SAFe-Agilist Practice Test 12 — 15 Questions

Question 1

Refer to the exhibit. What does the dip in Iteration 3 suggest regarding Product Development Flow?

Accepted Answer

There was likely a systemic interruption or blocker.. In an Agile environment, a single-point dip in velocity is often caused by external factors such as dependencies, team sickness, or a specific bottleneck encountered during that iteration. Rather than blaming the team, SAFe advocates for investigating the systemic cause (the 'why'). Analyzing this dip helps teams identify impediments that disrupted the flow of work, allowing them to adjust processes and prevent the same issue from reoccurring in future iterations.

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The team needs more training on estimation techniques.

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The team is unmotivated and needs management intervention.

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The team should commit to fewer points in the next PI.

Question 2

Which THREE of the following are considered 'Lean Governance' activities? (Select three)

Accepted Answer

Setting investment guardrails for the portfolio.. Lean Governance in SAFe focuses on maintaining portfolio alignment, financial responsibility, and compliance without the heavy hand of traditional command-and-control. By using investment guardrails, value stream KPIs, and regular portfolio reviews, LPM provides the necessary oversight to ensure the portfolio is moving in the right direction. This ensures transparency and accountability while respecting the autonomy of the Agile Release Trains to deliver the solutions required to achieve those strategic outcomes.

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Creating detailed project schedules for every team.

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Performing daily code reviews for every developer.

Question 3

What is the primary function of the 'Portfolio Vision'?

Accepted Answer

To serve as a high-level guide for future-state development and strategic alignment.. The Portfolio Vision provides a clear, aspirational view of the future state of the portfolio. It guides the organization by describing the desired outcomes and the value expected to be delivered over the long term. This vision is essential for aligning the efforts of multiple ARTs, ensuring that all teams are working toward the same strategic goals and maintaining a cohesive direction throughout the enterprise.

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To document the detailed technical specifications for all future product releases.

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To establish specific individual performance goals for all team members.

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To replace the need for strategic themes in the portfolio planning process.

Question 4

What is the primary role of the 'System Team' in helping an ART adapt to changing market requirements?

Accepted Answer

To build and maintain the continuous delivery pipeline and integration environment.. The System Team facilitates the continuous integration of the ART's work, providing the platform and environment necessary for end-to-end testing and demoing. By maintaining the pipeline and integration environment, they allow the ART to get rapid feedback on their work. This is critical for adaptation, as it provides the evidence needed to confirm if the current direction is meeting customer needs.

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To serve as a secondary development team that builds features when others fall behind.

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To enforce strict coding standards across all teams within the ART.

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To handle all communication with the customer on behalf of the ART.

Question 5

Which TWO of the following are benefits of decentralized decision-making in the context of flow? (Select exactly two)

Accepted Answer

Improved responsiveness by reducing wait times for approvals.. Decentralized decision-making is essential for keeping work moving without waiting for approvals from higher levels of management. By empowering those closest to the work to make routine decisions, the organization significantly reduces wait times and improves the speed of feedback. This approach promotes a more responsive and agile culture, where teams can adapt quickly to challenges without being held back by a slow, centralized hierarchy.

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Consistency in company-wide branding and strategy.

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Lowering the salary costs of technical staff.

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Elimination of the need for any management or leadership.

Question 6

Which TWO of the following are considered 'Flow Accelerators' in SAFe? (Select exactly two)

Accepted Answer

Visualize work through Kanban boards to identify bottlenecks.. Flow accelerators are techniques that help the organization identify and remove barriers to value delivery. By focusing on visualizing work and limiting WIP, teams can better understand their bottlenecks. These practices, combined with techniques like small batch sizes and cadence, ensure that the system remains responsive and that the value stream remains efficient throughout the planning and execution phases of the train.

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Increase batch sizes to reduce the frequency of planning sessions.

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Centralize all decision-making to maintain consistent quality.

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Prioritize long-term projects over short-term feedback loops.

Question 7

What is the function of the 'Portfolio Backlog' in SAFe?

Accepted Answer

To act as a repository for high-level initiatives known as Epics.. The Portfolio Backlog is the holding area for upcoming business and enabler epics intended to create and evolve the portfolio's solutions. By maintaining this backlog, LPM ensures that there is a prioritized pipeline of work ready for implementation. It serves as the primary input for the Program Increments, ensuring that the Agile Release Trains always have a clear, aligned understanding of the most important strategic work to be completed.

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To store all the defects found in the production environment.

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To define the detailed requirements for every feature on the roadmap.

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To manage the daily work assignments for all developers in the organization.

Question 8

Refer to the exhibit. An Agile Release Train (ART) is struggling to align leadership expectations with team output during PI Planning. Which action should the Release Train Engineer take to address this based on the 'Leading the Change' domain?

Accepted Answer

Engage executive leadership to reinforce the business vision and support the teams.. The exhibit highlights that leadership commitment and clear vision are essential prerequisites for success. If the ART is struggling with alignment, the RTE must ensure that leaders are actively participating in the planning process as servant leaders, rather than just observers. Aligning expectations requires continuous communication and ensuring that leaders understand their role in removing impediments and supporting the teams' execution.

Answer

Reduce the number of attendees to speed up the planning session.

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Request that Product Management unilaterally finalize the backlog before planning.

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Move the Architectural Runway review to after the PI Planning event.

Question 9

Which THREE items should be included in a team's Definition of Done (DoD)? (Select THREE)

Accepted Answer

Code reviewed by another team member.. The Definition of Done is a vital agreement that defines the quality and completeness of a product increment. It prevents 'done-ish' work from accumulating as hidden technical debt. Including these specific criteria ensures that the team consistently delivers high-quality increments, which is essential for integration on the Agile Release Train and for maintaining the trust of stakeholders throughout the Program Increment.

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Approved by the customer representative.

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Budget approved for the next sprint.

Question 10

Which TWO of the following are primary responsibilities of Lean Portfolio Management? (Select two)

Accepted Answer

Connecting the portfolio strategy to the execution of the Agile Release Trains.. Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) serves three primary dimensions: strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance. By focusing on these, LPM aligns strategy with execution, optimizes portfolio flow through effective Kanban management, and provides the necessary oversight to ensure the portfolio delivers measurable business value. These functions collectively transform traditional project-based finance into a more agile, value-stream-oriented funding model.

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Coordinating the development of individual user stories for all teams.

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Directly managing the daily stand-up meetings for all development teams.

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Defining the specific technical stack used by every team in the organization.

Question 11

Refer to the exhibit. What is this policy intended to achieve?

Accepted Answer

To prevent a bottleneck in the testing phase by managing WIP.. This policy is an example of a WIP limit coupled with a clear rule to manage flow. By forcing the team to focus on testing, it prevents a bottleneck from forming in the testing phase. This ensures that the testing stage is not overwhelmed, which keeps the total lead time down and allows for more frequent and predictable delivery of value through the system.

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To increase the number of features entering development.

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To enforce testing quality standards.

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To ensure that the developers are kept busy during testing.

Question 12

Which leadership behavior is most critical for 'adapting and thriving' during a period of significant organizational change, such as a major pivot in product strategy?

Accepted Answer

Demonstrating transparency and empathy regarding the impact of the change on the teams.. Transparency and empathy are the hallmarks of Lean-Agile leadership. During times of change, teams naturally experience anxiety. By being transparent about the reasons for the pivot and showing empathy for the challenges faced by the staff, leaders build the trust necessary for the team to embrace the change and remain committed to the new direction, which is vital for organizational agility.

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Maintaining a firm stance on the original strategy to avoid confusion.

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Restricting communication to only those in senior management to prevent panic.

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Implementing a new system of strict KPIs to ensure compliance with the new strategy.

Question 13

Why is 'Multitasking' considered a major enemy of flow in a SAFe ART?

Accepted Answer

It increases the cost of context switching.. Multitasking introduces significant context-switching costs, where the team loses time and focus whenever they shift between different tasks. This reduces overall productivity, increases the likelihood of errors, and extends the lead time for all items being worked on. In a flow-based system, it is much more efficient to focus on completing a single item before beginning another, as this ensures rapid progress and minimizes the time that work sits idle in a partially finished state.

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It decreases the visibility of the work.

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It makes it harder to track team velocity.

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It forces developers to learn more skills.

Question 14

During a SAFe scrum team's Iteration Planning, the Product Owner presents a high-priority user story that requires a new microservice. The developers estimate it at 20 story points, but the team's velocity is 12 points per iteration. The team is concerned about committing to the story. What is the most appropriate action for the team to take?

Accepted Answer

Split the user story into smaller, vertically sliced stories that can be completed within the iteration.. The team should split the large user story into smaller, vertically sliced stories that can be completed within the iteration. This approach aligns with SAFe's emphasis on small, incremental delivery and allows the team to maintain a sustainable pace while still making progress on high-priority functionality. It also enables faster feedback and reduces integration risk.

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Commit to the story and work overtime to meet the iteration commitment.

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Defer the story to a future iteration and select other lower-priority stories that fit the team's velocity.

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Ask the Product Owner to reduce the acceptance criteria so the story fits within the iteration.

Question 15

An Agile Team is working on a feature that requires changes to both the front-end and back-end code. To ensure that the team can integrate and test continuously, what is the most effective approach for managing code changes?

Accepted Answer

Commit code changes to the main branch at least daily and run automated tests to verify integration.. Continuous Integration is a foundational technical practice in SAFe that requires developers to merge code changes into the main branch frequently, ideally at least daily. This enables early detection of integration issues and supports Built-in Quality. By committing daily and running automated tests, the team ensures that the system remains integratable and that defects are caught early, which is essential for Team and Technical Agility.

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Have each developer work on a separate long-lived feature branch and merge only at the end of the Iteration.

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Use a separate branch for each developer and merge changes only after all unit tests pass locally.

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Adopt a trunk-based development model but allow developers to merge only when the feature is complete.