFe 6.0, the Business Agility Value Stream (BAVS) describes the steps that enterprises take to rapidly respond to new opportunities and deliver value. The steps are:

Sense Opportunity

Fund MVP

Organize Around Value

Connect to Customer

Deliver MVP

Pivot or Persevere

Deliver Value Continuously

(Source: Scaled Agile Framework – Business Agility Value Stream)

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 SAFe Workbook states:

“Centralize decisions that are infrequent, long-lasting, and have significant economies of scale.”

This includes strategic decisions like compensation strategy or technology platform choices.

Cadence and synchronization are applied in events like PI Planning:

“PI Planning provides cadence-based alignment of multiple Agile Teams… Synchronization allows all stakeholders to align and collaborate.”

The Agile Manifesto states:

“We have come to value: Customer collaboration over contract negotiation”

This is one of the four core value statements of the Agile Manifesto and is cited verbatim in the SAFe Workbook.

Source: Workbook, Page 2-13

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

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

In SAFe 6.0, the foundation of SAFe is explicitly described as the combination of the Lean-Agile Mindset, SAFe Core Values, and the SAFe Principles (“Mindset, Values, and Principles”). These foundational elements guide behavior and decision-making across portfolios, large solutions, ARTs, and teams.

Lean-Agile Mindset: the SAFe House of Lean (Respect for People and Culture, Flow, Innovation, Relentless Improvement) plus the Agile Manifesto values and principles.

SAFe Core Values: the cultural cornerstones that guide how SAFe is applied in practice.

SAFe Principles: the ten Lean-Agile principles that inform roles, events, and practices across SAFe.

Therefore, “Mindset, Values and Principles” is the correct choice and is how SAFe frames its foundation.

According to the SAFe Agilist 6.0 domain of Built-in Quality, this practice reduces bottlenecks and ensures consistency by:

Encouraging teams to share responsibility for the quality of their work products

Establishing common standards and guidelines for coding, testing, documentation, etc.

Enabling teams to collaborate and coordinate across domains and dependencies

Promoting a culture of continuous improvement and learning

https://scaledagileframework.com/built-In-quality/

The SAFe Workbook outlines the elements of enterprise strategy formulation and emphasizes:

“Enterprise Strategy Formulation includes Vision, Mission, Core Values, Business Drivers, Competitive Environment, Financial Goals, and Distinctive Competence.”

Among these, Portfolio Vision is identified as a direct outcome that aligns the portfolio with strategy.

Source: 01 Workbook SA (6.0).pdf, Page 5-12

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