SAFe-Agilist Establishing Team and Technical Agility Practice Test 2 — 15 Questions

Question 1

What is the primary benefit of the Daily Stand-up for the Agile Team?

Accepted Answer

To synchronize the team’s activities and identify impediments.. The Daily Stand-up is a short, daily check-in that facilitates synchronization and progress tracking. It allows team members to align on their daily tasks and identify impediments early. This event matters because it keeps the team focused on the Sprint Goal and allows for rapid, daily adjustments to the plan, which is essential for maintaining flow and achieving the commitments made during Iteration Planning.

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To solve complex architectural problems.

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To update the team's project management tool.

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To report daily status to the Product Owner.

Question 2

An Agile Release Train is struggling with frequent integration bottlenecks because team members work in isolation on their own branches for weeks. As a SAFe Agilist, which approach should you recommend to establish technical agility and resolve this issue?

Accepted Answer

Adopt extreme programming practices such as Test-Driven Development, pairing, and Continuous Integration to merge and validate code daily.. Continuous Integration is fundamental to technical agility in SAFe. By merging code changes daily or multiple times a day into a shared trunk, teams discover integration conflicts early and maintain a continually working system. This practice directly addresses the root cause of long integration delays by enforcing automated build and test pipelines.

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Extend the Iteration length to provide teams more time to stabilize their complex feature branches before attempting integration.

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Implement a separate release branch freeze period during the final week of every iteration to manually verify all changes.

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Assign a dedicated integration team responsible for merging all developer branches at the end of each Program Increment.

Question 3

A Scrum Master observes that a team is struggling to meet their Sprint Goals because they spend significant time resolving technical debt during the sprint. How should the team apply the concept of Built-in Quality to address this?

Accepted Answer

Adopt practices such as Test-Driven Development and Pair Programming to prevent defects.. Built-in Quality requires that quality is not an afterthought but integrated into the development process through practices like Test-Driven Development and pair programming. By incorporating these technical practices, the team reduces rework and prevents defects from accumulating. Addressing technical debt incrementally within the sprint ensures that the team maintains a sustainable velocity, allowing them to deliver high-quality increments that reliably meet the Definition of Done in every iteration.

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Allocate a separate sprint strictly for technical debt resolution every quarter.

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Increase the velocity estimate to account for the time needed for bug fixes.

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Escalate the issue to the Release Train Engineer to request additional team members.

Question 4

An Agile Team is struggling to complete their planned Stories within the iteration, often carrying over 30% of their work to the next Iteration. During backlog refinement, the Product Owner insists on adding more scope to fill the velocity cap. Which action should the team and Scrum Master take to establish sustainable flow?

Accepted Answer

Negotiate a realistic scope with the Product Owner based on historical throughput and establish a Work in Process limit.. Re-establishing predictable flow requires matching work-in-process to actual capacity rather than artificially inflating commitments. By negotiating realistic scope based on historical throughput, the team reduces context switching, finishes stories completely, and builds trust with the Product Owner. This practice supports sustainable pace and drives continuous delivery value in SAFe.

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Increase the planned velocity by 20% to account for carryover work and maintain pressure on the delivery schedule.

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Work extra hours during the final days of the iteration to ensure all committed backlog items meet the Definition of Done.

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Delegate story splitting entirely to the Product Owner outside of team planning sessions to maximize developer coding time.

Question 5

Which TWO practices are essential for an Agile Team practicing Built-in Quality in a SAFe environment? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Implementing Test-Driven Development to design and verify code behavior before implementation.. Built-in Quality requires technical practices that ensure quality is embedded into every increment rather than inspected at the end. Test-Driven Development provides immediate feedback and drives clean architecture, while automated regression suites guarantee that new functionality does not break existing features across the system.

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Performing manual integration testing in a dedicated hardening iteration prior to release.

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Submitting all completed code to an independent quality assurance department for final verification.

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Deferring refactoring tasks to dedicated technical debt sprints scheduled every six months.

Question 6

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 7

An Agile Team on an Agile Release Train is preparing for its first Program Increment. The team wants to ensure it can deliver a potentially shippable increment every two weeks. Which approach best establishes the team's Definition of Done as a living agreement?

Accepted Answer

The team collaboratively creates and regularly revisits its Definition of Done, incorporating SAFe's built-in quality practices and the ART's system-level Definition of Done.. A Definition of Done is most effective when the team collaboratively owns it and revisits it regularly. Incorporating SAFe's built-in quality practices and aligning with the ART's system-level Definition of Done ensures the team delivers potentially shippable increments that integrate smoothly. This approach fosters shared understanding and continuous improvement, which are core to establishing team and technical agility.

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The Release Train Engineer defines a single Definition of Done for all teams to ensure consistency across the ART.

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The Scrum Master writes a comprehensive Definition of Done and distributes it to the team for compliance.

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The team adopts the Definition of Done from a previous organization without modification to save time.

Question 8

An Agile Team is struggling with frequent integration issues because team members work on long-lived feature branches and merge infrequently. The team wants to improve its continuous integration practice. What is the most effective action to take?

Accepted Answer

Adopt trunk-based development where team members commit to a shared mainline at least daily and use automated tests to validate each integration.. The most effective action is to adopt trunk-based development with daily commits to a shared mainline and automated tests. This practice minimizes integration risk, provides rapid feedback, and keeps the codebase in a potentially shippable state. It directly addresses the root cause of long-lived branches and aligns with SAFe's emphasis on continuous integration as a foundation for technical agility.

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Implement a code freeze two days before the end of the Iteration to allow time for integration.

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Increase the frequency of merging by requiring team members to merge their branches at least once per week.

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Assign a dedicated integration manager to manually merge all branches at the end of each Iteration.

Question 9

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.

Question 10

An Agile Team wants to improve its technical agility by adopting SAFe's built-in quality practices. Which two practices should the team implement to ensure that quality is built into the product rather than inspected at the end? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Adopt pair programming or peer code reviews to catch defects early.. The two practices that build quality in are test automation (unit, component, integration) and collaborative practices like pair programming or peer code reviews. These practices prevent defects early, provide fast feedback, and reduce reliance on late-stage inspection. They are foundational to SAFe's built-in quality and enable teams to deliver potentially shippable increments every Iteration.

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Perform exploratory testing only after the feature is complete and before the Iteration review.

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Dedicate a separate quality assurance team to test all features before release.

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Conduct a comprehensive manual regression test at the end of each Iteration.

Question 11

A Scrum Master notices that the Agile Team's Definition of Done (DoD) does not include any criteria for non-functional requirements such as performance or security. What should the Scrum Master do to help the team improve their DoD?

Accepted Answer

Facilitate a team workshop to identify relevant non-functional requirements and collaboratively update the DoD.. The Definition of Done should include both functional and non-functional criteria to ensure a high-quality Increment. The Scrum Master facilitates team collaboration to identify relevant non-functional requirements and update the DoD. This empowers the team to own their quality standards and aligns with SAFe's emphasis on Built-in Quality and continuous improvement.

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Ignore the gap because non-functional requirements are not part of the DoD in SAFe.

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Ask the Product Owner to define the non-functional requirements and add them to the DoD.

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Instruct the team to add all possible non-functional requirements to the DoD immediately.

Question 12

During an Iteration retrospective, an Agile Team identifies that it frequently misses its Iteration Goals because of unplanned work. Which action best aligns with SAFe's principle of establishing team and technical agility?

Accepted Answer

Analyze the sources of unplanned work and implement improvements to reduce or eliminate them.. Analyzing and eliminating the sources of unplanned work is the most effective action because it addresses root causes and improves the team's ability to meet its Iteration Goals. This aligns with SAFe's principle of establishing team and technical agility through continuous improvement. By removing impediments to flow, the team enhances predictability and delivers more value.

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Ask the Product Owner to prioritize only planned work and reject all unplanned requests.

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Reserve a fixed percentage of each Iteration's capacity for unplanned work.

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Extend the Iteration length to provide more time to absorb unplanned work.

Question 13

An Agile Team is struggling with test automation because their test suite has become slow and unreliable, with many flaky tests. As a result, they are unable to run the full suite on every commit and have started to skip tests. What is the most effective first step to address this issue?

Accepted Answer

Quarantine flaky tests and prioritize fixing them while maintaining a fast, reliable test suite.. Quarantining flaky tests is a recommended practice in SAFe to maintain a fast and reliable continuous integration pipeline. It allows the team to keep running the stable tests on every commit while isolating problematic tests for focused remediation. This approach balances the need for rapid feedback with the need to address test quality issues, enabling the team to improve their test automation over time.

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Disable all flaky tests and proceed with the remaining tests to speed up the pipeline.

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Run the full test suite only nightly to avoid slowing down the pipeline.

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Replace the entire test suite with manual testing to ensure reliability.

Question 14

An Agile Team is adopting SAFe and wants to ensure its work is integrated with other teams on the Agile Release Train. Which approach best supports continuous integration at the ART level?

Accepted Answer

Teams use a shared version control repository and integrate their code at least daily, with automated builds and tests.. The best approach is for teams to use a shared version control repository and integrate their code at least daily, supported by automated builds and tests. This practice enables early detection of integration issues, aligns with the ART's system-level Definition of Done, and ensures the solution is always in a potentially shippable state. It is a cornerstone of continuous integration and team and technical agility.

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The Release Train Engineer coordinates a monthly integration event where all teams merge their code.

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Each team maintains its own separate code repository and integrates only at the end of the Program Increment.

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Each team integrates its code with the main branch only when a feature is fully complete and tested.

Question 15

An Agile Team is adopting SAFe and wants to ensure they are applying the core principles of Built-in Quality. Which two practices are essential for achieving Built-in Quality? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Test-First Development. Built-in Quality in SAFe is achieved through practices that embed quality into every step of development. Continuous Integration ensures frequent integration and automated testing, while Test-First Development ensures that code is written to pass tests and meets requirements. Together, these practices prevent defects from being introduced and caught late, supporting the team's ability to deliver value quickly and reliably.

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Deferring all testing to a separate QA phase after development

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Conducting thorough code reviews only at the end of each Iteration

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Using manual regression testing for every build