SAFe-Agilist Establishing Team and Technical Agility Practice Question
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?
⚠ Common exam trap
The trap here is thinking that disabling or ignoring flaky tests is a viable solution, when in fact they must be quarantined and fixed to maintain quality.
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
✓
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.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
Disable all flaky tests and proceed with the remaining tests to speed up the pipeline.
Why it's wrong here
Disabling flaky tests may provide temporary relief but hides underlying issues and reduces test coverage. It does not address the root cause of flakiness, which could be due to poor test design, environmental issues, or concurrency problems. This approach can lead to defects escaping to production.
- ✗
Run the full test suite only nightly to avoid slowing down the pipeline.
Why it's wrong here
Running tests only nightly means that integration issues are not detected until the next day, violating the principle of continuous integration. It also allows defects to accumulate, making them harder to fix. The team should aim for a fast, reliable test suite that runs on every commit.
- ✓
Quarantine flaky tests and prioritize fixing them while maintaining a fast, reliable test suite.
Why this is correct
Quarantining flaky tests isolates them from the main pipeline, allowing the team to maintain a fast and reliable test suite that runs on every commit. This practice, recommended in SAFe, enables the team to continue integrating while addressing the root causes of flakiness. It balances short-term needs with long-term quality improvement.
- ✗
Replace the entire test suite with manual testing to ensure reliability.
Why it's wrong here
Replacing automated tests with manual testing is a step backward, as it slows down feedback and increases the risk of human error. Automated tests are essential for continuous integration and delivery. This approach does not solve the flakiness problem and undermines the team's ability to deliver quickly.
About these practice questions
One of 315 original SAFe-Agilist practice questions on Courseiva, each with a full explanation and wrong-answer analysis — not exam dumps or protected exam content. 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.