SAFe-Agilist Adapting and Thriving with SAFe Practice Question
A team notices that they are consistently spending 40% of their capacity on resolving bugs found by the customer in production. Which action best aligns with the SAFe principle of 'Relentless Improvement' to address this?
⚠ Common exam trap
Candidates often choose 'fix the bugs' or 'increase testing' as the primary action, missing that 'Relentless Improvement' requires systemic process changes identified through formal events like Inspect and Adapt.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Use the Inspect and Adapt event to perform a root cause analysis and identify process improvements.
Addressing the root cause of production defects is essential for long-term health. By using the Inspect and Adapt workshop to analyze the data and potentially introducing better automated testing or pair programming, the team improves their flow. This is not just about fixing the immediate bugs, but about changing the system so that future value is delivered with higher quality and less wasted effort.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Assign a dedicated support team to handle production bugs while the main team continues feature development.
Why it's wrong here
Separating support and development creates silos and prevents the development team from understanding the quality issues they are creating. In SAFe, the team that builds the product should also be responsible for its quality and operation, facilitating a feedback loop that encourages better development practices from the start.
- ✓
Use the Inspect and Adapt event to perform a root cause analysis and identify process improvements.
Why this is correct
The I&A event is designed for exactly this purpose: reflecting on the process and identifying improvements. By performing root cause analysis, the team can address the underlying issues causing the defects, leading to sustainable improvements in quality and a reduction in the time spent on rework, thus increasing flow.
- ✗
Add a 'Quality Assurance' phase at the end of each iteration to catch defects before release.
Why it's wrong here
Adding a phase at the end of an iteration creates a bottleneck and encourages 'throwing code over the wall.' SAFe advocates for building quality into the process continuously rather than checking for it at the end. This approach is reactive and counterproductive to the goal of high-velocity value delivery.
- ✗
Ask the Product Owner to deprioritize new features until the team has fully documented the current system.
Why it's wrong here
Documentation is not a substitute for quality engineering. While technical documentation has value, it does not prevent bugs. The team should focus on automated testing, refactoring, and better development practices to prevent defects. Stopping feature development to write documentation is an inefficient use of resources that doesn't solve quality.
Visual reference
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every SAFe-Agilist question from scratch — 315 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official Scaled Agile exam blueprint
This SAFe-Agilist practice question is part of Courseiva's free Scaled Agile certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the SAFe-Agilist exam.