SAFe-Agilist Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

Refer to the exhibit. A team wants to deploy a new feature to production, but the automated deployment process is blocked by the policy shown. What is the best way to handle this?

Accepted Answer

Request a meeting with the Security Lead and Architecture Board to integrate approval into the pipeline.. The exhibit shows that the deployment policy has hard constraints requiring manual sign-offs. In SAFe, teams must operate within organizational governance while striving for continuous delivery. The team should work with the Architecture Board and Security Lead to automate these approvals or incorporate them into the workflow. This is important because it balances the need for security and architectural governance with the requirement for rapid, automated release cycles.

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Bypass the policy, as it is outdated and hinders speed.

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Manually email the approvers every time the team is ready to deploy.

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Ask the Product Owner to approve the deployments instead.

Question 2

A team discovers that their integration testing takes two weeks because they wait for an external department to run the tests. What is the most effective Lean-Agile response?

Accepted Answer

Automate the tests and decentralize the execution. The most effective response is to 'Build quality in' by automating the tests and empowering the team to run them themselves. This removes the dependency on an external department and drastically reduces the integration time. By shifting from a centralized, manual process to a decentralized, automated one, the team gains the speed and feedback necessary to adhere to the Lean-Agile principle of managing queue lengths and accelerating the flow of value.

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Request more headcount for the testing department

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Schedule the testing department meetings earlier in the sprint

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Accept the two-week delay as a necessary part of the process

Question 3

An Agile Release Train (ART) has just completed its first Program Increment (PI). During the Inspect and Adapt workshop, the team identifies that they struggled with cross-team dependencies. As a SAFe Agilist, what is the most appropriate guidance to help the ART improve in the next PI?

Accepted Answer

Recommend that the ART use the program board to visualize dependencies and establish a regular sync cadence to address them.. In SAFe, the program board is used to visualize dependencies and facilitate coordination across teams. Combined with a regular sync cadence, such as Scrum of Scrums and PO Sync, it helps the ART proactively manage dependencies. This approach aligns with SAFe's principles of visualizing work, applying cadence and synchronization, and fostering decentralized decision-making, thereby improving the ART's ability to deliver integrated value in the next PI.

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Advise the ART to eliminate all dependencies by reorganizing into independent teams.

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Suggest that the ART ignore dependencies and focus solely on team-level objectives to increase velocity.

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Instruct the Release Train Engineer (RTE) to assign a dedicated manager to resolve all cross-team dependencies.

Question 4

How does Lean Portfolio Management support the 'Pivot or Persevere' decision-making process?

Accepted Answer

It provides a mechanism to use data and feedback to validate the hypothesis of the epic.. The 'Pivot or Persevere' process is vital for ensuring that the portfolio does not waste resources on unsuccessful initiatives. By using objective metrics, leading indicators, and regular feedback from the Portfolio Kanban, LPM enables data-driven decisions at the end of each stage. This prevents 'sunk cost fallacy' by forcing teams to evaluate whether an epic is meeting its business hypothesis, allowing them to stop unproductive work and reallocate capacity to higher-value opportunities.

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It requires all epics to be completed within 90 days, regardless of outcome.

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It ensures that only the most senior executives can cancel an epic once it has started.

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It automatically renews the budget for every epic at the start of each fiscal year.

Question 5

A SAFe Agile Release Train (ART) is seeing Cycle Time stretch from eight to fourteen days over three Program Increments, even though each team reports being fully utilized. Work is piling up in the Product Owner's "ready" column, and reviews of finished items are being scheduled only after every dependency is resolved. What is the most likely cause of the lengthening Cycle Time?

Accepted Answer

The ART has optimized individual team utilization instead of limiting Work in Process across the full value stream.. Optimizing individual resource utilization creates local efficiency but floods the value stream with partially finished work, so items wait for the slowest step and Cycle Time grows. SAFe addresses this by visualizing the flow of features across the ART, limiting Work in Process, and reducing batch sizes so that demand stays within the system's capacity. The scenario's queues and deferred reviews are classic symptoms of unconstrained WIP.

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The Product Owner is applying weighted shortest job first when ordering the program backlog.

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The ART has not adopted a formal capacity allocation policy for enablers and features.

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The ART has too few System Team members to support continuous integration.

Question 6

A SAFe ART is having difficulty because developers are waiting for specialized testers to verify their work. The testers are a bottleneck, and defects are often found late. The RTE wants to apply the principle 'Assume variability; preserve options' to improve the situation. Which approach best aligns with this principle?

Accepted Answer

Have developers and testers collaborate continuously and automate tests to enable fast feedback. The correct answer is having developers and testers collaborate continuously and automate tests for fast feedback. This applies the principle of assuming variability and preserving options by enabling early learning and informed decisions. It reduces batch sizes and eliminates the tester bottleneck. The other options lock down requirements, increase specialization, or delay testing, all of which reduce flexibility and feedback, contrary to the principle.

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Mandate that all testing be done by a separate QA team at the end of the PI

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Lock down the requirements early so testers can create detailed test plans in advance

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Assign testers to work only on a single feature at a time to increase specialization

Question 7

A mid-sized technology company is adopting SAFe. The Vice President of Engineering wants to lead the change effectively but is unsure how to balance the need for a clear vision with the principles of decentralized decision-making. Which approach best aligns with SAFe's Lean-Agile leadership philosophy?

Accepted Answer

Define a compelling vision and clear guardrails, then delegate decision-making authority to teams and ARTs within those boundaries.. Effective Lean-Agile leadership in SAFe involves setting a clear vision and guardrails, then empowering teams and ARTs to make decisions within those boundaries. This balances alignment with autonomy, fostering engagement and speed. Centralized control or complete independence both fail to achieve the necessary balance, while enforcing ceremonies alone does not create a sustainable culture.

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Create a detailed, centralized plan that specifies exactly how each team should implement SAFe practices and monitor adherence closely.

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Allow each team to independently choose their own processes and tools without any coordination, trusting they will self-organize effectively.

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Focus on enforcing SAFe ceremonies and artifacts strictly, assuming that adherence to the framework will naturally produce the desired culture.

Question 8

Why does SAFe advocate for 'Synchronization' across teams in an Agile Release Train (ART)?

Accepted Answer

To ensure teams can integrate their work frequently.. Synchronization ensures that all teams within an ART are working towards the same goals and are aligned on the same cadence. This reduces uncertainty, enables faster integration of work, and allows teams to identify dependencies early. By aligning the rhythm of development, the ART can deliver a cohesive product, minimize the 'integration hell' that occurs when teams work in isolation, and ensure a smooth, continuous flow of value.

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To force all teams to use the same estimation method.

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To allow management to control individual tasks.

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To eliminate the need for any cross-team communication.

Question 9

Which TWO of the following are benefits of 'limiting work-in-process (WIP)' in a SAFe environment?

Accepted Answer

Faster delivery of value through reduced context switching.. Limiting WIP is essential for managing flow and ensuring that teams focus on completing work rather than just starting it. By reducing the number of active items, the team reduces context-switching and bottlenecks. This matters because it leads to faster delivery of value, higher quality through increased focus, and a clearer view of the system's actual capacity, allowing the organization to plan more effectively and react to market changes quickly.

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Increased team capacity to handle concurrent, unrelated requests.

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A more accurate representation of the team's total workload.

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Elimination of the need for an Agile Release Train.

Question 10

Which practice helps a SAFe ART address high variability in arrival rates?

Accepted Answer

Using capacity buffers to manage surges in work demand.. High variability in the arrival of work can cause unpredictable surges, leading to queue buildup. Using buffers (such as an uncommitted portion of the PI plan or a 'ready' backlog) allows the team to absorb this variability without disrupting the flow. This ensures that the team maintains a steady pace, which is critical for predictability and for maintaining the integrity of the planned delivery commitments.

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Eliminating all planning and working on items as they arrive.

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Requiring all stakeholders to submit requests six months in advance.

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Increasing the size of every team on the train.