SaFe

1. SECTION 1: Thriving in the Digital Age with Business Agility (L) 7%

1.1. 7 Core competencies

1.1.1. https://www.scaledagileframework.com/business-agility/

1.1.2. Lean Portfolio Management

1.1.2.1. Strategy and Investment Funding ensures that the entire portfolio is aligned and funded to create and maintain the solutions needed to meet business targets. It requires the cooperation of Business Owners, portfolio stakeholders, technologists, and Enterprise Architects.

1.1.2.2. Agile Portfolio Operations coordinates and supports decentralized program execution, enabling operational excellence. It requires the cooperation of the Agile Program Management Office/Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (APMO/LACE) and Communities of Practice (CoPs) for Release Train Engineers (RTEs) and Scrum Masters.

1.1.2.3. Lean Governance manages spending, audit and compliance, forecasting expenses, and measurement. It requires the engagement of the Agile PMO/LACE, Business Owners, and Enterprise Architects.

1.1.3. Organisational agility

1.1.3.1. Lean Business Operations – Teams apply Lean principles to understand, map, and continuously improve the business processes that support the business’s products and services.

1.1.3.2. Lean-Thinking People and Agile Teams – This state occurs when everyone involved in solution delivery is trained in Lean and Agile methods and embraces and embodies the values, principles, and practices.

1.1.3.3. Strategy Agility – This state occurs when the enterprise shows the ability and adaptability needed to sense the market and quickly change strategy when necessary continuously.

1.1.4. Continuous Learning culture

1.1.4.1. Learning Organization – Employees at every level are learning and growing so that the organization can transform and adapt to an ever-changing world.

1.1.4.2. Innovation Culture – Employees are encouraged and empowered to explore and implement creative ideas that enable future value delivery.

1.1.4.3. Relentless Improvement – Every part of the enterprise focuses on continuously improving its solutions, products, and processes.

1.1.5. Enterprise solution delivery

1.1.5.1. Lean System and Solution Engineering applies Lean-Agile practices to align and coordinate all the activities necessary to specify, architect, design, implement, test, deploy, evolve, and ultimately decommission these systems.

1.1.5.2. Coordinating Trains and Suppliers coordinates and aligns the extended set of value streams to a shared business and technology mission. It uses the coordinated Vision, Backlogs, and Roadmaps with common Program Increments (PI) and synchronization points.

1.1.5.3. Continually Evolve Live Systems ensures both the development pipeline and the large systems themselves support continuous delivery of value, both during and after, release into the field.

1.1.6. Agile product delivery

1.1.6.1. Customer Centricity and Design Thinking – Customer centricity puts the customer at the center of every decision and uses design thinking to ensure the solution is desirable, feasible, viable, and sustainable.

1.1.6.2. Develop on Cadence; Release on Demand – Developing on cadence helps manage the variability inherent in product development. Decoupling the release of value from that cadence ensures customers can get what they need when they need it.

1.1.6.3. DevOps and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline – DevOps and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline creates the foundation that enables enterprises to release value, in whole or in part, at any time it’s needed.

1.1.7. Technical and Team agility

1.1.7.1. Built-in Quality – Defined Agile practices

1.1.7.2. Agile Teams- Applying effective Agile principles and practices.

1.1.7.3. Team of Agile Teams – Agile teams -SAFe Agile Release Train (ART)

1.1.8. Lean Agile Leadership

1.1.8.1. Leading by Example – Leaders gain earned authority by modeling the desired behaviors for others to follow, inspiring them to incorporate the leader’s example into their development journey.

1.1.8.2. Mindset and Principles – By embedding the Lean-Agile way of working in their beliefs, decisions, responses, and actions, leaders model the expected norm throughout the organization.

1.1.8.3. Leading Change – Leaders lead (rather than support) the transformation by creating the environment, preparing the people, and providing the necessary resources to realize the desired outcomes.

1.2. Big Picture

1.2.1. Roles

1.2.2. Artifacts

1.2.3. Implementation

1.2.4. Mindset

1.2.5. Principles

1.2.6. Values

1.3. Principles

1.3.1. Take an economic view Delivering the ‘best value and quality for people and society in the shortest sustainable lead time’

1.3.2. Apply systems thinking is applied to the system under development, as well as to the organization that builds the system.

1.3.3. Assume variability; preserve options 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 optimum economic outcomes.

1.3.4. Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles

1.3.5. Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems

1.3.6. Visualize and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths

1.3.7. Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning

1.3.7.1. Principle #7 - Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning - Scaled Agile Framework

1.3.8. Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers

1.3.9. Decentralize decision-making

1.3.10. Organize around value

1.3.10.1. Build Technology Portfolios of Development Value Streams The key to unlocking this potential is to understand and apply the concept of value streams, which are fundamental to lean thinking. Lean thinking can be summarized as follows: Precisely specify value by specific product - Identify the value stream for each product - Make value flow without interruptions - Let the customer pull value from the producer - Pursue perfection

1.3.10.2. Value streams are defined by the steps, the people, and the flow of information and material necessary to deliver customer value

1.3.10.2.1. Operation

1.3.10.2.2. Development (Define > Build>Validate>Release)

2. SECTION 12: Accelerating to Business Agility (I) 8%

2.1. Continuous Learning Culture

2.2. Accelerate

2.3. Establish communities of practice (CoP)

2.3.1. Domain An area of shared interest A group of individuals with shared passion about a topic Practice Shared knowledge and experiences

2.4. Implement Agile HR practices

2.4.1. 1. Embrace a new talent contract, explicitly acknowledge the need for value, autonomy, and empowerment 2. Foster continuous engagement, to both the business and technical mission 3. Hire people for Agile attitude, team orientation, and cultural fit 4. Eliminate annual performance reviews. Replace with continuous iterative performance feedback. 5. ‘Take the issue of money off the table.’ Eliminate destructive financial incentives. 6. Support meaningful, impactful, and continuous learning and growth

2.5. What is strategy Agility?

2.5.1. Strategy Agility is the ability to change and implement new strategies quickly and decisively when necessary and to persevere on the strategies that are working—or will work—if given sufficient focus and time.

2.6. Market sensing

2.6.1. ► Conducting research using open and confidential sources ► Analysis of quantitative and qualitative data ► Direct and indirect user/operator feedback ► Direct observation of Solutions/processes in real use

2.7. Sunk costs cannot be recovered or changed and are independent of any future costs a program may sustain. ► Because strategic decision-making affects only the future course of the mission, sunk costs are absolutely irrelevant. ► Instead, decision-makers should base all strategies solely on future costs. This way, strategy Agility provides the opportunity for the greatest economic benefit, without the need to defend past spending.

2.8. The Continuous Learning Culture competency describes a set of values and practices that encourage individuals, and the Enterprise as a whole to continually increase knowledge, competence, performance, and innovation

2.9. Learning organization

2.9.1. Personal Mastery – Build individual “T-shaped” breadth of knowledge in multiple disciplines for deep and broad expertise ► Shared Vision – Leaders envision and articulate exciting possibilities and invite others to contribute to a view of the future ► Team Learning – Teams achieve common objectives by sharing knowledge, suspending assumptions, and ‘thinking together’ ► Mental Models – Teams surface their existing assumptions and generalizations with an open mind to creating new models ► Systems Thinking – Everyone recognizes that optimizing individual components does not optimize the system

2.10. Relentless improvement

2.10.1. A 'constant sense of danger' drives improvement activities that are essential to the survival of an organization ► Optimize the whole – improvements increase the effectiveness of the entire system ► A problem-solving culture is the driver for continuous improvement ► Reflect at key Milestones – improvement activities are treated with as much urgency as new Feature development, fixing defects, and responding to the latest outage ► Fact-based improvement leads to changes guided by the data about the problem rather than conjecture or opinions

2.11. Relentless improvement

2.11.1. ► Innovative People – instilling innovation requires a commitment to cultivating courage and aptitude for innovation and risk-taking ► Time and Space for Innovation – providing work areas conducive to creative activities; setting aside time to innovate ► Go See – innovate by witnessing how Customers interact with Solutions and understanding their problems ► Experimentation and Feedback – Conducting experiments iteratively is the most effective path to learning► Pivot Without Mercy or Guilt – When fact patterns dictate that a hypothesis will be proven false, pivot quickly to a new one ► Innovation Riptides – Innovation flows continuously up, down, and across the Enterprise

2.11.2. Measure and Grow is the way portfolios evaluate their progress toward business agility and determine their next improvement steps.

2.12. Business Agility assessment

2.12.1. Assess across all seven core competencies ► Measure overall progress on the goal of true Business Agility ► Identify focus areas that would benefit from improvement activities ► Create a baseline for demonstrating progress

2.13. Core competency assessments

2.13.1. ► One assessment for each one of the seven core competencies ► Assess at a greater level of detail to generate deeper insights ► Measure the progress being made toward a specific core competency ► Identify specific practices for potential improvement

3. SECTION 2: Becoming a Lean-Agile Leader (L) 15%

3.1. Core Values

3.1.1. Alignment

3.1.1.1. Alignment starts with the strategy and investment decisions at the Portfolio level and is reflected in Strategic Themes, Portfolio Vision, the Portfolio Backlog, and the outcomes of Participatory Budgeting.

3.1.1.2. supported by clear lines of content authority, starting with the portfolio and then resting primarily with the Product and Solution Management roles, and extending to the Product Owner role.

3.1.1.3. PI Objectives and Iteration Goals are used to communicate expectations and commitments

3.1.1.4. Cadence and synchronization are applied to ensure that things stay in alignment

3.1.1.5. Architectures and user experience guidance and governance help ensure that the Solution is technologically sound, robust, and scalable.

3.1.1.6. Economic prioritization keeps stakeholders engaged in continuous, agreed-to, rolling-wave prioritization, based on the current context and evolving facts.

3.1.2. Built in quality

3.1.2.1. Flow, Architecture and Design Quality, Code Quality, System Quality and Release Quality

3.1.3. Transparency

3.1.3.1. Executives, Lean Portfolio Management, and other stakeholders can see the Portfolio Kanban and program backlogs, and they have a clear understanding of the PI Objectives for each Agile Release Train or Solution Train. ARTs have visibility into the team’s backlogs, as well as other Program Backlogs. Teams and programs commit to short-term, visible commitments that they routinely meet. Inspect and Adapt occurs with all relevant stakeholders and creates backlog improvement items from lessons learned. Teams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs) can see portfolio business and enabler Epics. They have visibility into new initiatives. Progress is based on objective measures of working solutions. (Principle #5) Everyone can understand the velocity and WIP of the teams and programs; strategy and the ability to execute are visibly aligned. Programs execute reliably, as noted below.

3.1.4. Program Execution

3.2. Agile Mindset

3.2.1. bodies of knowledge: Lean, Agile, systems thinking, and DevOps.

3.2.2. House of Lean

3.2.2.1. goal -deliver the maximum customer value in the shortest sustainable lead-time while providing the highest possible quality to customers and society as a whole. High morale, safety, and customer delight are additional goals and benefits.

3.2.2.2. Respect for People and Culture -generative culture, which is characterized by a positive, safe, performance-centric environment

3.2.2.3. Flow - Continuous flow enables faster sustainable value delivery, effective Built-In Quality practices, relentless improvement, and evidence-based governance based on working components of the solution. The principles of flow are an essential part of the Lean-Agile mindset. These include understanding the full Development Value Stream, visualizing and limiting Work in Process (WIP), and reducing batch sizes and managing queue lengths.

3.2.2.4. Innovation - Hire, coach, and mentor innovation and entrepreneurship in the organization’s workforce Go see…get out of the office and into the actual workplace where the value is produced, and products are created and used (known as gemba). Provide time and space for people to be creative to enable purposeful innovation. This can rarely occur in the presence of 100 percent utilization and daily firefighting. SAFe’s Innovation and Planning Iteration is one such opportunity. Apply Continuous Exploration, the process of constantly exploring the market and user needs, getting fast feedback on experiments, and defining a Vision, Roadmap, and set of Features that bring the most promising innovations to market. Validate the innovation with customers, then pivot without mercy or guilt when the hypothesis needs to change. Engage both top-down strategic thinking with organic team-based innovations to create a synergistic ‘innovation riptide’ that powers a tidal wave of new products, services, and capabilities.

3.2.2.5. Relentless Improvement - Optimize the whole, not the parts, of both the organization and the development process Reinforce the problem-solving mindset throughout the organization, where all are empowered to engage in daily improvements to the work Reflect at key milestones to openly identify and address the shortcomings of the process at all levels Apply Lean tools and techniques to determine the fact-based root cause of inefficiencies and apply effective countermeasures rapidly

3.2.3. Agile Manifesto

3.2.3.1. Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools

3.2.3.2. Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation

3.2.3.3. Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiation

3.2.3.4. Responding to Change over Following a Plan

4. SECTION 8: Designing the Implementation (I) 12%

4.1. Identify Value Streams

4.2. invitation based safe implementation

4.3. Organise around Value

4.3.1. ► Fewer handoffs, faster value delivery ► Easier to build in quality ► Built-in alignment between the business and software development ► Optimizing the system as a whole ► Result: Faster delivery, higher quality, higher Customer satisfaction

4.3.2. Operational Value Stream

4.3.2.1. The sequence of activities needed to deliver a product or service to a Customer. Examples include manufacturing a product, fulfilling an e-commerce order, admitting and treating a patient, providing a loan, and delivering a professional service.

4.3.3. Devlopment Value Stream

4.3.3.1. The sequence of activities needed to convert a business hypothesis into a technology-enabled Solution that delivers Customer value. Examples include designing and developing a medical device, developing and deploying a CRM system, and an eCommerce web site

4.4. Steps for identifying Development Value Streams and ARTs

4.4.1. 1. Identify an Operational Value Stream 2. Identify the Solutions the Operational Value Streams use or provide to customers 3. Identify the people who develop and support the Solutions 4. Identify the Development Value Streams that build the Solutions 5. Realize Development Value Streams into ARTs

4.5. ART Topology

4.5.1. Stream-aligned ARTs are aligned to a single, valuable stream of work, empowered to build and deliver Customer or user value as quickly, safely, and independently as possible, without requiring hand-offs to other ARTs to perform parts of the work.

4.5.1.1. – By product, Solution, or service – By Customer or market segment – By Solution feature areas – By value streamlets – New product innovation

4.5.2. Complicated-subsystem ARTs are responsible for building and maintaining a part of the system that depends heavily on specialist knowledge, thereby reducing the cognitive load on other ARTs.

4.5.2.1. – Highly specialised system components – Safety critical systems elements – Specialty algorithm or business rules – Part of a cyber-physical system

4.5.3. Platform ARTs provide the underlying internal services required by stream-aligned ARTs to deliver higher-level services or functionalities, thus reducing their cognitive load.

4.5.3.1. – Sets of services consumed by other ARTs

4.6. Implementation plan

4.6.1. ► A transformation Roadmap defines how to: – Incrementally implement the transformation – Inspect and adapt for course correction

4.6.2. The ART rollout can be done sequentially or in parallel

5. SECTION 10: Coaching ART Execution (I) 13%

5.1. short-term wins

5.1.1. ► The PI Planning event itself is a short-term win, as it creates clear commitment to goals. ► Next, it’s important to showcase that the ART is meeting its PI Objectives and relentlessly improving its program performance. ► Invite stakeholders and showcase the success of the Team Demos and System Demos, as well as the PI System Demo. ► Communicate real wins, not gimmicks. ► The first PI is the most crucial to lead. Existing team, program, and organizational issues become highly visible. You must have confidence and clarity. ► You will provide ongoing program consulting and team coaching to build the organization’s Lean-Agile capabilities.

5.2. Team activities and events

5.2.1. ► Helping teams plan, execute, review, and retrospect the first Iterations ► Coaching new Scrum Masters and Product Owners in their roles ► Initiating and supporting Agile technical practices ► Helping teams establish the infrastructure, practices, and culture needed for DevOps and the Continuous Delivery Pipeline

5.3. Coaching the ART typically starts with the essential roles and events:

5.3.1. ► Helping to build and maintain the Vision and Roadmap ► Helping define and manage the Program Kanban and Program Backlog ► Coaching Product Managers, System Architects, and RTEs in their roles ► Supporting frequent system-level integration, including the System Demo ► Participating in scrum of scrums, PO sync, and ART sync meetings

5.3.2. ► Helping to facilitate Inspect and Adapt and follow-up of backlog improvement items ► Supporting the System Team and others in building development and deployment infrastructure and automation ► Keeping a focus on the Architectural Runway ► Supporting release management in the new way of working ► Supporting or delivering additional training ► Establishing communities of practice (CoPs)

5.4. Inspect and Adapt

5.4.1. 1. The PI System Demo 2. Quantitative and Qualitative Measurement 3. Problem-Solving Workshop

5.4.2. ► Timebox: 3 – 4 hours per PI ► Attendees: Teams and stakeholders

5.4.3. PI System Demo

5.4.3.1. 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 Management, RTE, Scrum Masters, and teams ► Suggested timebox: 45 – 60 minutes

5.4.4. Team performance assessment

5.4.4.1. ► All teams’ PI Objectives were assigned a business value from 1 to 10. ► Review and rate your PI achievements: – How well did you do against your stated objectives, including timeliness, content, and quality? – Rate on a scale from 1 up to the planned business value assigned during PI Planning. ► Average these across all objectives and give yourself a program percent achievement score. ► Suggested timebox: 45 – 60 minutes

5.4.4.2. Team PI performance report

5.4.4.2.1. ► Planned total does not include uncommitted objectives ► Actual total includes uncommitted objectives ► Percent achievement equals actual total divided by planned total ► A team can achieve greater than 100% (as a result of uncommitted objectives achieved) ► Effort required for uncommitted objectives is included in the load (i.e., not extra work the team does on weekends) ► Individual team totals are rolled up into the program predictability report

5.5. Problem solving

5.5.1. 1 Original problem statement 4. Restate problem 3. Biggest root cause 5. Brainstorm solutions 6. Identify improvement backlog items 2. Root-cause analysis People Process Tools Program Environment © Scaled Agile. Inc. ► Clearly stating the problem is key to problem identification and correction ► You must define the undesirable problem or situation, so everyone involved in the countermeasures understands ► A clearly defined problem focuses your investigation efforts and saves time. Honest effort at careful definition will avoid the 'ready, fire, aim' approach that is so common in problem-solving ► A problem that is not well-defined may result in failure to reach the proper countermeasure Agree on the problem to solve What, When, Where, and Impact 18 ...

5.5.2. The Five Whys

5.5.2.1. ► The Five Whys is a proven problem-solving technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem ► The key is to avoid assumptions and logic traps ► Instead, trace the chain of causality in direct increments from the effect to a root cause

5.5.2.2. Pareto analysis

5.5.2.2.1. ► Also known as the 80/20 rule, the Pareto analysis is a statistical decision technique used to narrow down the number of actions that produce the most significant overall effect ► It uses the principle that 20% of root causes can cause 80% of problems ► It is useful where many possible sources and actions are competing

5.6. ART execution artifacts in the PI Execution Toolkit

5.6.1. SAFe ART Events and Activities presentation Inspect and Adapt Event template Program Performance Metrics spreadsheet Program Predictability Measure spreadsheet Self-Assessments and Metrics resources

6. SECTION 11: Extending to the Portfolio (I) 5%

6.1. Release Train Engineer and Solution Train Engineer - Scaled Agile Framework

6.2. Extend success one ART at a time

6.3. launch more ARTs in the same or new Value Streams

6.3.1. ► Leverage wins to launch more ARTs and scale the implementation ► Launch all ARTs in a Value Stream ► Move to the next Value Stream ► Celebrate short-term wins but don’t declare victory too ► Keep urgency high ► Don’t forget to support existing trains as you scale

6.3.2. Collect data and manage impediments

6.3.2.1. Number of practitioners on each ART ► Start and end date for each Kanban state ► Number of people trained ► Date of first PI Planning ► Date of second PI Planning ► PI predictability measure

6.4. Enterprise Solution Delivery

6.4.1. The Enterprise Solution Delivery competency 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.

6.4.2. For large systems, Solution Trains align ARTs to a common mission

6.4.2.1. Each ART within a Solution Train contributes to the development of a large Solution ► Solution Management, Solution Architect/Engineering, and the Solution Train Engineer foster the coordination and the delivery of value

6.4.2.2. Coordinate planning across ARTs with pre- and post-PI Planning

6.4.2.2.1. Typically attended by Customers, STE, Solution Mgmt, Solution Architects/Eng, Solution Train stakeholders, and select representatives from ARTs and Suppliers ► The pre-PI Planning meeting helps build an aligned plan for the next PI and match Solution demand to ART capacities ► The post-PI Planning meeting reviews, recaps, communicates, and provides feedback

6.4.2.3. Solution Demo requires ‘continuish’ integration

6.4.2.3.1. Frequent Solution integration and testing provides the best objective evidence 4 A joint responsibility of ART’s and Solution Train’s System Teams 4 Provides early validation and regular risk reduction 4 Increases actual velocity

6.4.3. Solution Intent

6.4.3.1. Solution Intent: Single source of truth as to the intended and actual behavior of the Solution ► Records and communicates requirements and design decisions ► Supports compliance, contractuality, traceability, high assurance ► Preserves flexibility to evolve toward optimum Solution alternative ► Fixes minimum requirement and designs

6.4.4. Continuously address compliance concerns

6.4.4.1. Build the solution and compliance incrementally Organize for value and compliance Release validated Solutions on demand Build quality and compliance in Continuously verify and validate

6.5. Traditional project portfolio management challenges

6.5.1. ► Project cost accounting ► Annual planning and rigid budgeting cycles ► Perpetual overload of demand versus capacity ► Phase-gate approval processes that fail to mitigate risk ► Overly detailed business cases with speculative ROI Traditional project portfolio approaches inhibit the flow of value because of

6.5.2. Moving to Lean Portfolio Management 20 Traditional Approach Lean-Agile Approach People organized in functional silos and temporary People organized value streams/ARTs; continues value flow Fund projects and project-cost accounting Fund Value Streams, Lean budgets and guardrails Big up-front, top-down, annual planning and budgeting Value stream budgets adjusted dynamically; participatory budgeting Centralized, unlimited work intake; project overload Strategic demand managed by portfolio Kanban; decentralized intake by Value Streams and ARTs Overly detailed business cases based on speculative ROI Lean business cases with MVP business outcome hypothesis, agile forecasting and estimating Projects governed by phase gates; waterfall milestones, progress measured by task completion Products and services governed by self-managing ARTs; objective measures and milestones based on working solutions

6.6. LPM Execution Toolkit

6.6.1. Tip executives and leaders to LPM ► LPM readiness workbook and templates for assisting LPM activities ► Resources for facilitating LPM events ► Additional learning on contracts, compliance, TBM, and CapEx/ OpEx

6.7. Participatory Budgeting

6.7.1. Current Portfolio budget + Budget adjustment from Enterprise = period's portfolio budget

6.7.2. Value Stream budgets are adjusted over time

6.7.2.1. Typically, Value Stream budgets are adjusted twice annually ► Adjusted less frequently and spending is fixed for too long, and it may limit agility ► Adjusted more frequently and planning may be more challenging

6.8. Agile portfolio operations: Collaboration and responsibilities

6.8.1. Agile portfolio operations coordinates and supports decentralized program execution, enabling operational excellence.

6.8.1.1. RTE and SM CoP -Coordinate Value Streams Foster Operational Excellence Agile Support Program Execution PMO/LACE

6.9. The APMO supports portfolio operations and program execution

6.9.1. Facilitates the portfolio sync ► Works with the LACE to develop, harvest, and apply successful program execution patterns across the portfolio ► Facilitates Lean budgeting and coordinates portfolio governance ► Fosters decentralized PI Planning and operational excellence ► Fosters more Agile contracts and leaner Supplier and Customer partnerships

6.9.2. Fostering operational excellence with the APMO

6.9.2.1. Transitions themselves and the portfolio to a new ways of working ► Participates in the SAFe rollout ► Helps cultivate and apply successful program execution patterns across the portfolio ► Leads the move to objective Metrics and reporting ► Leads process excellence and supports RTEs (and STEs) and Scrum Master CoPs

6.9.3. Establish LPM Events

6.9.3.1. The effective operation of the LPM function relies on three significant events: ► Strategic Portfolio Review ► Portfolio Sync ► Participatory Budgeting

6.9.3.2. LPM events overview

6.9.3.2.1. Strategic Portfolio Review • Focused on achieving and advancing the portfolio Vision • Provides continuous strategy, implementation, and budget alignment • Typically held on a quarterly cadence, at least one month before the next PI Planning

6.9.3.2.2. Portfolio Sync • Focused on portfolio operations • Provides visibility into how well the portfolio is progressing toward meeting its objectives • Typically held monthly and may be replaced on a given month with the Strategic Portfolio Review

6.9.3.2.3. Participatory Budgeting • Focused on establishing and adjusting Lean budgets • Provides a forum for stakeholders to decide how to invest the portfolio budget across Solutions and Epics • Typically held every two PIs

6.10. Lean governance

6.10.1. Lean governance manages spending, audit and compliance, forecasting expenses, and measurement.

6.10.1.1. -Forecast and budget dynamically -Measure portfolio performance -Coordinate continuous compliance

6.11. Forecasting Portfolio Epics for roadmapping

6.11.1. ► An Epic’s estimated size in Story points for each affected ART ► The historical velocity of the affected ARTs ► The percent (%) capacity allocation that can be dedicated to working on the Epic as negotiated between Product and Solution Management, Epic Owners, and LPM

6.12. Example of Lean Portfolio Management performance measures

6.12.1. Goals Measures Desired Benefits Employee Engagement Employees surveys; Agile People Operations data Improved employee satisfaction, higher employee engagement, and better business outcomes Customer Satisfaction Net Promoter Score (NPS) Improved customer experiences and loyalty Partner Health Partner and vendor surveys Improved ecosystem relationships Business Agility Business Agility self-assessment Improved ability to respond to market changes, emerging opportunities and threats Portfolio Performance Objectives and Key Results (OKRs); LPM Self-Assessment Better alignment and improved progress toward the portfolio’s strategic themes, and portfolio performance Value Stream Performance Value Stream KPIs Improved performance against the forecasted business outcomes Program Predictability Program predictability measure Improved actual business value achieved Time-to-Market Number of releases; feature cycle time More frequent releases; faster feature delivery Relentless improvement Self-assessments for each level of the Framework Relentless improvement in team, program and portfolio performance Quality Defect count and cycle time; support call volume; escaped defects Improve customer satisfaction; reduced support call volume, and lower product development costs

6.13. Development Value Stream KPIs measure portfolio progress

6.13.1. Development Value Stream key performance indicators (KPIs) are the quantifiable measures used to evaluate how a Value Stream is performing against its forecasted business outcomes.

6.13.1.1. Value Stream KPIs create the feedback loop back to the portfolio. KPIs may include outputs, outcomes employee satisfaction Agile Team performance, and more.

6.14. A Lean-Agile quality management system (QMS) improves quality and makes compliance more predictable.

7. SECTION 7: Reaching the SAFe Tipping Point (L) 8%

7.1. Tipping point

7.1.1. ► To achieve effective change, every Enterprise must reach its ‘tipping point’—the point at which the overriding momentum is to change, rather than resist it. ► Two primary reasons to change: – A burning platform – The company is failing to compete, and the existing way of working is inadequate to achieve a new solution in time. – Proactive leadership – In the absence of a burning platform, leadership must create the sense of urgency to proactively drive change by taking a stand for a better future state.

7.1.2. Establish Vision for change

7.1.2.1. ► Clarify the purpose and direction for the change and set the mission for all to follow ► Motivate people by giving them a compelling reason to make the change ► Empower and align people to take the detailed actions necessary to achieve the Vision, without the constant need for supervision

7.2. Safe program consultant

7.3. ‘sufficiently powerful guiding coalition’

7.3.1. ► Transformations led by a sole leader or a low- credibility committee rarely succeed ► There is a need for an effective team that has: – Enough powerful people to drive change and deter blocks – The expertise to make informed and quick decisions – The credibility to be taken seriously – Leaders who can set the Vision and leaders who can implement

7.4. SPCs communicate the Vision and urgency

7.4.1. ► Motivating change requires a sense of urgency ► Leaders must communicate the challenges the company faces ► Leaders must act in a way that shows the challenges ► Too much ‘happy talk’ leads to complacency ► Foster trust so problems can safely rise from teams to executives

7.5. LEan Agile center of excellence

7.5.1. ► A LACE Typically operates as an exemplary Agile Team of four to six individuals per business unit. ► A Scrum Master facilitates the process and helps remove roadblocks. ► A Product Owner works with stakeholders to prioritize the transformation backlog. ► The team is cross-functional. Credible people from various functional organizations are integral members of the team. They can address backlog items wherever they arise, be they organizational, cultural, process, or technology. ► A senior C-level leader typically acts as the team’s Product Manager.

8. SECTION 5: Exploring Lean Portfolio Management (L) 2%

8.1. A SAFe portfolio is a collection of development Value Streams. ► Each Value Stream builds, supports, and maintains Solutions ► Solutions are delivered to the Customer, whether internal or external to the Enterprise

8.2. The portfolio canvas is a template for identifying a specific SAFe portfolio ► It defines the domain of the portfolio and other key elements

8.3. Strategy and investment funding ensures that the entire portfolio is aligned and funded to create and maintain the Solutions needed to meet business targets. Strategy and investment funding: Collaboration and responsibilities TRIANGLE Lean Governance Agile Portfolio Operations Strategy & Investment Funding ROles Enterprise Executives Business Owners Enterprise Architect Connect the portfolio to Enterprise strategy Maintain a Portfolio Vision Establish Lean Budgets and Guardrails Establish portfolio flow

8.4. Strategic Themes influence portfolio strategy and provide business context for portfolio decision-making.

8.5. Identify opportunities for the portfolio’s future state with SWOT

8.5.1. The key difference between the SWOT and TOWS analyses are the outcomes that they create ► TOWS analysis is used primarily for identifying strategic options to create a better future state ► SWOT analysis is a great way to uncover the current situation of your Value Stream, product, or portfolio

8.6. Portfolio Epics

8.6.1. An Epic is a significant Solution development initiative. There are two types: – Business Epics directly deliver business value – Enabler Epics support the Architectural Runway and future business functionality ► Portfolio Epics are typically cross-cutting, typically spanning multiple Value Streams and PIs ► Epics need a Lean business case, the definition of a minimum viable product (MVP), an Epic Owner, and approval by LPM

8.6.2. described with the Epic hypothesis statement

8.6.2.1. ► The value statement – Describes the Epic in general terms: the “for-who-the …” portion ► Business outcomes hypothesis – States the quantitative or qualitative benefits that the business can anticipate if the hypothesis is proven to be correct ► Leading indicators – Describe the early measures that will help predict the business outcomes ► Nonfunctional requirements (NFRs) – Identify any NFRs associated with the Epic

8.7. Budgets and Guardrails

8.7.1. Fund Value Streams, not projects

8.7.1.1. Funding Value Streams provides for full control of spend, with: ► No costly and delay-inducing project cost variance analyses ► No resource reassignments ► No blame game for project overruns

8.7.2. Maintain the Guardrails

8.7.2.1. ► Apply investment horizons ► Utilize capacity allocation ► Approve Epic initiatives ► Continuous Business Owner engagement

8.8. Flow

8.8.1. Portfolio Kanban

8.8.1.1. ► Makes largest business initiatives visible ► Brings structure to analysis and decision-making ► Provides WIP limits to ensure the teams analyze responsibly ► Helps prevent unrealistic expectations ► Helps drive collaboration among the key stakeholders ► Provides a transparent and quantitative basis for economic decision-making

8.8.1.2. Epics Process State

8.8.1.2.1. Funnel

8.8.1.2.2. Reviewing

8.8.1.2.3. Analysing

8.8.1.2.4. Portfolio Backlog

8.8.1.2.5. Implementing

8.8.1.2.6. Done

9. SECTION 3: Establishing Team and Technical Agility (L) 3%

9.1. Build cross functional agile teams

9.1.1. Extend into business with Agile business teams

9.1.2. Optimised for communication and delivery of value

9.1.3. Be Agile > Know your Value Stream > Specialise principles and practices

9.1.4. Visualise flow with Kanban

9.2. Build quality in

9.2.1. Establish flow

9.2.2. Peer review and pairing

9.2.3. Collective ownership and standards

9.2.4. Automation

9.2.5. Definition of done

9.3. Organise ART around flow of value

9.3.1. 5-12 teams (50 -125+ individuals)

9.3.2. Synchronize common cadence

9.3.3. Align common vision in single backlog

9.3.4. Teams

9.3.4.1. Stream-aligned team – organized around the flow of work and has the ability to deliver value directly to the Customer or end user.

9.3.4.2. Complicated subsystem team – organized around specific subsystems that require deep specialty skills and expertise.

9.3.4.3. Platform team – organized around the development and support of platforms that provide services to other teams.

9.3.4.4. Enabling team – organized to assist other teams with specialized capabilities and help them become proficient in new technologies.

9.4. Roles

9.4.1. Release Train Engineer acts as the chief Scrum Master for the train.

9.4.2. System Architect/Engineering provides architectural guidance and technical enablement to the teams on the train.

9.4.3. Business Owners are key stakeholders on the Agile Release Train.

9.4.4. Product Management owns, defines, and prioritizes the Program Backlog.

9.4.5. System team provides processes and tools to integrate and evaluate assets early and often.

9.4.6. Agile release train

10. SECTION 4: Building Solutions with Agile Product Delivery (L) 13%

10.1. Customer-centric Enterprises deliver whole-product Solutions that are designed with a deep understanding of Customer needs.

10.1.1. Market research tends to drive strategy; user research tends to drive design

10.2. Design Thinking is a clear and continuous understanding of the target market, Customers, the problems they are facing, and the jobs to be done

10.2.1. Discover (Gemba)

10.2.2. Define

10.2.3. Develop

10.2.4. Deliver

10.3. PI Planning

10.3.1. Program Increment (PI) Planning is a cadence-based, face-to-face 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.

10.3.1.1. Program Increment (PI) Planning is a cadence-based event that serves as the heartbeat of the Agile Release Train (ART), aligning all teams on the ART to a shared mission and Vision. ► Two days every 8 – 12 weeks (10 weeks is typical) ► Everyone plans together ► Product Management owns Feature priorities ► Development teams own Story planning and high-level estimates ► Architect/Engineering and UX work as intermediaries for governance, interfaces, and dependencies

10.3.1.1.1. Benefits

10.3.2. Features

10.3.2.1. ► The Feature benefit hypothesis justifies development cost and provides business perspective for decision-making ► Acceptance criteria are typically defined during Program Backlog refinement ► Reflect functional and nonfunctional requirements ► Fits in one PI

10.3.2.1.1. stories

10.3.2.2. ROI

10.3.2.2.1. To prioritize based on Lean economics, we need to know two things: ► The cost of delay (CoD) in delivering value ► What is the cost to implement the valuable thing? In a flow system, job sequencing is the key to improving economic outcomes. If you only quantify one thing, quantify the cost of delay. —Donald G. Reinertsen

10.3.3. Weighted Shortest Job First

10.3.3.1. Cost of Delay

10.3.3.1.1. User-Business Value

10.3.3.1.2. Time Criticality

10.3.3.1.3. Risk Reduction & Opportunity Enablement (RR&OE)

10.3.4. Risks

10.3.4.1. After all plans have been presented, remaining program risks and impediments are discussed and categorized. ROAMing risks: Resolved - Has been addressed. 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.

10.4. Safe Implementation

10.5. Innovation and Planning iteration

10.6. ART events create a closed-loop system to keep the train on the tracks.

10.6.1. ART sync is used to coordinate progress Scrum of scrums ▸Visibility into progress and impediments ▸Facilitated by RTE ▸Participants: Scrum Masters, other select team members, SMEs if necessary ▸Weekly or more frequently, 30–60 minutes ▸Timeboxed and followed by a meet-after PO SYNC ▸Visibility into progress, scope, and priority adjustments ▸Facilitated by RTE or PM ▸Participants: PM, POs, other stakeholders, and SMEs as necessary ▸Weekly or more frequently, 30–60 minutes ▸Timeboxed and followed by a meet-after

10.7. Demo

10.7.1. ► Features are functionally complete or toggled so as not to disrupt demonstrable functionality ► New Features work together and with existing functionality ► Happens after the Iteration review (may lag by as much as one Iteration maximum) ► Demo from a staging environment which resembles production as much as possible

10.8. Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration

10.8.1. Without IP

10.8.1.1. Lack of delivery capacity buffer impacts predictability Little innovation; tyranny of the urgent Technical debt grows uncontrollably People burn out No time for teams to plan, demo, or improve together

10.8.2. ► Innovation: Opportunity for innovation, hackathons, and infrastructure improvements ► Planning: Provides for cadence-based planning ► Estimating guard band for cadence-based delivery Facilitate reliability, Program Increment readiness, planning, and innovation

10.9. Inspect and Adapt

10.9.1. 1. The PI System Demo 2. Quantitative and Qualitative Measurement 3. Problem-Solving Workshop

10.10. Measure ART predictability

10.10.1. The report compares actual business value achieved to planned business value.

10.11. Devops

10.11.1. CALMR

10.11.1.1. ► Culture - Establish a culture of shared responsibility for development, deployment, and operations. ► 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 full-stack telemetry. ► Recovery - Architect and enable low-risk releases. Establish fast recovery, fast reversion, and fast fix-forward.

10.11.2. CI/CD

10.11.2.1. ► The Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP) represents the workflows, activities, and automation needed to deliver new functionality more frequently. ► Each Agile Release Train builds and maintains, or shares, a pipeline. ► Organizations map their current pipeline into this new structure and remove delays and improve the efficiency of each step.

10.11.2.2. Deploy

10.11.2.2.1. ► Separate deploy to production from release ► Hide all new functionality under feature toggles ► Enables testing background and foreground processes in the actual production environment before exposing new functionality to users ► Timing of the release becomes a business decision

10.11.3. Architect for releasability

10.11.3.1. Architectural Runway is existing code, hardware components, marketing branding guidelines, etc., that enable near-term business Features. ► Enablers build up the runway ► Features consume it ► Architectural Runway must be continuously maintained ► Use capacity allocation (a percentage of train’s overall capacity in a PI) for Enablers that extend the runway

11. SECTION 6: Leading the Change (L) 3%

11.1. An organization’s managers, executives, and other leaders are responsible for the adoption, success, and ongoing improvement of Lean-Agile development and the competencies that lead to Business Agility. Only they have the authority to change and continuously improve the systems that govern how work is performed.

11.2. Leading by example

11.2.1. ► Authenticity requires leaders to model desired professional and ethical behaviors ► Emotional intelligence describes how leaders identify and manage their emotions and those of others through self- awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills ► Lifelong learning depicts how leaders engage in an ongoing, voluntary, and self-motivated pursuit of knowledge and growth, and they encourage and support the same in others ► Growing others encourages leaders to provide the personal, professional, and technical guidance and resources each employee needs to assume increasing levels of responsibility ► Decentralized decision-making moves the authority for decisions to where the information is

11.3. leading successful change

11.3.1. ► Establish a sense of urgency ► Create a powerful guiding coalition ► Develop the vision and strategy ► Communicate the vision ► Empower employees for broad-based action ► Generate short-term wins ► Consolidate gains and produce more wins ► Anchor new approaches in the culture

12. SECTION 9: Launching an ART (I) 10%

12.1. peparing

12.2. sAfe Distilled

12.3. A forcing function is a commitment that forces a sequence of actions to happen. Use it to start your train. ► By scheduling the PI Planning event, you will create the timebox in which the preparation must happen. ► This will minimize the expansion of work during preparation. Not everything can (or needs to) be perfect. ► Assure people that the Inspect and Adapt Workshop creates a closed-loop system so that impediments can be made visible and addressed as soon as possible.

12.4. Train ART leaders

12.4.1. ► Launching the first ART is crucial. It builds a framework to allow employees to apply the Vision to meaningful change. ► Training the leaders helps them create the mindset they need to empower employees for further action. ► Training gives stakeholders the skills and motivation they need to change the organization ► As a team of teams, the ART removes silos that inhibit flow.

12.5. Capture teams, roles, and locations Determine who will play the individual ART roles

12.6. Checklist

12.7. Train Team Members Together

12.7.1. Introducing SAFe Building an Agile Team Planning the Iteration Executing the Iteration Executing the Program Increment Becoming a Certified SAFe Practitioner

12.7.2. benefits

12.7.2.1. Accelerated learning A common scaled Agile paradigm Cost-efficiency Collective learning

12.8. Quickstart

12.8.1. Training SAFe for Teams Train everyone at the same time Same instructor, same method Most cost-effective

12.8.1.1. Distributed teams

12.8.1.1.1. If members on the same team are distributed: – Establish more planning overlap time for intra-team collaboration – Have more intra- and inter-team checkpoints and synchronization – Consider the non-ideal situation of concurrent planning (someone may stay up all night!) ► If a program has distributed whole teams: – Team planning is easier; however, dependency management with other component teams becomes more complex – Have more inter-team checkpoints and synchronization – Leverage a centralized program board

12.8.1.1.2. Have a dedicated facilitator and tech support person at each location Test audio, video, and presentation-sharing connectivity, and then test it again Have a common understanding of how plans will be shared (Video, Wiki, Email Establish team-based audio/video communication for breakout sessions

12.8.1.1.3. Respect for people and culture

12.8.2. PI Planning Align teams to common objectives Commitment Continue training during planning

12.8.2.1. Importance

12.8.2.1.1. First impression of SAFe ► Generates a short-term win ► Builds the ART as a team ► Teaches teams about assuming responsibility for planning and delivery ► Creates visibility ► Creates confidence in the commitment of Lean-Agile leaders to the transformation

12.8.2.2. PI Planning templates include: ▸ ROAM board ▸ Program board ▸ Team boards ▸ PI Planning room ▸ SoS radiator

12.8.3. Workshops Orientation for specialty roles Open spaces Tool training for teams

12.9. Converging factors

12.9.1. Leadership support, collaborating teams, clear products or Solution, and significant program challenge or opportunity