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Various agile practices and responsibilities within the scaled agile framework (safe). It discusses the role of the product owner, the importance of small batches, the agile release train, organizing teams around value, the responsibilities of the release train engineer, the role of product management, fostering collaboration, and the importance of continuous learning. Insights into best practices, anti-patterns, and key responsibilities for effectively implementing agile principles at scale. It covers topics such as backlog management, iteration planning, execution, demos, retrospectives, and the overall flow of value through the agile release train. The information presented can be valuable for understanding the practical application of agile methodologies in large-scale enterprise environments.
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How does a Scrum Master lead a team's in relentless improvement? - Answer By facilitating the Iteration Retrospective An effective decision-making framework provides which two ultimate outcomes? - Answer 1 - Improves flow 2 - Unlocks the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workres What are two Release Train Enginner responsibilities? - Answer 1 - Drive relentles improvement through Inspect and Adapt 2 - Facilitate PI Planning readiness and the event itself What is one way to improve the skills of a team member? - Answer Pair-work with other team members Who should vote on root causes? - Answer The team members working on that problem One of the Scrum Master's main responsibilities is to communicate with management and outside stakeholders to hel the team in what way? - Answer Protect them from uncontrolled addition of work A team's Product Owner (PO) takes an unexxpected leave of absence for the last week of the Iteration. Trhee of the team's Sotires have been completed and are waiting to be accepted. The Scrum Master asks the Product Manager (PM) to attend the Iteration Review and accept the Sotires. The PM responds that he is not familiar enough with the intent to feel comfortable accepting these responsabilities. He suggest keeping the iteration open for additional week and waiting for the PO to come back. What should the team's Scrum Master do? - Answer Work with the Release Train Enginner to find a solution The Agile Team need to learn or acquire new skills. Where is this list of skills found?
Wich two actions enhance an Agile Release Train's performance? - Answer 1 - Collaboration 2 - Team alignment How does the Scrum Master hel teams address the challenges of modern Enterprises? - Answer By actively addressing impediments What is the skill type Scrum Masters try to get the Agile Team to achieve? - Answer T-Shaped One state on the team Kaban board has people waiting while the previous stage is overloaded. What should the Scrum Master consider doing? - Answer Encourage and coach the people in the under-utilized stage to hel with the work of the overloaded stage How can learning Milestones be used? - Answer To test the conecpt of a new Feature or Capability What is one Extreme Programming (XP) rule adopted in SAFe? - Answer Pair Programming Why are SAFe Scrum Masters challenged differently in a Enterprise? - Answer The team is affected by teams and stakeholders beyong their control SAFe Scrum Master interact with wich level(s) of Framework? - Answer All Levels Wich tow events explicity implement the Lean-Agile Mindset of relentless improvement? - Answer 1 - Inspect and Adapt 2 - Iteration Retrospective Who is responsible for assisting to establish Continuous Integration in SAFe? - Answer The System Team What is the connection between feedback and optimun batch size? - Answer Lack of feedback contributes to higher cost During Iteration Review, the team decides to carry forward three Stories to the next iteration. This is the second time during this PI that some of the team's Stories are carried over. What are two actions the Scrum Master should take? - Answer 1 - Discuss the issue at the Itaration Retrospective 2 - Perform the 5 Whys to find the root cause of the delays Who reviews the top Capabilities for the upcoming PI? - Answer Solution Management Wich statement describes how Kanban teams handle capacity during PI Planning? - Answer They use throughput as an indication of their capacity
Which technique is used to identify root causes during the problem-solving workshop? - Answer 5 Whys What are two key areas a team should be organized aroung? - Answer 1 - Enablers 2 - Features What anti-pattern can emerge during the Scrum of Scrums? - Answer Scrum Masters report on the teams' tasks status each day A team achieved less than 80% predictability during the quantitative measurement of the Inspect and Adapt event. What would be an unacceptable action for this team's Scrum Master take? - Answer Decide improvement actions for the team to implement In complex systems development, what do local integration points ensure? - Answer That each Capability of the systems is meeting its responsibilities in contributing of the overall Solution Intent Wich SAFe organizational construct allows businesses to build large and complex systems wich require hundreds of people in a Lean-Agile manner? - Answer Solution Train Achieving the goals of Release on Demand requires an understanding of how to decouple what? - Answer The release from deployment What improves collaboration between Scrum Masters and System Architects, System Teams and Operations? - Answer Program Kanban What is the most effective way to estabilish Built-in Quality? - Answer Perform as many types of testing within the Iteration boundaries as possible What action should be taken on relentless improvement backlog items from the problem-solving worshop? - Answer Use the items as direct input into the PI Planning event that follows How do Kanban Teams implement the SAFe Lean-Agile mindset of relentless improvement? - Answer By using cumulative flow diagrams to objectively measure bottlenecks and variation which could be due to systemic factors Wich SAFe configuration requires having a Vision? - Answer All SAFe configurations What are two typical anti-patterns with Product Owners (POs)? - Answer 1 - POs design the Solution before brining the intent to the team; 2 - POs and Product Management are not aligned with business intent What is a recommended Story-Splitting technique for Agile Teams? - Answer Implement the 'happy path' first and the rest of the scenarios afterwards
What is the first step in the problem-solving workshop? - Answer Agree on the problem to solve What are three benefits a community of practice offers? (Choose three.) - Answer 1 - To drive craftsmanship; 2 - To facilitate the adoption of new methods and techniques; 3 - To provide a place to acquire knowledge; https://www.scaledagileframework.com/communities-of-practice/ What provides objective evidence that the system is iterating? - Answer System Demo Wich statement is tru about the phase-gate Milestone model? - Answer It does not mitigate risk as intended Wich pilar of the SAFe House of Lean supports not imposing wishful thinking? - Answer Respect for People and Culture Considering individual skill sets, an E-shaped person has a combination of what? - Answer Experience Expertise Exploration Execution When does the Inspect and Adapt event happen? - Answer At the end of each PI During PI Planning, the scrum of scrums meetings help accomplish which two actions? - Answer 1 - Keeping the planning Milestones on track 2 - Exposing risks, impediments, and dependencies What is one characteristic of an effective Agile Team? - Answer To provide: 1 - Steady (Estável) 2- High Quality 3 - Incremental Value How do Agile Teams ensure theirn own retrospective improvement actions are implemented? - Answer Add improvement Stories to the team backlog to implement in the next Iteration At the System Demo, each team demonstrates their own work, but the system is not integrated. They say they underestimated the integration effort and cannot integrate every Iteration and also meet the planned scope. What should the Scrum Master suggest? - Answer Discuss removing scope with Product Management to allow for Continuous Integration
How does work flow from one state to the next in a team Kanban board? - Answer Team members pull work from the previous state when they can do so without impacting their current state WIP constraint What are the responsibilities of a SAFe Scrum Master on a ART that go beyond basic team facilitiation? (Choose three) - Answer 1 - Participate in the scrum of scrums 2 - Facilitate preparation for the System Demo 3 - Facilitate team preparation for PI Planning What is the value of periodic resynchronization? - Answer It limits variance to a single time interval What are three distinct traits a group must have to be considered a Community of Practice? (Choose three.) - Answer 1 - Practice 2 - Domain 3 - Community Where does a team document new practicies they want to incorporate into their collective skill set? - Answer Improvement Backlog During Iteration Planning, the Product Owner (PO) introduces a new Story to the team. They cannot come to a consensus on the size of the new Story and ask the PO for more details. After a lot of discussion, multiple dependencies with other teams emerge, so the team decides to leave the Story in the Team Backlog and not commit. Is the scenario portraying an anti-pattern? - Answer No; The team left the Story in the Team Backlog for futher refinement with the PO How should decentralized decision-making be used with respect to system design? - Answer When Agile Teams are empowered, self-organized, and the design is allowed to emerge Responsibilities of a SAFe Scrum Master - Answer - Supports the team rules
https://www.scaledagileframework.com/scrum-master/ Milestones - Answer 1 - PI Milestones - These support the ability to objectively evaluate profress towards the technical or business hypothesis. These occur on the PI cadence 2- Fixed-date Milestones - Not everything, however, occurs on cadence. System building also relies on external events, third-party deliverables, and external constraints. These are often fixed-date milestones that are distinct from the development cadence. 3- Learning Milestones - In addition, learning milestones help validate business opportunities and hypotheses. https://www.scaledagileframework.com/milestones/ Learning Milestones - Answer Testing a concept of a new capability with a focus group, building and releasing a minimum viable product (MVP), or validating Lean UX assumptions for a minimum marketable feature (MMF) are examples of learning milestones. Fixed-Date Milestones - Answer 1 - Events such as trade shows, customer demos, user group meetings, preplanned product announcements, etc. 2 - Release dates that are controlled by other internal or external business concerns 3 - Contractually binding dates for delivery of value, intermediate milestones, payment, demonstrations, etc. 4 - Scheduling larger-scale integration issues including hardware, software, supplier integration, and anything else where a fixed date provides an appropriate forcing function to bring together assets and validate Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) - Answer 1 - Align strategy, funding, and execution 2 - Optimize operations across the portfolio 3 - Lightweight governance empowers decentralized decision making Continous Learning Culture - Answer 1 - Everyone in the organization learns and grows together 2 - Exploration and creativity are part of the organization's DNA 3 - Continuously improving solutions, services, and processes is everyone's responsibility SAFe Lean-Agile Principles (10) - 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 cadance, synchronize with cross-domain planning 8 - Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers
9 - Decentralize decision-making 10 - Organize around value #1 Take an economy view - Answer 1 - Operating within lean budgets and guardrails 2 - Understanding solution economic trad-offs 3 - Levarging suppliers 4 - Sequencing jobs for the maximum benefit https://www.scaledagileframework.com/take-an-economic-view/ Understand Solution Economic Trade-Offs - Answer Development expense - the cost of labor and materials required to implement a capability Lead time - the time needed to implement the capability (described as 'Cycle time' in Reinertsen's work) Product cost - the manufacturing cost (of goods sold) and/or deployment and operational costs Value - the economic worth of the capability to the business and the customer Risk - the uncertainty of the solution's technical or business success https://www.scaledagileframework.com/take-an-economic-view/ #2 Apply Systems Thinking - Answer 1 - The solution itself is a system 2 - The enterprise building the system is a system too 3 - Optimize the full value stream (People, Teams, System, Process, Software/Hardware) 4 - Lead Time vs Touch Time #3 Assume variability; preserve options - Answer 1 - You cannot possibly know everything at the start 2 - Requirements and designs must be flexible to build an optimal Solution 3 - Iterative, incremental development can reduce uncertainty over time #4 build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles - Answer 1 - The interative learning cycle 2 - Reduces the cost of risk-taking by truncating unsuccessful paths quickly 3 - Is facilitated by small batch sizes 4 - The shorter the cycles, the faster the learning #5 Base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems - Answer 1 - Build the system in increments, each of which is an integration point that demonstrates some evidence of the feasibility of the solution proccess 2 - Objective milestones facilitate learning and allow for continuous, cost-effective adjustments towards an optimum Solution #6 Visualize and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths - Answer 1 - When there's too much WIP, there's no visibility into bottlenecks, and the system is usually highly inefficient
How can we reduce lead times? - Answer 1 - Reduce size of work 2 - Reduce bottlenecks 3 - Reduce waiting 4 - Increase swarming 5 - Improve quality The importance of small batches - Answer 1 - Large batch sizes increase variability 2 - High utilization increases variability 3 - Severe project slippage is the most likely result 4 - The most important batch is the transport 5 - Proximity (co-location) enables small batch size 6 - Good infrastructure enbales small batch size #7 Apply cadence, synchronize with cross-domain planning - Answer 1 - All stakeholders meet face-to-face 2 - Management sets the mission with minimum possible constraints 3 - Requirements and design happen 4 - Important stakeholder decision are acelerated 5 - Teams create and take responsibility for plans #8 Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers - Answer 1 - Knowledge workers have to manage themselves: they need autonomy 2 - Continuing innovation has to be part of the work and the responsibility of knowledge workers 3 - Workers themselves are most qualified to make decisions about how to perform their work #9 Decentralize decision-making - Answer 1 - Some decisions are strategic, have far-reaching impact, and are outside the scope, knowledge, or responsibilities of the teams. These should be centralized; 2 - Decentralize all others: 2.1 - Frequent decisions 2.2 - Time-critical decisions 2.3 - Decisions that require local information 3 - Define the economic logic behind a decision; empower individuals and teams to actually make them #10 Organize around value - Answer 1 - A Value Stream is the sequence of steps used to deliver value to the customer Anti-patterns associated with The Product Owner - Answer 1 - Team has more than one Product Owner 2 - Partially completed Stories are being carried over from Iteration to Iteration 3 - Developers don't work collaboratively on Stories 4 - Lack of coordination with other teams leads to excessive WIP Key responsibilities of the Product Owner - Answer 1 - Facilitate Team Backlog refinement
2 - Prepare for and participate in Iteration Planning 3 - Elaborate Stories and Enablers just-in-time 4 - Address team questions; be the voice of the customer 5 - Accept Stories 6 - Participate in the Iteration Review and Retrospective 7 - Coordinate with other Prodcut Owners to manage dependencies Big Stories Anti-Patterns - Answer 1 - Big Stories do not support team Iteration 2 - Smaller Stories allow for faster, more reliable implementation 3 - Splitting bigger stories into smaller ones is an essential skill Ways to split a Story - Answer 1 - By business rules variations 2 - By use case scenario 3 - By simplicity or complexity PO and Backlog, planning, and commitment anti-patterns - Answer 1 - Product Owner and team do Iteration Planning without preparation 2 - There is more than one PO per team 3 - PO is not sufficiently involved during Iteration execution 4 - Planning is based on tasks, not on User Stories and acceptance criteria 5 - Team does not commit to clear Iteration goals Execution, Demos, and Retrospective anti-patterns - Answer 1 - Developers don't work collaboratively on User Stories 2 - Waterfalling Iterations: Team integrates and tests Stories only at Iteration end 3 - Done isn't 'done': Debt is carried forward Iteration to Iteration 4 - Story reported but not demonstrated (non-UI Stories, spikes, refactors, etc) 5 - 'Idea fest' instead of focus on near-team, incremental improvements The Agile Release Train - Answer 1 - A virtual organization of 5-12 teams (50-125+) that plans, commits, and executes together 2 - Program Increment (PI) is a fixed timebox; default is 10 weeks 3 - Synchronizes Iterations and PIs 4 - Aligns to a common mission via single Program Backlog 5 - Operates under architectural and UX guidance 6 - Frequently produces valuable and evaluable system-level Solutions Organizing teams around value - Answer Organize for the large purpose: Maximize velocity by minimizing dependencies and handoffs while sustaining architectural robustness and system qualities A team can be organized around: Features and Components Far less desirable organizing factors: Architectural Layer (Platform) or Programming language Feature and Component teams - Answer Feature Teams 1 - Increased valocity 2 - To minimize dependencies 3 - To develop T-shaped skills
Component Teams 1 - High reuse, high technical speacialization and criticial NFRs 2 - Creating each component as a 'potentially replaceable part of the system with well-defined interfaces' Responsibilities of the RTE - Answer 1 - Manage and optimize flow of value through the ART 2 - Facilitate PI Planning readiness and the event itself 3 - Aggregate and communicate PI Objectives 4 - Assist with execution and Features completion tracking 5 - Assist with economic decision-making throught Feature estimation and roll-up to Value Stream and Portfolio 6 - Escalate and track impediments 7 - Foster collaboration between teams and system-level stakeholders; manage risks and dependences; 8 - Drive relentless improvement via Inspect adn Adapt The Product Management owns the Program Backlog - Answer 1 - Primary responsibilities of Product Management:
PI Planning - Answer 1 - Two days every 8 - 12 weeks (10 weeks is typical) 2 - Everyone attends in person if at all possible 3 - Product Management owns Feature priorities 4 - Agile Teams own Story planning and high-level estimates 5 - ArchitecUEngineering and UX work as intermediaries for governance , interfaces , and dependencies Help team members develop new skills - Answer Narrow specialization of skills on the team is not supportive of any fluctuations in flow.
ART SYNC - Scrum of Scrums - Answer - Visibility into progress and impediments
Benefits to community members - Long-term value Fosters professional development
Continuous system integration - Answer Teams continuously integrate assets, leaving as little as possible to the System Team Traditional testing (V-Model) delays feedback flow - Answer Write Feature -> Write Story -> Write Code -> Test Code -> Test Story -> Test Feature Apply a Problem-Solving Workshop - Anatomy of a well-defined problem - Answer Think about the What, When, Where, Frequency, and any gaps What - We discovered three significant design problems of the new EMV vehicles at the Thrills Amusement Park... When - ... in the October deployment of the new EMV vehicles at the ... Where - ... Thrills Amusement Park. Impact - The design flaws caused us to recall the vehicles and invest three months in materials, redesign, and testing. We delivered late, paid substantial penalties, and lost credibility with the customer. Shift testing left for fast and continuous feedback - Answer Write Feature -> Test Feature .. always testing .. Write Story -> Test Story .. always testing .. Write Code -> Test Code .. always testing .. Refactoring allows teams to maintain high velocity. - Answer - It is impossible to predict requirements or design in detail
Foster adoption of technical practices - Answer A Scrum Master facilitates the adoption of technical practices.
Frequency: 2 - 3 times per Iteration Duration: 15 - 30 minutes Example: The team is about to build its first crawler and Andrew reads them some excerpts from Soumen Chakrabarli 's book Mining the Web. Your role: Lead a few BCBs and acquaint people with the format Encourage Learning: Coding Dojo - Answer Coding (and Testing) Dojo A session where developers and/or automated test engineers gather to discuss programming and testing challenges. One or two people sit at the computer and project onto a screen. As they code, people comment out loud. After 5 - 8 minutes , people rotate Frequency : Once every 1 - 2 Iterations Duration: 60 - 90 minutes Your role: Arrange facilities and equipment Help brainstorm fun, challenging exercises (could be a spike, a script for retrieving data, or even code in one of the main modules) Be sure to encourage variety and introduce different exercises Similarly , testers will enjoy learning how to write test scripts Encourage Learning: Communities of Practice - Answer Communities of Practice (CoPs) Communities of practice are self-organizing groups that form to discuss new topics , challenges , and best practices. Frequency: Once every 1 - 2 Iterations Duration: 30 - 60 minutes Format: Any of the formats previously discussed (Inside-Out, BCB, Dojo) Example : An automated testing CoP gathers to attend Ivan 's presentation on creating FIT tests for complex branching scenarios. Your role: Work with other Scrum Masters and the Release Train Engineer to create and maintain the CoPs Unite people from different teams in the program around the same process objectives or activities (e.g. unit testing , automated acceptance testing , system design, infrastructure, deployment , etc.)