Q.1 What is Agile?

List a few Agile frameworks you have come across till

now.

It is a debatable and tricky question used to confuse a candidate. The definition of Agile is
not set in stone. There is quite a lot of controversy surrounding whether Agile is a
methodology or a framework.

To put it simply, Agile is a mindset or a way of thinking focussed on continuous

improvement utilizing cross-communication, cross-functionality, team-centric approach,
innovation, and intrinsic motivation. It leads to better value creation, imperative for the
successful delivery of a product or service.

Common frameworks based on Agile are Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), Lean
Software Development, and Feature & Test- Driven Development.
Q2. What is SAFe or Scaled Agile Framework?

Scaled Agile Framework or SAFe, formulated by software veteran Dean Leffingwell, is a

large-scale enterprise framework that combines lean and agile principles for large-scale
projects comprising large teams from various departments. The framework is based on three
basic building blocks: Agile Development, Lean Product Development, and Systems
Thinking.
Q3. List four levels and different configurations in the Leading SAFe 5.1?

It is a common question in the SAFe® Agile Interview Question list. The four levels in the
latest SAFe version are Team Level, Program Level, Value Stream Level & Portfolio Level.
There are different configurations in SAFe to build a complete range of development
environments described as Essential SAFe, Large Solution SAFe, Portfolio SAFe, and Full
SAFe.
Q4. What are the four core values of SAFe?

SAFe is based on lean and agile principles. There are four core values of SAFe:

 Alignment- Keeping up with change and competition is crucial for

continuous improvement.
 Built-In Quality: Ensuring high-quality products and services through
regular testing and analysis based on customer feedback.
 Transparency: Trust & transparency are key factors driving excellence in an
organization.
 Program Execution: Primary focus on the working system is crucial for
better business outcomes.
Q5. Define Agile Release Train (ART) and Program Increment (PI).
Agile Release Train or ART is a self-operating & self-managed team of high-performing
Agile Teams which undertakes necessary incremental planning to develop & deliver a
continuous flow of releases in a Value Stream.

Program Increment or PI is a time-frame during which ARTs deliver incremental results

through working systems and regular testing. PIs are generally 8-12 weeks long and consist
of four development iteration cycles and one planning & innovation cycle.

Be a SAFe Leader, learn more about SAFe® Agilist Certification Cost in India and start
your SAFe journey today!
Intermediate Level Questions:
Q6. When is it important to implement a Scaled Agile Framework?
Scaled Agile Framework is implemented under the following circumstances:

 Enterprises are keen on implementing an agile mindset across large and

multiple team programs and portfolios.
 Multiple teams have adopted agile methods but are constantly facing
challenges and failures.
 Teams are interested in functioning autonomously in a decentralized
decision-making enterprise.
 The need to scale Agile exists in an organization but what new roles may be
required and how existing ones need to be modified is unknown.
 Enterprises need to improve product development lead time and are
interested to know how their competitors have used SAFe for business
success.
Q7. What is Scrum of Scrum?

It is one of the commonly asked SAFe® Agile Interview Questions to analyze your
knowledge in Scrum. This is best explained with an example. Let’s assume there is an active
project comprising seven members in each team with its scrum meeting. There are three such
scrum teams in total. To communicate between these three scrum teams comprising seven
members each, a scrum of scrum meetings needs to be organized. Three such responsible
people from each scrum team head the meeting to discuss work.
Q8. What is Value Stream in SAFe?

A Value Stram involves a series of steps used to deliver value right from customer order to a
tangible product desired by the customer. In a value stream, an event or a customer order
triggers the flow of value. It ends after solution deployment to the client. Therefore,
components of a value stream involve people, working systems, and information as well as
material flow.
Q9. What is the difference between Value Stream & Agile Release Train?

Value stream is a long series of steps that provide a continuous flow of value to the
customers. While Agile Release Train is a self-managed team of Agile teams delivering
continuous incremental releases in a value stream.
Q10. What are the advantages of implementing SAFe?

Advantages of implementing SAFe® framework are:

 Efficiency in software development while maintaining decentralization in

decision-making at the enterprise level.
 Maintaining alignment in business processes with greater transparency.
 Cross-functional teams ensure better collaborative work.
 More people-centric than technology-centric
 Highly recommended framework for large enterprises.
Advanced Level Questions:
Q11. What are the common issues & challenges you have faced while
implementing agile principles in a SAFe enterprise?

When you are a SAFe pro having years of experience working in an Agile environment,
being aware of the common complaints during agile development is expected. You may list
the following reasons:

 Lack of long-term planning

 Lack of management level Agile practices
 Too many team members make collaborative decisions hard.
 Lack of synchronization with multiple requirements from complex team
structures
 Lack of proper roadmap creates unexpected issues and obstacles.
Q12. What is the goal of Lean Thinking in SAFe?

The main objective of Lean Thinking in SAFe is to provide maximum value to customers
while minimizing waste and reducing risks for the highest possible value creation to the
clients & society as a whole.
Q13. What are the roles of Product Managers in SAFe?

The Product Manager is the ultimate authority at the Program level to undertake program
vision. The roles of a product manager are:

 Understand customer requirements and provide solutions.

 Define a roadmap for development teams for laying down a program vision
and mission.
 Manage workflow through Agile Methods like Scrum & Kanban.
 Participate in PI meetings & workshops.
Q14. What is a Solution Train in SAFe?

It is a popular question in the SAFe® Agilist Interview Questions list.

A Solution Train is a construct for organizing large and complex project solutions that require
the coordination of multiple ARTs. It aligns all the ARTs together based on a common
vision, roadmap, and an aligned PI.
Q15. Why is decentralization in decision-making important for SAFe
enterprises?

Decentralized decision-making leads to sustainable & shorter lead time during delivery of
value to customers. Waiting for approval from higher authorities leads to delay & disables
faster feedback and innovative solutions.
To Summarise
Since most industries apply SAFe framework, it is necessary to acquire detailed knowledge
about it to learn about its advantages & shortcomings. Now you can voice your suggestions
and answer clearly during the interview without hesitation.

For more information, check out SAFe Agilist Certification Cost at and enroll now for a
SAFe® Certification Course. Happy Learning! Call us if you would like more information
about the training and SAFe certification cost India.

1. Explain Agile and some of its related frameworks.

Agile is simply 4 values and 12 principles to deliver value incrementally and iteratively. It is
neither a framework nor a methodology. It was derived to provide software incrementally with
high quality. Scrum and SAFe are the two frameworks that follow Agile. Scrum is all about the
team and SAFe is for scaling agility.

2. What do you know about the levels of SAFe?

There are three levels of the latest version of SAFe, as follows:

1. Essential SAFe
2. Large Solution SAFe
3. Portfolio SAFe and

Essential SAFe is a mandatory level in SAFe, which is for a single program (we call it Agile
Release Train) of 50 to 125 people. The other 2 levels are optional.

When there are more than 125 people and more complex, for ex., 300 people working for 1
product/solution, we need Large Solution SAFe.

Portfolio SAFe can be implemented when the entire portfolio wants to move to SAFe, which
means, multiple programs / ARTs within the portfolio including the Portfolio leadership want to
follow SAFe.

3. How do you measure Lead Time and Cycle time?

Read “Lead Time and Cycle Time: Get all insights here!” to understand more about the concepts.

4. Explain the metrics in SAFe.

Metrics by definition are agreed-upon measurements that help evaluate the progress of the
organization. There are measurements in SAFe as well. They help measure the performance of
the team, ART, Value Stream, and Portfolio based on the metrics collected. Let’s look at various
metrics that help SAFe organization measure and improve.

Team Metrics

Every Agile team in SAFe ART measures metrics that are critical for the team. Here are a few
key metrics that Agile teams measure

 Velocity – Average story points delivered per iteration

 Predictability in every iteration (story points committed vs. delivered per iteration)

 % Unit test automated – % Code coverage through unit test automation

  Number of open defects – Number of open defects at any point in time

ART Metrics

Flow-based metrics are key metrics that help ART measure and improve. Here are a few Flow-
based metrics.

 Flow Predictability: This helps measure the predictability of the team and ART based on
business value points
 Flow Distribution: Percentage of backlog item type (business features, enabler features,
technical debts), etc in each PI

 Flow Load: This indicates the total number of Work In Progress items at any point of
time during the Program Increment execution. A cumulative Flow Diagram is used to
measure this.

 Flow Time: Measures the total elapsed time for all steps in the workflow to deliver a
backlog item or feature. This helps in increasing the speed of delivery in the shortest time.

 Flow Efficiency: This measures the value-added time spent in delivering value as against
the total time. This helps identify all the wastes in the system and remove them.

Assessment based measurements

There are also assessments that can help measure the competency of the organization – for
example, team and technical agility, agile product delivery, continuous learning culture, etc.

5. What are the features of SAFe version 6.0?

There are many changes in the SAFe 6.0 version, here are a few to highlight

 Big Picture changes – New measure and growth assessments, program and team levels
combined into essential SAFe, more clarity on the continuous delivery pipeline, focus on
Agile teams beyond technology, etc
 2 new competencies were added – continuous learning culture and organizational agility
  5 restructured competencies – All the other 5 competencies were restructured to provide
more dimensions and a detailed explanation

 Focus on Business Agility is one of the highlights of SAFe 6.0

 New Overview tab with 7 core competencies listed

 A New Assessment called “Business Agility” assessment added

 Lot more focus on “Customer Centricity” and “Design Thinking”

 “Organize around Value” is the 10th principle added to SAFe 6.0

 LPM and APM certifications are added to the SAFe Implementation Roadmap

6. What is Innovation and Planning iteration?

Innovation and planning iteration is one of the iterations in the Program Increment. This iteration
is the last iteration in every PI. The uniqueness of this is as the same says – it focuses on
“Innovation”, “Planning preparation” and “PI planning”. It also helps the teams upgrade
themselves through continuous learning.

IP iteration is the iteration where the Inspect & Adapt event is conducted which includes PI
System Demo, PI Retrospective, and Problem-solving workshop.

The other key difference in IP iteration compared to other iterations is – there is no value delivery
planned during this iteration. It’s primarily for innovation focus, learning, planning preparation,
and PI planning.

7. What are some pros and cons of SAFe?

Please read the detailed blog written on “Pros and Cons of SAFe”.

8. What are “story”, “Feature” and “epic” in SAFe?

Epics, features, and stories are the backlog structure in SAFe.

Epics are the large backlog items that require more than a PI to deliver the value. Epics can be
Portfolio epics, Solution epics, and program epics. They are large enough that it takes more than a
PI or two. Epics can be business epics or enabler epics. Features are the ART level backlog, that
will be delivered by the ART within a PI. Like epics, they can also be Business Features and
Enabler features.

The story is a team-level backlog that the Agile team can deliver within an iteration. They are
small enough that a single Agile team can deliver multiple stories within a PI.

9. Explain the principles of SAFe.

SAFe principles are the guiding principles to implement SAFe in an organization. The SAFe
framework was built on these principles.

SAFe has 10 principles. They comprise Agile principles, Lean and Systems thinking, product
development flow practices, and Lean & DevOps processes. The entire framework was built on
these principles.

10. What do you understand about a Value Stream?

Value Streams are the steps that any organization uses to implement and deliver solutions and
provide a continuous flow of value to their customer. The organization is typically sliced based
on functional or organizational silos that don’t allow the organization to deliver customer value in
the shortest time. The silo-ed structure causes many challenges like

1. Value delivery is slowed down due to handoffs and delays

2. The organizational boundaries don’t enable customer-centricity adoption

3. An organization is designed to optimize the work in silos, not as a whole

Value Stream thinking helps remove these challenges by bringing all the functions together and
delivering value to customers as one team.

There are 2 types of Value Streams.

1. Operational Value Stream
2. Development Value Stream

Here are the benefits of implementing value-stream thinking in the organization

1. Delays and Handoffs are fewer

2. Enables the teams to work as a single, long-lived unit that focuses on delivering
continuous value to customers

3. It enables the shortest sustainable lead time by identifying and removing waste in the
system

4. Increases the quality of the product

11. What is the purpose of having a System Demo?

System Demo is the demonstration of the whole system built by all the teams of an ART
incrementally in every iteration. This helps the leaders, and all stakeholders understand the
system that is built by the entire ART.

It provides an integrated view of all the features that are built in the recent iteration by all the
teams of an ART. It takes place at the end of every iteration. This helps stakeholders provide
feedback on the system the moment it is built.

Participants of the System Demo are Product Managers, Product Owners, System Team
members, System Architects, Business Owners, other executives and stakeholders who are
interested in seeing the demo, and ART agile team members as needed.

12. What do you understand by Release on Demand?

Release on Demand is a process that enables the deployment of new functionality into production
and releases instantly or incrementally based on the demand of the customer. Release on Demand
is part of the Continuous Delivery pipeline. “Based on demand” raises the following questions to
be answered
 1. When should we release the new functionality?
2. Which elements of the system that is built should be released?

3. Who should receive the release content (ex., end users, market, etc)

A few practices that contribute to effective release on demand are

1. Dark launches
2. Feature toggle

3. Canary releases

4. Decouple release element

13. Is there any difference between User Stories and Enabler Stories?

Primarily, user stories refer to the stories in which the delivery directly corresponds to the user
who would utilize them. User stories deliver value to customers.

Enabler stories don’t deliver any value directly however they enable value delivery. There are 4
types of enablers
1. Infrastructure enablers
2. Exploration enablers
3. Architectural enabler
4. Compliance enablers

To know more about enablers, read “What are enablers in SAFe?”

14. Explain the role of a Release Train Engineer.

Release Train Engineer, also known as RTE, is a chief scrum master of the Agile Release Train.
He/she is the servant leader and coach for the Agile Release Train. The critical responsibility of
RTE is to facilitate all ART events and help teams in delivering value to customers faster.

A few key responsibilities of RTE are

 1. Manage and optimize the flow of value
2. Facilitate all ART events (PI planning, System Demo, Scrum of Scrum, PO Sync, Inspect
& Adapt)

3. Coach leaders and teams on Lean-Agile practices and mindset

4. Escalate and track impediments

5. Help manage risks and dependencies

To know more about RTE, read the article “What is RTE in SAFe?”

15. How is SAFe different from Scrum?

Scrum is the agile framework followed by the team to deliver value in an incremental and
iterative way. It helps one single team to work on a backlog and deliver value with high quality.
Scrum focuses on 1 single team. It’s not designed to make more than 1 team deliver common
value to customers.

SAFe is a Lean-Agile framework followed by multiple agile teams that work together to deliver 1
common product or solution. When there are 5 or more teams working together to deliver a
solution, SAFe is the right framework. SAFe borrowed the best of its values from Lean, Agile,
Systems Thinking, and DevOps.

16. What is Kanban?

To read more about the Kanban board, please read the article “Kanban Board”

17. How do agile teams define PI objectives and how is it useful?

Read the blog “Drive your Agile teams in SAFe through PI objectives”

18. Why do you need an “Inspect & Adapt” event in every PI?

The blog written on I&A “What is Inspect and Adapt in SAFe Framework and How does it
Work?” will help you understand this event better.

19. What is the role of Product Management in SAFe?

Product Management in SAFe owns the definition and support building desirable, viable,
feasible, and sustainable product that meets customer needs. The product Management team in
SAFe drives a customer-centric mindset using Design Thinking tools.

The top responsibilities of Product Management are

– Meet business goals
– Get it built
– Get it off the shelf
– Leverage support

It is one of the key roles of Agile Release Train to define the vision, roadmap, and backlog for the
entire ART.

20. How do you measure Lead Time and Cycle Time?

Read the blog “Lead Time vs Cycle Time: Get all insights here!”

Although the list of these SAFe interview questions is certainly not exhaustive, you must keep
them in mind while preparing for your SAFe interview. Remember to keep yourself updated on
the latest version of SAFe as well and how it can be improved further. With the increasing value
of SAFe Agile certification these days, pursuing the SAFe course can go a long way in helping
you get accustomed to the intricacies of this project management software. We wish you all the
best for the course and the interview!

Pros and Cons of Scaled Agile Framework

(SAFe)

BYJAYAPRAKASH PRABHAKAR18 MINAUGUST 25, 20224K

In every consulting / training session, I get this question. “Can you summarize the Pros & Cons
of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?”.
Let me try to address this query through this blog. Let’s start with the Pros. These are the
advantages that I have seen based on my SAFe implementation experience.

Pros of Scaled Agile Framework

1. Shorter time to market (Release Cycle)

One of the best parts that Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) brings is reducing release time to
market.

The roof of the lean house is about Value and is defined as the “Shortest, sustainable Lead Time,
with the best quality”. “Shortest Lead Time” is structurally injected into the system.

Few SAFe constructs like PI planning, incremental value delivery focus, Continuous Delivery
pipeline, WIP limit, organizing the ART around value, prioritization of backlog based on WSJF
and slicing of backlog based on size, etc enable shorter release cycle to market. In my experience,
I have seen a reduction of the release cycle from 1+ years to 2 weeks.
 2. Business Agility Focus

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), brings a heavy focus on Business Agility. Here are a few
examples. It brings in the dual operating system that enables customer centricity in a hierarchical
organizational structure. While traditional hierarchical organizations focus on efficiency &
stability, SAFe brings in more innovation.

SAFe enables 7 core competencies that organizations can structurally build during SAFe
implementation.
.
SAFe also enables assessment on 2 levels

 Business Agility Assessment that helps the stakeholders to measure the overall progress.
 SAFe Core Competency Assessment enables teams and ART to enable their technical and
business practices to achieve the portfolio goals.

3. Lean Thinking in Software Development

SAFe brings in Lean Thinking in product development. When the product development is purely
a software development, it brings in an additional power of Lean Thinking that typically doesn’t
exist in the software world like Systems thinking, removal of waste, WIP limit, value stream
thinking, economic framework, lean start-up thinking, Lean-Agile Leadership, Innovation Focus,
etc.

4. Value Stream thinking

SAFe brings Lean Thinking to the entire organization. It brings everyone together and aligns
them as ONE to deliver value to the customer. Functional boundaries are removed & all required
people and teams are connected to deliver value.

Both Operational Value Stream and Development Value Stream are addressed well to deliver the
highest quality product in the shortest lead time.

Value Steam Map helps in removing the waste in the system so the value delivery can be much
faster.

The above picture depicts the importance of identification and elimination of waste for the overall
improvement of the end-to-end system.

5. Magic in PI planning

“There is no magic in SAFe except maybe for a PI planning” – this is the Mantra about PI
planning. These words are not overly written. They mean a lot. PI planning is the event where
everyone comes together, plans together, commits together, addresses risks/dependencies
together, and finally commits together. This brings a culture of absolute transparency,
commitment, failure fast, etc.
PI planning brings a great level of transparency in terms of product vision, architectural vision,
roadmap, etc that helps the entire product organization to align to a common goal and deliver.
One primary goal of PI planning is “alignment”. This is achieved in every aspect – backlog
prioritization, architectural alignment, alignment on dependencies/risks, alignment on common
objectives to achieve by end of PI, etc are achieved.

When it is done in a common physical location you see in the picture, it brings a lot more
alignment between teams, SMs, POs, and leaders.

6. Built-In Quality thinking

SAFe drives quality right from the beginning of the backlogged flow, right from backlog
management to release.

In Waterfall, 65% of the defects originated from requirements. Having a smooth flow of backlog
by having a vision, roadmap, effective refinement of backlog from epic to feature to user stories
before the PI planning, continuous backlog refinement during iterations etc shifts quality to left
and enables prevention and early detection of defects.

Architecture vision, architectural runway, Set-based design, and Model-based systems

engineering enable stable architecture, helping the organization to move away from the “cone of
uncertainty”.
Code quality focus on every user story implementation, implementation of automation pyramid,
TDD / BDD implementation in an automation strategy, and overall system quality through
continuous system integration and incremental testing enables “Built-In Quality” into the system.

Having a multi-layered Definition of Done helps build quality in every step of product
development.

7. Scripted SAFe implementation

Every step of SAFe implementation is scripted in the implementation roadmap. Many feel it is
very hard to follow all the steps. For complex transformation, it is critical to have those scripts
moved. For ex., conducting a Leading SAFe workshop for leaders as one of the early steps help
Leaders understand the entire SAFe journey that their organization will go through.

The Value Stream identification workshop helps identify the end-to-end value stream and finalize
the ART that needs to be launched in the entire value stream. ART Launch preparation steps help
prepare well for the PI planning. Launching 1 ART first, executing at least 1 or 2 PIs, and then
launching more ARTs help experience SAFe implementation and implement the learnings in
other ARTs. In my view, scripted implementation of SAFe transformation is a big plus.

8. Focus on Innovation

One of the pillars of SAFe House of Lean is “Innovation”. SAFe focus on bringing innovation in
the overall program execution. One of the ways it is done is through IP Iteration. IP stands for
“Innovation & Planning” iteration.

Many times, I get the question “How sure are we that Innovation culture is enabled by just
providing time/space for innovation only in IP iteration?”. By asking such questions, we don’t
provide any time for innovation for teams. This is one of the steps of bringing innovation into the
system.

SAFe drives innovation through one of the core competencies “Continuous Learning Culture”. A
few other elements of innovation are releasing a Minimum viable product (MVP) and validation,
pivoting the product based on feedback without mercy or guilt, Gemba visits, building innovative
people and culture, etc.
 9. Customer Centricity Focus

Customer Centricity mindset is created through design thinking activities like user persona,
empathy map, customer journey map, user story map, etc.

Ref: Scaled
Agile
Design Thinking drives the desirability, viability, feasibility, and sustainability of the product
during the product discovery and development stages.

Customer Centricity not only focuses on user research that drives product design but also on
market research that drives product strategy like Market Rhythm and Market Events.

It is critical to bring the whole product thinking to fulfill customers’ needs.

10. A multi-layered approach based on complexity

SAFe has 3 layers of implementation –

Essential, Large Solution, and Portfolio.
Each layer is designed to deal with a different level of complexity.
For ex., Essential SAFe is a key and mandatory layer for an ART to be launched. A large
Solution layer is used when we build a large & complex solution that needs multiple ARTs to
work together to release 1 large solution. The complexity of each of these layers is very different,
hence we can choose which layer is required and implement only that.

11. Lean-Agile Leadership focus

It is critical to start the transformation journey from Leadership. The Foundation of the core
competencies of SAFe is the “Lean-Agile Leadership” competency. SAFe transformation is top-
down driven. First Leaders are trained, and coached on the transformation and then the teams.
Leaders with a “Growth” mindset ensure the transformation is successful and sustained.
Lean-Agile Leaders apply Lean Thinking as the basis for decision-making, practice lean-agile
thinking daily, and teach the same to others. Without Lean-Agile Leaders, the transformation
journey would fail.

Lean-Agile Leadership responsibilities cannot be delegated to anyone else including their direct
reports. Hence SAFe implementation roadmap insists on training the leaders first before any of
the other activities in the transformation journey.
 12. Employee Engagement

“Decentralized decision making” is one of the core principles of SAFe. It enables the team to
plan, commit, execute, and deliver on their own to a large extent. It helps the team make
decisions. There is a framework that helps identify the decisions should team take versus the
decisions to be taken by leaders. This enables the teams to be on their own and enables them to
have ownership and decentralized culture.
Ref: Scaled Agile
Providing autonomy with purpose, mission and minimal possible constraints unlocks the
motivation of team members (knowledge workers).

What else improves employee engagement? Here are many examples – Incremental value
delivery in every iteration, having clarity on what to achieve in every PI, the multi-layered
definition of done to, continuous improvement through iteration retrospectives and Inspect &
Adapt, built-in quality practices, focus on agile practices implementation in each team, providing
time and space for innovation, bringing continuous learning culture as a competency, etc.
Cons of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
I have been implementing SAFe for the last 7-8 years and I really don’t see anything as major
cons or disadvantages with SAFe. There are few negative opinions about SAFe that exist in the
community. Let me address them one by one so we understand the challenge and we fix them
appropriately.

1. New Terms, new jargon

Yes, SAFe has many new jargons / technical terms like Agile Release Train, Release Train
Engineer, Value Stream, Program Increment, PI Planning, PI Execution, Lean Portfolio
Management, Solution Train, Enablers, Program Kanban, Solution Train Engineer, etc. It will be
a bit difficult to understand them in the beginning.

However, based on my experience, if you implement SAFe as per the SAFe Implementation
Roadmap, the organization learns these terminologies in 1-2 quarters. After 2 quarters, everyone
is used to the new terminologies, and it becomes their new language.
 2. Not for smaller teams

SAFe is not suitable for smaller teams, for ex., a team of 15-20 people. By design, it is not
suitable for smaller teams. SAFe is for complex systems. It’s not a great idea to implement SAFe
for the smaller size of teams.

As per SAFe, it will be beneficial to implement SAFe for teams of a minimum size of 50 people.
However, if the size of the teams is around 30-40, you can still implement a few practices of
SAFe. It is not recommended to implement SAFe for smaller than this size. It will be expensive
and not required.

3. Top-down, inflexible Framework

SAFe is top-driven because of the complexity involved in overall implementation. Having the
whole implementation decentralized will create more chaos than bring results.

For complex scaling transformation, it is important to implement as per the SAFe implementation
roadmap. It has been proven in hundreds of SAFe implementations that it yields results when the
whole transformation journey is scripted.
 4. SAFe is against Agile principles

Agile principles are very focused on smaller agile teams. Hence, the purpose of values &
principles is different from SAFe.

SAFe addresses scaling agility problems. The complexity, dynamism, and challenges are
different from 1 small agile team. Hence all the Agile principles may not be applicable. Let me
take one example.

Principle 11: Best Architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.

In large-scale system development, overall requirements and architecture cannot emerge from
multiple teams working on the same product. It should come from product management and
system architects so common guidelines are followed.

Agile focus is on Software development, however, SAFe focus is on system development, where
Software is part of the system. Hence, having only Agile principles won’t work. Lean thinking is
required.

5. Administrative cost to the organization

SAFe brings new roles, structures, practices, etc, which increases costs to the company. Yes, it
brings new roles like RTE, STE, System team, etc. It brings new processes & practices like PI
planning, Inspect & Adapt, etc. It brings new backlog structures like Program Kanban, Program
Backlog, etc.

These demand additional people, and additional tools to be deployed during SAFe
implementation. In summary, it increases the cost to the company.

However, SAFe implementation enables the organization to have a frequent release, quality is
built-in hence cost of quality is drastically reduced, customer satisfaction goes high, elimination
of unnecessary waste, etc. The cost that the organization gains is multi-fold compared to the cost
incurred due to the new roles, practices, etc.
 6. SAFe transformation is not always successful

Some of the SAFe transformations have failed to achieve results. This happens when there is a
compromise made in the implementation plan. I have seen SAFe implementation failing and there
are many reasons.

Here are a few reasons for SAFe transformation failure – Scaling without team & technical agility
focus, Leaders are not bought into SAFe, not implemented based on SAFe implementation
roadmap, wrong fitment into the roles of SAFe like ART Leadership (RTE, PM, Architect), not
focusing on business agility (business results), implementing SAFe with a short-term project
mindset and not with a long-term product mindset, etc.

What is Inspect and Adapt in SAFe

Framework and How does it Work?

BYKRISHNA9 MINSEPTEMBER 19, 20222K

Agile teams believe in continuous feedback system. In every iteration, feedback comes in
multiple ways

1. Product Feedback is received through iteration review at the end of every iteration
2. Iteration retrospective to look back and improve in terms of people and process

This helps the team to continuously improve and become a much better product and product
team. However, in a Scaled Agile environment, there are multiple teams working on a single
product. Its equally important for the program (or Agile Release Train) to get into a feedback
system.

There are many methods, events, and principles that are incorporated with SAFe, and most of
them are being used in the product development on a large scale. One thing that is still needed to
get a spot is the concept of Inspect and Adapt (I&A).
In Scaled Agile, Inspect & Adapt is the way to look back and take feedback on product, process,
people etc. Like how Iteration Review and Retrospective happens at the end of the iteration,
Inspect & Adapt happens at the end of the Program Increment, is also called as PI.

Not only you are going to learn all about this concept, but we are going to let you know about
SAFe Agile certification that will help you open various doors for your bright career. So let us
begin by diving deep and getting to know I&A more.

What is Inspect and Adapt in SAFe?

It is known as one of the significant events that will happen at the end of each Program Increment
(PI). The PI mentioned here generally consists of 8-12 weeks. During this period, the Agile
Release Train delivers incremental value to the customer which is the fully working systems built
in the last 1 PI.

The current state of the product along with the process which was used to get to that position is
being discussed during the I&A event which happens at the end of every Program Increment (PI).
With this event, it can be made sure that the upcoming PI is going to be better and more efficient.
Inspecting and putting efforts into improving the product as well as the process will help in
getting there. The event is attended by the stakeholders as well and they help in providing the
inputs that are added to the backlog of the next PI planning.

In the SAFe Agilist training, you will be able to learn more about PI and how to calculate the
metrics as well.

How does this Work?

Inspect & Adapt consists of 3 parts

1. The PI system Demo

2. Quantitative & Qualitative Measurement

3. Retrospective and problem solving workshop

The PI System Demo

The first part of I&A is the PI System Demo. As the name suggests, the ART would showcase the
current system that was built in the last 1 PI. This will cover a larger set of people in the event so
that this information is available to all. This includes all the key stakeholders from Portfolio,
Customers to attend the demo.

This is to demonstrate the solution that was built the entire ART during this PI. This event is
time-boxed to 1 hour. The focus of this event is all about product demo.

At the end of the PI system demo, Business Owners connect with each team and rate their team’s
PI objectives by providing actual business value.
 ref: Scaled Agile

Quantitative & Qualitative Measurements

This is another 60-minute session where quantitative, as well as qualitative measures, are being
taken to evaluate the products and processes that are part of ART. In this event,

Program / ART level metrics are displayed to the entire audience. One of the primary measures
displayed is “Program Predictability Measure”. Each team’s predictability based on business
value delivery is measured and then the overall program predictability is consolidated, like it is
depicted in the below picture.
ART can also measure few qualitative measures like agile assessments, product delivery
assessments, role specific assessments etc.

Retrospective
The teams come together and addresses the issues that need to be put on the table during the
problem-solving workshop. From the issues that they have identified in different teams, they will
choose the top few issues for the problem-solving workshop.

Teams can use any of the retrospective techniques to conduct this retrospective to identify their
issues.

Problem-Solving Workshop
ART comes together and conducts this workshop to identify 1-2 key problems, find root causes
and find solutions for the root causes. This is a six-step process.
The whole process takes approximately 4 hours for the entire ART. Let’s quickly look at each
step.

1. Agree on the problem to solve

A well stated problem is half-problem solved. Hence, it is critical to identify and state the
problem clearly. A well-stated problem addresses “What?”, “Where?”, “When?” and “Impact”.

2. Apply root-cause analysis

Once the problem is well-stated, team gets into identifying the root causes for the problem, in –
process, people, tools, program and environment.

3. Identify the biggest root cause

There can be multiple root causes for a specific problem identified. Its not humanly possible to
fix all the root causes, hence its important to identify the biggest root cause. This is done using
Pareto analysis tool.

4. Restate the new problem

This step is to restate the problem with the biggest root cause identified.
 5. Brainstorm solutions

Identifying some potential solutions is the objective in this step. Here are few rules for applying
brainstorming

 Come up with as many ideas as possible

 All ideas are welcome

 Combine / merge ideas

6. Create Improvement backlog items

The last step is to identify 1-2 solutions that can be implemented in the next PI itself.
RTE facilitates the entire I&A event.

Why is Inspect &Adapt an Important Event?

I&A should be done in every PI, because this is a great opportunity to get the feedback on the
product, people and process. It helps the entire ART to continuously improve in every PI.

Conclusion

Adopting lean-agile thinking and practices takes time and will involve a lot of best approaches to
achieve. To incorporate lean-agile thinking to make decisions, the use of SAFe Inspect and Adapt
becomes very crucial. This allows the business to make sure that the products, as well as
processes, are going on the right track.

This will strengthen that Agile Release Train and make sure that proper guidelines of a SAFe
framework are being practiced. This will push the teams to give their best in the product
development. With the best SAFe Certification training from LeanWisdom, you can ensure that
you are getting trained by the best professionals in the industry.

Not only it will open a plethora of doors of opportunities for you, but prepare you for the
challenges that you need to face while climbing up the ladder of success in this field. So choose
the right platform for your bright career and get started.
op 60 SAFe Agile Interview
Questions & Answers 2023
One of the fundamental principles of Agile is the creation of small, manageable
iterations known as sprints. These sprints have predefined timeframes, typically
ranging from one to four weeks, during which cross-functional teams
collaborate to deliver working increments of the product. This agile iterative
approach allows for continuous improvement, as feedback from each iteration
informs subsequent ones. Let's discuss on Agile interview questions in detail

The SAFe Agile Methodology is a versatile and dynamic approach that

encompasses a wide range of methods and principles, all with the ultimate goal
of achieving customer-centric product development and efficient project
management. At its core, Agile certification focuses on delivering value to
customers through iterative and incremental development along with agile
interview questions.

The active involvement of customers throughout the development process is a

defining characteristic of Agile along with agile interview questions Regular
updates on product progress and continuous customer collaboration enable
stakeholders to have visibility into the project's status and make informed
decisions. This customer-centric approach not only ensures a higher degree of
customer satisfaction but also reduces the risk of building products that do not
align with market demands.

The popularity of agile methodologies has skyrocketed in recent years, with

organizations across various industries adopting its principles. By embracing
agile interview questions , businesses can enjoy improved project outcomes,
faster time-to-market, increased stakeholder engagement, and ultimately,
better customer satisfaction.
Agile Interview Questions for high paid jobs
1. What is agile methodology, and how does it differ from traditional
project management approaches?
Answer: Agile methodology is an iterative and incremental approach to project
management, emphasizing flexibility, collaboration, and delivering customer
value. Unlike traditional methods, Agile promotes adaptive planning,
continuous feedback, and rapid response to changes.
2. Can you explain the Scrum framework and its key components?

Answer: Scrum is a popular agile framework. Its key components include a

Product Owner who prioritizes the product backlog, a Scrum Master who
facilitates the team and removes obstacles, and the Development Team
responsible for delivering increments of working software in short time periods
called Sprints.
3. How do you prioritize items in a product backlog?

Answer: Prioritizing items in a product backlog involves considering the value

they deliver to the customer and their urgency. Techniques like MoSCoW (Must-
have, Should-have, Could-have, won’t have) or the ( Weighted Shortest Job
First ) WSJF can be used to assign priority based on business value, time
sensitivity, and effort required.
4. How do you handle changing requirements during a project in an agile
environment?

Answer: Agile embraces change, and handling changing requirements is crucial.

The best approach is to engage with stakeholders and evaluate the impact of
changes on the project. This may involve reprioritizing the backlog, adjusting
the sprint plan, or incorporating the changes into future iterations.
5. What is the purpose of daily stand-up meetings in Agile?

Answer: Daily stand-up meetings, also known as daily scrums, serve as brief
team gatherings to synchronize work. The purpose is to share progress
updates, discuss any impediments, and plan the day's work collaboratively.
These meetings promote transparency, communication, and alignment within
the team.
6. How do you ensure effective collaboration and communication within an
agile team?

Answer: Effective collaboration and communication are essential in Agile.

Practices like daily stand-ups, sprint planning meetings, and sprint reviews
foster open dialogue. Using visual boards, tools like Slack or Jira, and practicing
active listening helps ensure everyone's voice is heard and information is
shared effectively.
7. How do you measure the success of an agile project?

Answer: Agile projects measure success based on delivering customer value,

meeting project objectives, and continuously improving. Key performance
indicators (KPIs) such as velocity, customer satisfaction, and cycle time can be
used to assess the project's progress and effectiveness.
8. How do you handle conflicts or disagreements within an agile team?

Answer: Agile teams are expected to be self-organizing and collaborative, but

conflicts may arise. Resolving conflicts requires active listening, empathy, and
open communication. Encouraging team members to express their concerns,
facilitating constructive discussions, and seeking consensus are effective
conflict resolution approaches.
9. How do you ensure the quality of deliverables in agile projects?

Answer: Agile teams ensure quality through practices like continuous

integration, automated testing, and frequent feedback loops. Emphasizing the
definition of done, conducting regular code reviews, and promoting a culture of
quality and accountability contribute to delivering high-quality, reliable
software.
10. How do you handle project scope creep in Agile?

Answer: Agile projects can be susceptible to scope creep, but it can be managed
effectively. The key is to prioritize and involve the product owner in evaluating
requested changes. The product backlog should be adjusted accordingly, and
the impact on project timelines and resources should be communicated
transparently to stakeholders.
Agile Methodology Interview Questions
11. What are the main differences between Agile and Waterfall
methodologies?

Answer: Agile emphasizes iterative development, adaptability to change, and

customer collaboration, while Waterfall follows a sequential approach with a
focus on upfront planning and documentation.
12. How do you facilitate effective backlog grooming sessions?

Answer: Effective backlog grooming involves refining and prioritizing user

stories, breaking them into smaller tasks, estimating effort, and ensuring a
clear understanding of the requirements. Regular collaboration with the
development team and product owner is key to successful backlog grooming.
13. What is the role of the agile coach, and how do they contribute to team
success?

Answer: An Agile coach is responsible for guiding teams in adopting and

implementing agile principles and practices. They provide mentorship, facilitate
collaboration, help remove impediments, and ensure teams are continuously
improving their agile processes and mindset.
14. How do you measure team velocity, and how is it useful in agile
projects?

Answer: Team velocity is a measure of the amount of work completed by an

agile team in a given iteration. It helps in capacity planning, forecasting project
timelines, and evaluating team performance. Velocity is calculated by summing
up the story points or number of user stories completed in a sprint.
15. How do you handle dependencies between agile teams working on
different features or modules?

Answer: Effective coordination and communication are vital for managing

dependencies. Regular meetings, establishing shared goals, and creating cross-
team collaboration spaces can help identify and address dependencies.
Additionally, adopting scaled agile frameworks like SAFe or LeSS can provide
guidance in managing dependencies at a larger scale.
16. What is the definition of done, and why is it important in agile projects?

Answer: The definition of done (DoD) outlines the criteria that must be met for a
user story or task to be considered complete. It ensures a shared
understanding of what "done" means and maintains consistent quality
standards. DoD helps prevent incomplete or low-quality work and supports
transparency and predictability.
17. How do you handle a situation where the team is unable to deliver the
committed work within a sprint?
Answer: In such situations, it is important to have an open and honest
conversation during the sprint review. The team should analyze the reasons for
the shortfall, identify any impediments, and discuss potential solutions. It may
involve reprioritizing work, adjusting the sprint plan, or identifying ways to
improve team efficiency.
18. How does Agile promote continuous improvement, and what are some
practices you follow to foster it?

Answer: Agile promotes continuous improvement through regular

retrospectives, where the team reflects on their processes, identifies areas for
improvement, and takes action to address them. Practices like Kaizen,
implementing feedback loops, and encouraging a culture of learning and
experimentation also contribute to continuous improvement.
19. How do you ensure effective stakeholder engagement and satisfaction
in agile projects?

Answer: Effective stakeholder engagement involves regular communication,

involving stakeholders in sprint reviews and backlog refinement, and seeking
their feedback throughout the project. Understanding their needs, managing
expectations, and adapting to their changing requirements are essential for
stakeholder satisfaction.
20. How do you balance flexibility and predictability in agile project
management?

Answer: Agile values flexibility but also recognizes the need for predictability.
Balancing both requires effective planning, prioritization, and setting realistic
expectations. Iterative planning, incremental delivery, and using techniques like
story points and burn-down charts contribute to a balance between flexibility
and predictability.
Agile Scrum Interview Questions
21. How do you handle technical debt in agile projects?

Answer: Agile teams address technical debt by allocating time for refactoring
and continuous improvement during sprint planning. They prioritize and tackle
technical debt alongside delivering new features to ensure the long-term
maintainability and quality of the product.
22. What are the key roles and responsibilities of the Product Owner in
Agile?

Answer: The Product Owner is responsible for defining and prioritizing the
product backlog, representing the customer or stakeholder needs, and
ensuring the team delivers maximum value. They collaborate with stakeholders,
communicate the product vision, and make informed decisions about the
product's direction.
23. How do you ensure effective collaboration between the Development
Team and the Product Owner?

Answer: Effective collaboration between the Development Team and the

Product Owner requires clear communication, shared understanding of goals
and priorities, and ongoing feedback loops. Regular meetings, such as sprint
planning and backlog refinement sessions, facilitate collaboration and ensure
alignment.
24. What are the key characteristics of a self-organizing agile team?

Answer: A self-organizing agile team is empowered to make decisions and take

ownership of their work. They collaborate, distribute tasks, and adapt to change
independently. They have a high level of trust, communicate openly, and work
towards a common goal while holding each other accountable.
25. How do you incorporate user feedback and validation in agile projects?

Answer: Agile projects embrace user feedback by involving customers or end-

users throughout the development process. Techniques like user acceptance
testing, demos, and usability testing are used to validate assumptions and
gather feedback, ensuring the delivered product meets user needs and
expectations.
26. How does agile support risk management in projects?

Answer: Agile encourages proactive risk management by integrating risk

identification, assessment, and mitigation activities into the project's iterative
cycles. Frequent inspections, adaptability to change, and regular retrospectives
enable teams to identify and address risks early, minimizing their impact on the
project.
27. What is the role of continuous integration and continuous delivery
(CI/CD) in agile development?

Answer: CI/CD enables agile teams to continuously integrate code changes, run
automated tests, and deploy the software in an efficient and reliable manner. It
promotes early bug detection, faster feedback loops, and enables frequent
releases, facilitating the agile principle of delivering working software
iteratively.
28. How do you promote a culture of transparency and trust within an
agile team?

Answer: Promoting transparency and trust within an agile team involves open
communication, sharing progress and challenges, and fostering a safe
environment for feedback. Regularly conducting retrospectives, encouraging
constructive feedback, and acknowledging individual contributions are effective
ways to build trust and transparency.
29. How do you handle team members' conflicting commitments in agile
projects?

Answer: Conflicting commitments can be managed through effective

prioritization and time management. Encouraging open communication,
promoting a collaborative environment, and ensuring visibility of each team
member's workload are key in resolving conflicts and maintaining team
productivity.
30. How do you ensure a sustainable pace of work in agile projects?

Answer: Sustainable pace is crucial to prevent burnout and maintain long-term

productivity. Agile teams achieve this by estimating work realistically, avoiding
excessive multitasking, and continuously monitoring team capacity and velocity.
Regularly reviewing and adjusting workloads help maintain a sustainable pace.
Scenario Based Agile Interview Questions
31. What is the purpose of a sprint retrospective, and how do you facilitate
an effective retrospective?

Answer: The purpose of a sprint retrospective is to reflect on the team's

processes, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and make actionable
changes. To facilitate an effective retrospective, create a safe environment,
encourage open and honest communication, use retrospective techniques like
"What Went Well, What Could Be Improved," and ensure action items are
followed up on.
32. How does Agile address the challenges of distributed or remote teams?

Answer: Agile can adapt to the challenges of distributed or remote teams

through the use of collaboration tools, video conferencing, and real-time
communication channels. Regular virtual meetings, maintaining transparency
through shared boards or dashboards, and fostering a culture of trust and
autonomy are crucial for distributed agile teams.
33. How do you handle the situation when a stakeholder requests a change
that goes against the agile team's current sprint plan?

Answer: When a stakeholder requests a change that goes against the sprint
plan, it should be evaluated in terms of its impact on the current sprint and
project goals. If the change is critical, it may necessitate reprioritizing or
adjusting the sprint plan to accommodate it. Transparency, collaboration, and
open communication are key in managing such situations.
34. How do you ensure effective collaboration and alignment between
multiple agile teams working on a large-scale project?

Answer: Effective collaboration and alignment between multiple agile teams

can be facilitated through the use of scaled agile frameworks like SAFe or LeSS.
Techniques such as cross-team planning, regular synchronization meetings,
and maintaining a shared product backlog can help ensure coordination,
minimize dependencies, and achieve the project's objectives.
35. How do you handle a situation where the product owner is not
available or lacks engagement in the agile process?

Answer: When the product owner is not available or lacks engagement, it is

important to address the issue proactively. This may involve involving key
stakeholders, fostering a closer collaboration with the product owner, and
seeking their input and involvement in backlog refinement, sprint reviews, and
sprint planning to ensure alignment and effective decision-making.
36. How do you incorporate agile principles in non-technical or non-
software development projects?
Answer: Agile principles can be adapted and applied to non-technical projects
by focusing on iterative planning, frequent stakeholder feedback, prioritization,
and incremental delivery of value. While the specific practices may differ, the
underlying values of Agile, such as customer collaboration, flexibility, and
continuous improvement, can be embraced in various domains.
37. How does agile support innovation and creativity within teams?

Answer: Agile encourages innovation and creativity by providing opportunities

for experimentation, autonomy, and regular feedback. Practices like "spikes" or
dedicated time for exploration, fostering a culture of learning and knowledge
sharing, and embracing diverse perspectives within the team can enhance
innovation and creativity in agile projects.
38. How do you handle a situation where a team member consistently fails
to deliver their commitments in agile projects?

Answer: When a team member consistently fails to deliver their commitments,

it is important to address the issue promptly. This may involve having a one-on-
one conversation to understand the underlying reasons, providing support or
additional resources if needed, and, if necessary, involving the Scrum Master or
Agile coach to help resolve the performance issue.
39. How do you ensure effective knowledge sharing and cross-training
within an agile team?

Answer: Effective knowledge sharing and cross-training can be promoted

through practices such as pair programming, code reviews, lunch-and-learn
sessions, and rotating team members across different tasks or responsibilities.
Creating a culture of collaboration and encouraging individuals to share their
expertise can foster continuous learning and skill development.
40. How does Agile address the challenges of managing external
dependencies or interactions with other teams or departments?

Answer: Agile addresses the challenges of managing external dependencies by

promoting regular communication, collaboration, and alignment between
teams or departments. Techniques like frequent synchronization meetings,
shared communication channels, and dedicated points of contact can help
identify and address external dependencies and ensure smooth coordination.
Agile Interview Questions For Experienced Candidates
41. How do you ensure a healthy balance between autonomy and
collaboration within an agile team?

Answer: A healthy balance between autonomy and collaboration can be

achieved by providing team members with the autonomy to make decisions
and take ownership of their work, while also fostering a collaborative
environment where team members actively seek input and share knowledge to
achieve common goals.
42. What is the role of the Scrum Master in an agile team, and how do they
contribute to the team's success?

Answer: The Scrum Master serves as a servant leader, facilitating the agile
process, removing impediments, and fostering a productive and collaborative
environment. They help the team adhere to agile principles, coach team
members, and ensure the Scrum framework is properly implemented to
achieve project success.
43. How do you ensure that the agile team remains focused and aligned
with the project goals throughout the development process?

Answer: Keeping the Agile team focused and aligned with project goals involves
regularly revisiting the project vision, discussing priorities and progress in daily
stand-ups, sprint planning, and sprint reviews. Clear communication,
continuous feedback, and reinforcing the project's purpose and objectives help
maintain alignment.
44. How do you approach estimation and planning in agile projects?

Answer: Agile projects use techniques like story points or relative sizing for
estimating effort. Planning is done through iterative cycles, with shorter time
frames (e.g., sprints) to adapt to changing requirements. Regularly refining
estimates, involving the team in planning, and considering historical data
contribute to more accurate planning.
45. What are some common challenges or obstacles you have faced when
implementing Agile, and how did you overcome them?

Answer: Common challenges when implementing Agile include resistance to

change, lack of clear roles or responsibilities, and difficulty in managing
dependencies. Overcoming these challenges involves strong leadership,
effective communication, providing training and support, addressing concerns
proactively, and adapting the agile approach based on lessons learned.
46. How do you promote a culture of continuous learning and
improvement within an agile team?

Answer: Promoting a culture of continuous learning and improvement involves

encouraging experimentation, conducting regular retrospectives to reflect on
past performance, and implementing action items to address areas for
improvement. Supporting skill development, providing learning opportunities,
and celebrating successes contribute to a culture of growth and improvement.
47. How does Agile address the need for adaptability in a rapidly changing
business environment?

Answer: Agile embraces change by promoting flexibility and adaptability. The

iterative nature of Agile allows teams to respond quickly to changing
requirements and priorities. Techniques like backlog refinement, regular
stakeholder feedback, and adaptive planning help agile teams navigate and
thrive in rapidly changing business environments.
48. How do you manage expectations and communicate progress to
stakeholders in agile projects?

Answer: Managing expectations and communicating progress to stakeholders

involves regular and transparent communication. Agile projects leverage
techniques like sprint reviews, product demonstrations, and progress
dashboards to provide stakeholders with visibility into the project's status and
ensure alignment between expectations and delivered outcomes.
49. How do you ensure that the agile team maintains a sustainable pace of
work and avoids burnout?

Answer: Maintaining a sustainable pace of work and avoiding burnout is crucial

for team productivity and well-being. Agile teams achieve this by setting
realistic goals, avoiding over commitment, promoting work-life balance,
encouraging self-care, and fostering a supportive team culture that values
collaboration and personal growth.
50. How do you incorporate feedback from end-users or customers into
agile projects?
Answer: Incorporating feedback from end-users or customers is a key aspect of
agile development. Techniques such as user acceptance testing, usability
testing, and feedback sessions are employed to gather input throughout the
development process. This feedback is then used to refine and enhance the
product, ensuring it meets the needs and expectations of its users.
51. How do you prioritize the product backlog in Agile?

Answer: Prioritizing the product backlog involves considering factors like

business value, customer needs, and dependencies. Collaborative techniques
such as user story mapping or the MoSCoW method (Must-have, Should-have,
Could-have, won’t have) can be used to rank backlog items based on their
importance and urgency.
52. What is the role of the Development Team in Agile?

Answer: The Development Team is responsible for turning product backlog

items into working software. They collaborate with the P

Vinsys 14th June, 2023

What is the difference between a Capability and a

Feature?
A feature is a service rendered by the system that caters to stakeholder needs. A
feature has two parts i.e. benefit hypothesis and acceptance criteria.

It is marked necessary and prepared to be delivered by a single Agile Release Train

(ART) in a Program Increment. The Program Backlog holds the Features.
Capability is a larger-level solution behavior that is normally implemented by more
than one ART in a single PI.

Capabilities are divided into numerous features so that they can be implemented by
multiple ARTs in one PI. Capabilities are part of the Solution Backlog.
When should one apply the Scaled Agile
Framework® (SAFe®)?
SAFe can be applied in the following contexts:
®

 The organization is keen on implementing agile to effect transformation

across bigger, multi-team programs, and portfolios.
 Numerous teams are practicing one or the other Agile framework however
are facing delays, obstacles, and failures.
 Teams desire to function independently in a decentralized decision-making
place.
 There is an urgent need to scale agile across the organization, but not clear
about adding new roles or changing existing roles.
 An organization needs to improve Product Development Lead Time and
wants to know how companies in the same industry have scaled agile with
SAFe®.

You might find this useful: SAFe® Agile Certification Cost in 2023

How can you define a System Team?

The System Team is a specialized Agile Team responsible for managing and
supporting the development environment. The System Team usually develops and
maintains the tools that support the continuous delivery pipeline.

The System Team may also help the Agile teams integrate their work by
performing end-to-end testing, helping them deploy the code and release it on
demand.

What is a Value Stream in SAFe®?

A value stream is the set of actions that add value to a customer from the initial
request through the realization of value by the customer.

The value stream begins with the initial concept, moves through various stages of
development, and on through delivery and support.
How is the Solution Train unique from the Agile
Release Train?
The Solution Train is the organizational model used to build large and complex
Solutions that require the coordination of multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs).
This helps align ARTs with each other through its shared mission, vision, backlog,
and roadmap, as well as a Program Increment.

While, Agile Release Train is an Agile team formed out of several Agile teams
(50-125 members) that have the expertise needed to implement, test, deploy, and
release to deliver software or other products.

What are the roles and responsibilities of a Release

Train Engineer (RTE)?
Release Train Engineer (RTE) is a coach and servant leader for the Agile Release
Train (ART). Agile Release Train (ART) is a self-organizing, cross-functional
team of Agile teams. It is a virtual organization that commits, plans and executes
together.

Agile Release Train is the primary value delivery construct in Scaled Agile
Framework® (SAFe®). The core responsibilities of RTE include facilitating the
ART processes and events, assisting the teams in delivering value, etc. Also, they
communicate with the stakeholders, help in managing risks, drive persistent
improvement and escalate impediments.

When does an organization reach the tipping point?

Tipping Point in SAFe refers to the point at which the final organization objective
®

is to embrace the change instead of opposing it.

An organization reaches the tipping point when it can no longer compete in the
dynamic environment. They no longer have the privilege to be resistant but have to
embrace change.

What are the five dimensions of Built-In Quality?

Built-In quality is the practice of ensuring that quality is ensured at each level of
development. It is a lean-agile principle that advocates maintaining quality is
everyone’s responsibility and this helps in avoiding the costs of a recall, rework,
and defect fixing as it passes through every value stream.
The five dimensions of Built-In Quality are flow, architecture and design quality,
code quality, system quality, and release quality.

How can DevOps help in scalability?

DevOps is a combination of a cultural change of development & operations
working together and technical practices. DevOps help in the automation and
assimilation of software development and IT services.

It is part of the Agile Product Delivery competency of the Lean Enterprise.

SAFe® enterprises implement DevOps to break down organizational silos and
develop a Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP) —a high-performance innovation
engine capable of delivering market-leading solutions at the speed of business.

DevOps helps in scalability in the following ways-

Small teams- Building a small team helps in delivering value to the customer.
Enables team members to become intrapreneurs

Encourage Skill Development- DevOps creates a culture of continuous learning

and improvement

Culture is a priority- DevOps promotes the development of a culture of positivity

between operations and team members. More than delivering a product, DevOps is
about building a close-knit relationship between product and sales teams.

Implement feedback- DevOps helps in sustainability by receiving faster feedback

Automation- Automation helps in scalability, creating a test-driven development

that makes everyone accountable for quality. Automated testing is mandatory
without which continuous delivery is a distant dream.

Recommended Reading: How Do You Implement SAFe® Agile In Your

Organization?

What is the Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration in

SAFe®?
The Innovation and Planning Iteration is the last in the Program Increment (PI) and
serves multiple purposes.

For example, it acts as an estimating buffer for meeting the Program Objectives,
providing dedicated time for innovation, continuing education, planning, and
Inspect and Adapt events.

In SAFe® the teams thrive to provide customer value continuously. With this
constant urgency for delivery, there is a risk that the tyranny of urgency will
override any opportunity to innovate.

IP Iteration provides this opportunity to innovate and plan together. Through IP

Iteration we have dedicated time for PI events. It also provides an opportunity for
continuous learning.

What is the final element of the Continuous Delivery

Pipeline?
Release on Demand is the final element of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline.
Release on Demand is the process of deploying new functionality into production
and releasing it immediately to customers.

Through Release on Demand, the release is decoupled from Deployment and

makes value available to the end-user when they need it or when it makes the most
economic sense for the enterprise.

What does Architectural Runway mean in SAFe®?

Architectural Runway is the current technical infrastructure, code, and components
needed to implement the forthcoming features without much redesign or delay.

This enables a continuous flow of value by providing the necessary technical

framework to build Features or Capabilities. New Features or Capabilities consume
the Architectural Runway.

What is the need for a Solution Demo?

The Solution Demo combines the development efforts of all ARTs and suppliers
on the Solution Train every PI and ensures visibility to customers and stakeholders
for review and feedback.
What are the different basic entities in Large Solution
SAFe®?
The different basic entities in SAFe 5.1 Large Solution SAFe -
® ®

Capability- Capability is a larger-level solution that normally covers numerous

ARTs. Capabilities are divided into numerous features to ease their implementation
in one PI.

Defect: A product backlog item that doesn’t meet the acceptance criteria is called a
Defect. Bugs, errors, or flaws in the solution.

Learning Milestone: Learning Milestones denote particular progress points on the

timeline, making them highly useful in measuring and tracking the progress and
risk

PI Objectives: Program Increment Objectives is a synopsis of the business and

technical goals that an Agile Team or ART plans to achieve in the forthcoming PI.

Risk: Risk is the anticipated adverse event that is detrimental to the progress of a
project. Risks in a project can either be opportunities or opportunities.

Retrospective: A Retrospective is a common event that regularly happens where

team members discuss the outcome of the iteration, reflect on the practices, and
come up with ways to improve.

Solution Epics: Solution Epics are initiatives that qualify big to deserve analysis
and a Lean Business Case but are limited to a single Solution (Value Stream).

How is Essential SAFe® different from Portfolio

SAFe®?
Essential SAFe is a small set of roles, events, and artifacts needed to seamlessly
®

provide business solutions through an Agile Release Train (ART) as multiple agile
teams.
This configuration of SAFe® focuses on execution. Portfolio SAFe® syncs strategy
with implementation and groups solution development around the flow of value
through one or multiple value streams.

The Portfolio configuration of SAFe® includes Essential SAFe® for execution while
having the Lean Portfolio Management competency for aligning strategy and
execution by applying Lean and Systems thinking approaches.

Scaled Agile Interview Questions With Sample

Answers
Scaled Agile interview questions test a candidate's knowledge, and experience
in SAFe principles, Agile principles, software development, quality assurance
and DevOps. Interviewers may also include behavioural questions that assess a
candidate's project management skills, communication and leadership abilities.
Here are some sample questions and answers you can use as references:

1. What is SAFe? What are the benefits of implementing it in an

organisation?

SAFe is a methodology for managing and coordinating large-scale software

development projects. Interviewers ask this question to assess your
understanding of Agile methodologies and your ability to apply them in an
enterprise setting. Define what SAFe is, and include benefits, such as improved
alignment, increased productivity and faster time-to-market, in your response.

Example answer: SAFe is a set of guidelines, principles, and best practices to

implement and scale Agile methodology at the enterprise level. The framework
focuses on continuous delivery, rapid feedback, collaboration across teams to
design, develop, and deliver products on time and within budget. It enables cross-
functional collaboration by emphasising transparency and open communication
among team members. It promotes a team-centric culture by encouraging all team
members to participate in every stage of product development. It also aims to align
business goals with IT strategies to streamline activities, improve agility, reduce
costs and improve daily operations.

Team, product and portfolio are the three primary components of this framework.
The team level focuses on individual components or features of a product. At the
product level, different teams collaborate to work on a product as a whole.
Organisations develop IT strategies at the portfolio level.
Related: What Is A Scaled Agile Framework? (Principles And Benefits)

2. How do you implement SAFe in an organisation?

Implementing SAFe involves several steps, including defining the

implementation strategy, creating an implementation plan and training
teams on the new processes. Interviewers may ask this question to evaluate
your project management skills. List the steps you would take to implement
SAFe and mention some best practices to follow.

Example answer: The first step in implementing SAFe is to evaluate an

organisation's existing processes, measure employee engagement and assess their
readiness for change. This can help identify areas requiring improvement. The
second step is to conduct training programmes to help employees become familiar
with new tools and technologies. The third step is establishing an Agile release train.
This step requires a large group of approximately five to 12 teams that plan,
commit, develop and deploy a product by operating on Agile principles. These teams
help set up an infrastructure that an organisation can scale based on customer
demand.

The fourth step is implementing program increment or PI planning, system demos

and continuous integration and deployment, or CI/CD, processes as part of the SAFe
framework. The last step is a continuous process of evaluating key metrics and
gathering employee feedback to identify areas of improvement. Developing a
mindset of innovation, collaboration and creativity is the primary focus of this
framework. Some best practices when implementing SAFe include involving team
members in decision-making, making incremental progress, providing training,
incorporating feedback and customising the framework to suit an organisation's
needs.

Related: What Are Scrum Values? (Definition, Types And Benefits)

3. What common challenges do organisations face when

implementing SAFe?

It can be challenging to implement SAFe because of employee's resistance to

change, difficulty aligning with existing processes and lack of executive support.
Interviewers ask this question to evaluate your awareness of common
challenges organisations face when implementing SAFe. List the common
challenges and mention some steps you can take to address them.
Example answer: Employee's resistance to change is a common challenge that
organisations face when implementing SAFe. This resistance occurs because SAFe
principles require an organisation to make significant shifts in its culture, and
overall strategies which can introduce changes in daily operations, working style,
organisational structure and employee management. SAFe also has an extensive
glossary and complex terminology, so employees can find adopting it
overwhelming. It is important that organisations communicate change effectively,
and conduct training programmes to help employees become familiar with new
tools and procedures.

Organisations can work to establish a culture that promotes open

communication, transparency and encourages employee feedback. Aligning
business goals with IT strategies is another key challenge that organisations face.
They can address this by setting up new processes, and modifying existing ones,
incorporating new tools, technologies and focusing on innovation. Organisations
can also invest in training to educate employees and develop the necessary skills
and knowledge for implementing new processes.

Related: What Is Agile Project Management? (With Values And Steps)

4. How do you measure the effectiveness of SAFe in an

organisation? Give examples of some metrics

Measuring the effectiveness of SAFe in an organisation involves tracking key

metrics, including productivity, quality and customer satisfaction. This question
evaluates your analytical skills and ability to use data to make informed
decisions. Mention the importance of measuring the effectiveness of SAFe and
list some key metrics that you consider relevant.

Example answer: A critical phase in implementing SAFe within an organisation is

monitoring its effectiveness and identifying areas of improvement. Some key metrics
to track can include development speed, product quality, customer satisfaction and
employee engagement. For example, you can use lead time as a development speed
metric to measure the time from product inception to delivery. Business value
delivered is another metric companies can use to evaluate the value an organisation
provides to its customers.

The net promoter score metric determines the likelihood of a customer

recommending an organisation's products or services to others. A company's HR
team can evaluate the employee engagement metric to determine how motivated
and engaged employees feel at work. An organisation can analyse these metrics to
assess its progress towards short-term, and long-term objectives and performance
goals.

Related: Q&A: What Is Employee Engagement? (And How To Improve It)

5. How do you handle conflicts or disagreements between

different teams or departments when implementing SAFe?

Handling conflicts or disagreements between teams or departments requires

effective communication, collaboration and conflict-resolution skills.
Interviewers often assess your response to this question to determine your
teamwork and interpersonal skills. Mention some steps you take to resolve
conflicts when implementing SAFe.

Example answer: When a conflict arises, the development team can take the
initiative in resolving it. If there is no resolution, team members can escalate the
issue to a Scrum or project leader, who can assume a mediator role in the resolution
process. The mediator then follows a five-step process in addressing the conflict.
Resolving a conflict requires team members to express their opinions freely. As some
people may be hesitant to express themselves, the mediator's first step is
encouraging them to share their perspectives.

The next steps usually include identifying the problem and determining its cause.
Interaction at this stage may involve occasional disagreements between team
members. It is the mediator's responsibility to ensure that the discussion does not
result in mistrust or uneven communication and that each conversation contributes
to resolving the conflict. The mediator often asks for suggestions from team
members about how they want to address the conflict. In the final step, the
mediator chooses a solution agreeable to all team members.

Scaled Agile Interview Questions and

Answers Agile Management
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Scaled Agile is a framework comprising a set of organizational and workflow patterns to

implement agile practices at an enterprise scale. Scaled Agile promotes collaboration,
alignment, and delivery across large numbers of agile teams. Whether you are a beginner or
an intermediate, or an experienced Scaled Agile professional, this guide will aid you in
increasing your confidence and knowledge of Scaled Agile. With Scaled Agile interview
questions to your rescue, you can be confident about your preparation for the upcoming
interview.

Scaled Agile Interview Questions Agile Management

 15 / 15
 Beginner
 Advanced
 Beginner
 Advanced



1.
Why is the development manager role important when it is not included in the role definitions for
team, program, large solution, nor for Portfolio.

2.Does SAFe follow Agile Architecture or it has its own model?

3.
What are the metrics and are they used in SAFe?

4.
How is Essential SAFe different from Portfolio SAFe?

5.
How to deal with risks in a SAFe framework?

6.
What is new in SAFe 4.5?

7.What is the difference between Agile and SAFe framework?

8.Who facilitates value stream processes and execution, escalates impediments, manages risk, and
helps ensure value delivery and continuous improvement?

9.
Who is responsible for managing the portfolio Kanban in SAFe?

10.
What is the difference between Customers and Business Owners?

11.
How does the SAFe House of LEAN look like?

12.
Are the core values and principles in safe lean based or agile based?

13.
What is an Iteration Review in SAFe?

14.Why is Value Stream Mapping important?

15.What is innovation and planning sprint?

An important aspect of Agile is continuous improvement. For ones on the Agile scrum teams this

improvement can only be attained in an environment that allows for and endorses continuous learning. The

Innovation and Planning sprint offers just this occasion for scrum team members as it gives a structured

break in the development cycle to re-evaluate the team’s current skills with those needed in the sprints

ahead.

SAFe provides for periodic Innovation and Planning sprints, which serve a variety of purposes, including:

providing an estimating buffer for meeting objectives; a dedicated time for Inspect and Adapt and Release

Planning activities; a cadence-based opportunity for innovation; time for continuing education; time for

working on the technical infrastructure, tooling, and any other impediments; and time for backlog

refinement.

As per ScaledAgiledFramework.com:

“Innovation and planning iterations provide a regular, cadence-based opportunity, every PI, for teams to

work on activities that are difficult to fit into a continuous, incremental value delivery pattern. These may

include:
  Time for innovation and exploration, beyond the iterations dedicated to delivery

 Work on technical infrastructure, tooling, and other impediments to delivery

 Education to support continuous learning and improvement

 A dedicated time for the PI System Demo, I&A workshop, PI planning events, and

backlog refinement, including final prioritization of Features using Weighted

Shortest Job First (WSJF)

 Final integration of the solution, including verification and validation, if releasing

on the PI boundary

Final user acceptance testing and documentation, and any other readiness activities that are not feasible or

economical to perform at every iteration”

What is the Scaled Agile Framework?

Pioneered by Dean Leffingwell, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is an enterprise-

scale development framework which uses a combination of existing lean and
agile principles and combines them into a templated framework for large-scale
projects. It is based on three primary bodies of knowledge:

1. Agile Development
2. Lean Product Development
3. Systems Thinking

Q5. What is the difference between Agile and SAFe Framework?

Agile is a mindset, a philosophy, more like a way of thinking, a set of principles

for actions that keep a software development team organized and efficient. It is
a broad term that covers a number of frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, etc.

On the contrary, SAFe is an acronym for the Scaled Agile Framework, which is an
agile framework available for large-scale enterprise projects. It adds extra layers
of communication and controls to allow people to use agile frameworks (like
Scrum) with very large groups.

Q6. Name the four levels of the latest version of SAFe.

The latest version of SAFe has four levels, which are:

  Team Level
 Program Level
 Value Stream Level
 Portfolio Level

Q7. What are the different configurations of SAFe?

SAFe supports the full range of development environments with four various
configurations, which are:

 Essential SAFe
 Large Solution SAFe
 Portfolio SAFe
 Full SAFe

Q8. Are the core values and principles in safe lean based or agile-based?

Scaled Agile Framework 9SAFe) is based on both Lean and Agile principles. SAFe
supports four Core Values, which are:

 Alignment – It is necessary to keep up with rapid change & competitive

forces
 Built-in quality – Ensures that every piece of the product reflects quality
standards
 Transparency – To achieve best results transparency and trust within the
organization is important
 Program Execution – SAFe places an intense focus on working systems
and business outcomes

Q9. What is an Agile Release Train (ART)?

An Agile Release Train (ART) is a long-lived, self-organizing team of Agile Teams.,

which, along with other stakeholders, incrementally plans, develops and delivers
a continuous flow of incremental releases of value in a Value Stream.

Q10. What is Program Increment (PI)?

A Program Increment is a timebox during which an Agile Release Train (ART)

delivers incremental value in the form of the working, tested software and
systems. Just like how you have an iteration for the agile team, there is a
Program Increment for ARTs. PIs are usually 8-12 weeks long. Generally, PI is of
four development iterations and one Innovation and Planning (IP) iteration.

Q11. Who is the Release Train Engineer?

Release Train Engineer, is a servant leader and the chief scrum master for the
Agile Train. The RTE facilitates optimizing the flow of value through the program
using various mechanisms, such as the Program Kanban, Inspect & Adapt
workshops and PI planning.

Q12. What is Iteration Review in SAFe?

Iteration Review is a cadence-based event in which every team inspects the

increment at the end of every iteration to assess progress, and then adjusts the
team backlog based on the feedback received in the meeting. All the work that is
done during the iteration reviewed during the iteration review meeting.

Q13. What is the difference between a Capability and a Feature?

A feature is a service provided by the system that addresses stakeholders

requirements. Each feature has two core concepts – a benefit hypothesis and
acceptance criteria. It is sized as necessary and made ready to be delivered by a
single Agile Release Train (ART) in a Program Increment (PI).

Capabilities are similar to features, however, they describe higher-level solution

behaviors and often take multiple ARTs to implement. They are sized and broken
down into multiple features to aid their implementation in a single PI.

Q14. Apart from Scrum, which frameworks can be used at the team level?

Usually, Scrum is widely used at the team level but it is not the only practice that
is being followed in SAFe. The teams in SAFe can use the agile framework which
works best for their team and the delivery. They can opt for Kanban, Extreme
Programming (XP), Scrum or even Scrum with XP (ScrumXP).

Q15. Describe team Kanban. How are they different from other teams?

Team Kanban is a method that helps teams facilitate the flow of value by
visualizing workflow, establishing WIP (Work In Process) limits measuring
throughput, and continuously improving their process. They are used at
Portfolio, Large Solution, Program and Team levels of SAFe.

Unlike other frameworks, Kanban is described as a pull system. Teams “pull”

work when they know they have the capacity for it, rather than having scope
being “pushed” on them.

Q16. What are Stories?

Stories are a short description of a small piece of the desired functionality and
feature, written in the user’s language. They are primary artifacts used to define
system behavior in Agile.

Q17. What is the difference between User Stories and Enabler Stories?

User Stories deliver functionality directly to the end-user, whereas enabler

stories bring visibility to work items needed to support exploration, architecture,
infrastructure, and compliance. Sometimes teams also need to develop technical
functionality that is needed to implement a number of different user stories or
support other components of the system. Those are enabler stories.

Intermediate Level Scaled Agile Framework

Interview Questions
Q18. When to use the Scaled Agile Framework?

Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) can be used when:

 The team is interested to implement an agile approach consistently across

larger, multi-team programs and portfolios
 Multiple teams are already implementing Agile but regularly facing
obstacles, delays, and failures
 Teams want to work independently and in a decentralized decison-making
environment
 There is a need to scale Agile across the organization but not sure what
new roles may be needed or what existing roles need to change and how
 An organization needs to improve its product development lead time and
want to know how other companies have succeeded in scaling Agile with
SAFe

Q19. Can you describe the four-tier hierarchy of artifacts that describe
functional system behavior?

SAFe defines an artifact hierarchy of Epic, Capability, Feature, and Story.

 Stories are the primary artifacts, where each story provides a small,
independent behavior that can be implemented incrementally and that
provides some value to the user
 A feature is a service provided by the system that addresses stakeholders
requirements. Each feature has two core concepts – a benefit hypothesis
and acceptance criteria.
  Capabilities are similar to features, however, they describe higher-level
solution behaviors and often take multiple ARTs to implement.
 Epics are defined at Portfolio Level and they are containers for significant
initiatives that help guide value streams toward the larger aim of the
portfolio. They are large and typically crosscutting, crossing multiple Value
Streams and Agile Release Trains (ARTs).

Q20. Explain what is a scrum of scrums.

This is one of the commonly asked scrum master interview questions. For
example, let’s say there is an active project with seven teams working on it. The
number of members of each team is also seven and are responsible to lead their
own scrum meeting. But, in order to coordinate and communicate with different
teams, they need to organize a separate scrum meeting. This meeting is called
the scrum of scrums. The responsible person from each team attends the
meeting and discuss their work and progress.

Q21. How is Essential SAFe different from Portfolio SAFe?

The Essential SAFe configuration is at the heart of the framework and is

the simplest starting point for implementing SAFe. Though it is the initial level
for organizations opting to implement SAFe, it consists of the most critical
elements needed to recognize the majority of the framework’s benefits.

Talking about Portfolio SAFe, it helps to align portfolio execution to enterprise

strategy and provides the basic constructs for organizing the Lean-Agile
Enterprise around the flow of value.

Q22. What is the difference between Customers and Business Owners?

Customers are an integral part of Lean-Agile development and are the ultimate
economic buyer of every solution. Whether internal or external they are
increasingly demanding and they have choices. They want more value and they
want their solution providers to continuously improve the quality of their
products and services.

Business Owners are a critical group of three to five (3 – 5) stakeholders who have
shared fiduciary, governance, efficacy, and ROI responsibility for the value
delivered by a specific Agile Release Train (ART).

Q23. What is a Value Stream in SAFe?

A value stream is a long-lived series of steps used to deliver value, from

customer order to delivery of a tangible result for the customer. The image
below illustrates the anatomy of a value stream.

An event triggers the flow of value, it could be a customer request or a new

feature requirement. It ends when some value has been delivered like
a shipment, customer purchase, or solution deployment. The activities in
between are steps that enterprize uses to accomplish the task. So, basically, a
value stream contains the people who do the work, the systems they develop or
operate, and the flow of information and materials

Q24. Who are suppliers in SAFe? What do they do?

As you know the goal of Lean-Agile principles is to deliver value to their

customers in the shortest possible lead time and with the highest possible
quality. To achieve that they engage Suppliers to develop and deliver
components and subsystems. These suppliers have unique and distinctively
competent skills and are experts in their technology.

They play a key role in SAFe and can have a large impact on lead time and value
delivery of the Enterprise’s Value Streams. To achieve the optimal results
Suppliers become an extension of the culture and ethos of the enterprise, they
are treated as a true partner.

Q25. What is the relationship between Value Stream and Agile Release
Train (ART)?
 Value Stream Agile Release Train (ART)
An Agile Release Train is a long-lived,
A Value Stream is a long-lived series of self-organizing team of Agile Teams
steps that provide a continuous flow of that delivers a continuous flow of
value to the customer incremental releases of value in a Value
Stream.
Q26. What is Architectural Runway in SAFe?

The Architectural Runway consists of the existing code, components and

technical infrastructure necessary to support the implementation of prioritized,
near-term features, without excessive redesign & delay. It supports the
continuous flow of value, provides the necessary technical foundation for
developing business initiatives and implementing new features.

Q27. What are the advantages of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)?

Advantages of using SAFe are as follows:

 Offers the opportunity to tap into a relatively lightweight framework that

creates efficiency in software development while maintaining the
centralized decision-making necessary at the enterprise level
 Helps teams maintain alignment with business goals and achieve greater
transparency
 Helps cross-functional teams collaborate more effectively
 Highly suitable for large organizations
 Puts more emphasis on people over technology

Q28. How is the Continuous Delivery Pipeline associated with the Agile
Release Train (ART)?

The Continuous Delivery Pipeline (sometimes just referred to as just ‘pipeline’)

represents the workflows, activities, and automation needed to develop a new
piece of functionality all the way from ideation to an on-demand release of value
to the end-user. The pipeline consists of four elements:

 Continuous Exploration (CE)

 Continuous Integration (CI)
 Continuous Deployment (CD)
 Release on Demand

Q29. What is the final element of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline?

The final element of Continuous Delivery Pipeline is Release on Demand. It is the
ability to make the value available to customers all at once or in an ad-hoc
fashion, based on the needs of the market and the business.

Q30. What is the need for Solution Demo?

Solution demo is where the results of combined development efforts of multiple

Agile Release Trains (ARTs) along with the contribution from Suppliers are shown
to customers and other stakeholders. It is a very critical meeting for support
train, an opportunity for objective evaluation and feedback. Also, a moment to
celebrate and encourage team on their efforts of the latest PI.

Q31. What is the Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration in SAFe?

An important aspect of SAFe is continuous improvement. which is achieved

through periodic Innovation and Planning sprints. IP iteration provides a regular,
cadence-based opportunity for teams to work on activities that are difficult to fit
into a continuous, incremental value delivery pattern. These may include:

 Time for innovation and exploring beyond the iterations dedicated to the
delivery
 Working on technical infrastructure, tooling, and other impediments
 Education and awareness to support continuous learning and
improvement

Q32. Is customer a part of Value Stream?

Yes, the customer is a part of Value Stream. Customers are of two types:

 Internal Customer can be from one of the departments within the

organization requesting to build solutions around their requirements
 External customers are the ones who are the direct economic buyer of the
solution

Customers support for Lean and Agile principles and their active and continuous
participation in the Solution definition, planning, demonstrations, and evolution
are essential to successful execution.

Q33. What are Epics?

Epics are defined at Portfolio Level and they are containers for significant
initiatives that help guide value streams toward the larger aim of the
portfolio. There are two types of epics: business epics and enabler epics, each of
which may occur at the Portfolio, Large Solution, and Program Levels.
  Business epics directly deliver business value
 Enabler epics are used to evolve the Architectural Runway to support
upcoming business epics

Next, let’s move on to the tricky and advanced scaled agile interview questions.

Advanced Level Scaled Agile Framework Interview

Questions
Q34. Have you ever worked in an Agile environment? What do you think
are some issues that organizations face when scaling agile principles and
practices?

Be honest and let them know if you have worked with Agile or not. If not, there is
nothing to panic, smoothly convey the same to the interviewer. A common
complaint with agile development is that it doesn’t scale well, for reasons like:

 Lack of long-term planning & coping with longer planning horizons

 Lack of agile practices at management levels
 Way too many team members to collaborate and manage
 Lack of synchronization and common goal among teams
 Dealing with delegated authority
 Multiple sources of requirements from multiple teams
 Unmapped dependencies creating unexpected issues and obstacles

Q35. SAFe is based on Lean Product Development. What is the goal of Lean
thinking?

The goal of Lean is to deliver maximum customer value while minimizing waste
and providing the highest possible value to the customer and society as a whole.
To accomplish this:

 Lean thinking optimizes the flow of products and services

 Lean-Agile principles provide a better understanding of the system
development process
 It incorporates new tools and techniques that leaders and teams can use
to deliver the best results
 Emphasizes more on respecting people and culture

Q36. Does SAFe follow Agile Architecture or it does it have its own model?
Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is based on Agile Architecture which applies to all
the levels in SAFe. It is based on nine immutable, underlying Lean-Agile
principles:

 Take an economic view

 Apply system thinking
 Assume variability; preserve options
 Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles
 Base milestones on the objective evaluation of working systems
 Visualize & limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, & manage queue length
 Apply cadence; synchronize with cross-domain planning
 Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers
 Decentralize decision-making

Q37. What are Product Managers responsible for in SAFe?

Product Manager has content authority at the program level and is responsible
for Program Vision and Program Backlog. Listed below are the primary
responsibilities of the Product Manager in the context of a single Agile Release
Train.

 Understand customer needs and participate in the validation of the

proposed solutions
 Has the responsibility to understand and support portfolio work
 Develop and communicate the program vision to the development teams
and defines the roadmap
 Manage the flow of work through the program Kanban and into the
program backlog
 Participate in PI meetings and Inspect & Adapt workshops

Q38. What are the roles and responsibilities of a Release Train Engineer
(RTE)?

The core responsibilities of the RTE are as follows:

 Manage & optimize the flow of value through mechanisms such

as Program Kanban, Inspect & Adapt workshops and PI planning
 Aggregate Team PI Objectives into Program PI Objectives and publish them
for visibility and transparency
 Encourage the collaboration between all the teams and Solution
Architects, Engineering, and User Experience team, etc
 Work with Product Owners, Product Management and other value stream
stakeholders to help ensure strategy and execution alignment
  Track impediments and help manage risks and dependencies
 As a chief scrum master, coach leaders, teams, and Scrum Masters in
Lean-Agile practices and mindsets

Q39. What do you know about Value Stream Level of SAFe?

Value stream layer was introduced between the ART and Portfolio layers as part
of SAFe 4.0. It is intended for builders of large and complex solutions, that
typically require multiple ARTs as well as the contribution of Suppliers. Value
Stream Level is optional and the primary purpose of this level is to apply Lean-
Agile approaches to define, build, and deploy large, mission-critical solutions.
Building such solutions requires additional constructs, artifacts, and
coordination. This level contains


o An Economic Framework which provides financial boundaries for
Value Stream decision-making
o A Solution Intent as a repository to keep track of intended and actual
solution behavior
o A Solution Context, which describes the way the solution fits in the
deployment environment
o Capabilities that describe the larger behaviors of the solution

Q40. What are the Shared Services and how can the SAFe framework
benefit from them?

Shared Services are special roles that are necessary for the success of an Agile
Release Train (ART) and Solution Train but that cannot be dedicated full time.
Potential members of shared services typically include:

 Agile & software/system engineering coaches

 Desktop support
 Application/web portal management
 Data modeling, data engineering, and database support
 Enterprise and information architecture
 Infrastructure and tools management
 Security specialist
 Technical writers

Since they are special roles, often single-sourced, and typically quite busy, each
ART and value stream must plan to engage the resources they need, when they
need them.
Q41. What is the purpose of Portfolio Level?

The Portfolio is the highest level in SAFe. It provides constructs like principles,
practices, and roles organizing the Lean-Agile Enterprise around the flow of
value via one or more Value Streams. The portfolio has a bidirectional
connection to the business:

 The first way is to provide the strategic themes that guide the portfolio to
the larger, and ever-changing business objectives. These strategic themes
connect the portfolio to the evolving enterprise business strategy, provide
business context for decision-making within the portfolio and affect
investments in value streams and serve as inputs to the portfolio, solution,
and program backlogs. Strategic themes are not created by the business in
isolation, rather, key portfolio stakeholders participate in that process.
 The second direction provides a constant flow of feedback from the
portfolio back to enterprise stakeholders. This includes value stream key
performance indicators, qualitative assessments of the current state of
the portfolio’s solutions for market purpose, along with any strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that are present at the portfolio
level.

Q42. What are the responsibilities of a System Team?

A System Team is a special Agile Team on the Agile Release Train (ART). They
assist in building and supporting the Agile development environment
infrastructure, including continuous integration, build environments, testing
platforms and testing automation frameworks, and integrating code from Agile
Team. he primary responsibilities of the System team include:

 Building development infrastructure that supports high ART velocity

 System Integration, teams participate in different meetings to define
integration and test backlog items, run solution-level integration scripts
 Perform End-to-End and Solution Performance Testing
 Integrate and show progress at the system and solution demo

Q43. Explain the program level roles in SAFe?

The new redefined role structure at the program level is as stated below:

Role Responsibility
System Team A System Team is a special Agile Team on the Agile
Release Train (ART) who assist in building and
supporting the Agile development environment
 including continuous integration, build environments,
testing platforms, and testing automation
frameworks, and integrating code from Agile Team
Product Managers are responsible for identifying
Customer needs, prioritizing Features, guiding the
Product Manager
work through the Program Kanban and developing
the program Vision and Roadmap.
System Architect is an individual who defines the
overall architecture of the system, help define
System Architect nonfunctional requirements, determine the major
elements and subsystems, and help define the
interfaces and collaborations among them.
The Release Train Engineer is the Chief Scrum Master,
Release Train Engineer who facilitates program-level processes and program
(RTE) execution, escalates impediments, manages risk, and
helps drive program-level continuous improvement.
The release team looks after the process of
managing, planning, scheduling and controlling a
Release Management
software build through different stages and
Team
environments; including testing and deploying
software releases.
Q44. What are the five dimensions of Built-In Quality?

Built-In Quality ensures that every element and every increment of the build are
up to the same high standard of quality throughout the development lifecycle.
Quality is very important, without it, the organization will likely operate with
large batches of unverified, unvalidated work. Five dimensions of built-in quality
are shown below.

The first one, Flow speaks to the fact that built-in quality is mandatory to achieve
continuous value flow. The other four describe quality as it applies to the system
itself.

Q45. How is the Solution Train different from Agile Release Train?

The Solution Train is the organizational construct that is used to build very large
and complex solutions that require the coordination of multiple Agile Release
Trains (ARTs), as well as support from the contributors of Suppliers. It aligns all
these ARTs with a shared mission using the solution vision, backlogs and
roadmap, and an aligned program increment.
The solution train provides additional roles, events, and artifacts needed to
coordinate the building of some of the world’s largest and most important
systems and solutions. The failure of such solutions, or even a subsystem, has
unacceptable economic and societal consequences.

Q46. What are the roles present in the Solution Train?

Roles Responsibility
STE is the servant leader of the team & they make
Solution Train Engineer sure the smooth running of the train and manage
(STE) the delivery of the solution with the Release Train
Engineers.
They represent the customer’s overall needs to the
Agile Release Trains. They collaborate with the
Solution Management
product management of each ARTs to define
capabilities & break them into features.
Solution They define the technology and architecture that
Architect/Engineer connects the solution across the ARTs
They are the ultimate buyers of the solution and are
Customers
involved at every level of SAFe
It is a special Agile Team on the Agile Release Train
System Team (ART) who assist in building and supporting the Agile
development environment infrastructure
They are special roles that are necessary for the
Shared Services success of an Agile Release Train (ART) and Solution
Train but that cannot be dedicated full time
Q47. What are the responsibilities of the System Architect/Engineer?

The SAFe System Architects/Engineers are the individuals and teams who have
the technical responsibility for the overall architectural and engineering design
of the system and solution, respectively. Some of their responsibilities include:

 Participate in planning and high-level design of the solution and explore

solution alternatives
 Define subsystems and their interfaces
 Allocate responsibilities to subsystems
 Understand solution deployment, and communicate requirements with
other teams
 Work with Customers, stakeholders, and Suppliers to establish high-level
Solution Intent
  Operate within the economic framework to validate the economic impact
of design decisions

The role of an Architect is very common in software development and has been
included in SAFe as one of the critical roles at the program and portfolio levels.

Q48. How does SAFe supports alignment?

Alignment is necessary to keep up with rapid change, disruptive competitive

forces, and geographically distributed teams. More importance should be given
to enterprise business objectives over team goals. SAFe supports alignment in
the following ways:

 It is supported by clear lines of content authority

 PI Objectives and iteration goals are used to communicate expectations
and commitments
 Cadence and synchronization are applied to ensure that things stay in
alignment
 All the work is visible, debated, resolved and transparent
 Lean prioritization keeps the stakeholders engaged in continuous, agreed-
to, rolling-wave prioritization
 Architectures and user feedback help ensure that the Solution is
technologically sound, robust, and scalable

Q49. How is decentralized decision making important in SAFe?

The primary intention of decentralized decision making is to deliver value in the

sustainably shortest lead time. Waiting for the approval of the decision from
higher authorities introduces a delay and can decrease the fidelity of the
decision, due to the lack of local context, plus changes in fact patterns that occur
during the wait time. decentralized decision making reduces delays, improves
product development flow, and enables faster feedback and more innovative
solutions.

Q50. What are the disadvantages of adopting SAFe?

Although SAFe brings many benefits to the table, it also comes with its own
drawbacks, like:

 SAFe takes too much of a top-down approach, rather than a team-based

approach
 Heavily emphasizes the use of its particular practices and rules, without
leaving much room for customization on the part of the organization
  Additional layers of oversight, administration, and coordination of SAFe
make it resemble the waterfall approach that many teams are trying to
leave behind

Well, that’s it! We have reached the end of the Scaled Agile Interview Questions
Article.

I hope the questions listed in this “Scaled Agile Interview Questions” help you crack
your interview. Happy learning!

What is the difference between User Stories and Enabler

Stories?
User stories are stories that provide functionality to the user directly. These are typically expressed in clear,
user-friendly language that also enables the Agile team to grasp what the user wants.

The work items required to support exploration, architecture, infrastructure, and compliance are revealed
by enabler stories. These are frequently written in technical terminology and might never be read by the
end user.

What do you know about Iteration Review in SAFe?

Every team analyses the increment at the end of each iteration (the typical fixed-length time window) and
depending on feedback from stakeholders and the product owner, changes the team's backlog, as
necessary. It provides an opportunity for the Agile teams to present their work and for the stakeholders to
keep track of the development.

How is the Continuous Delivery Pipeline related to the

Agile Release Train (ART)?
The Continuous Delivery Pipeline, sometimes known as the "pipeline" or "CDP," is a term that refers to
the workflows, activities, and automation required to create a new piece of functionality from conception
to an on-demand distribution of value to the end user. The pipeline consists of the following four
components:

1) Continuous Exploration (CE)

2) Continuous Integration (CI)

3) Continuous Deployment (CD)

4) Release on Demand

16) Name the final element of the Continuous Delivery

Pipeline.
The Continuous Delivery Pipeline's final component is Release on Demand. Release on Demand is the
procedure for putting new capability into use and giving it to clients right away. Through Release on
Demand, the release is separated from deployment and made available to the end user when it is most
practical for the business or when they need it.

17) What is the relationship between Value Stream and

Agile Release Train?
Value Stream

A value stream is a prolonged sequence of actions that continuously delivers value to the client.

Agile Release Train (ART)

A long-lasting, self-organising team of Agile Teams that generates a continuous flow of incremental
releases of value in a Value Stream is known as an Agile Release Train.

18) What do you mean by Architectural Runway in

SAFe?
The Architectural Runway is made up of the existing code, elements, and technical foundation required to
facilitate the installation of priority, near-term innovations without undue redesign & delay. It enables the
constant flow of value, offers the technical framework required for creating business initiatives and adds
new features.

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19) SAFe is based on Lean Product Development. What is

the goal of Lean thinking?
Lean aims to give the highest possible value to the customer and society at large while decreasing waste
and increasing customer value. To achieve this outcome-

1) Lean thinking enhances the flow of goods and services

2) The system development process is better understood using the lean-agile principles

3) It includes new tools and methods that managers and teams can utilise to produce the greatest outcomes

4) Places a stronger emphasis on respecting people and cultures

20) Does SAFe follow Agile Architecture or does it have its

own model?
Agile Architecture, which is applicable to all SAFe levels, is the foundation of the Scaled Agile
Framework (SAFe). It is based on nine fundamental, unchangeable Lean-Agile principles:

1) Take an economic view

2) Apply system thinking

3) Assume variability; preserve options

4) Build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles

5) Base milestones on the objective evaluation of working systems

6) Visualise & limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, & manage queue length

7) Apply cadence; synchronise with cross-domain planning

8) Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers

9) Decentralise decision-making

21) What is meant by Value Stream Level of SAFe?

As part of SAFe 4.0, the value stream layer was added between the ART and Portfolio levels. It is
designed for developers of substantial and intricate solutions, which frequently ask for the involvement of
several ARTs and Suppliers. The main goal of the Value Stream Level, which is optional, is to employ
Lean-Agile methodologies to identify, develop, and deploy substantial, mission-critical solutions.
Coordination, new constructs, and artefacts are needed to build such solutions. This level includes-

1) A financial framework that establishes limits for value stream decision-making

2) A solution intent serves as a database to record anticipated and actual solution behaviour

3) An explanation of the solution's placement inside the deployment environment is provided by the
solution context

4) Capabilities that describe the solution's more significant behaviours

22) Explain the responsibilities of a System Team

A specialised Agile Team called the System Team is in charge of overseeing and assisting with the
development environment. The technologies that support the continuous delivery pipeline are typically
developed and maintained by the System Team. By carrying out end-to-end testing, the System Team may
also assist the Agile teams in integrating their work, enabling them to deploy the code and release it as
needed. The System team's specific roles include-

1) Constructing a development infrastructure that allows for high ART pace

2) Teams participate in meetings to design integration, test backlog items, and run solution-level
integration scripts as part of system integration

3) Test the performance of the solution from beginning to end

4) Integrate and gradually improve the system and solution demo

23) How does SAFe support alignment?
Rapid change, disruptive competitive dynamics, and geographically dispersed teams all require alignment.
Enterprise business objectives should be prioritised over team goals. In SAFe, alignment is supported in
the following ways:

1) There are distinct lines of content authority that support it

2) Expectations and commitments are communicated via PI Objectives and iteration goals

3) To keep everything in alignment, cadence and synchronisation are used

4) The entire process is open, transparent, and debatable

5) Rolling-wave prioritising is a continual, agreed-upon process that Lean prioritisation keeps the
stakeholders involved in

6) The Solution is technologically sound, resilient, and scalable primarily due to architectures and user
input

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24) What are the program level roles in SAFe?

The new redefined role structure at the program level is as stated below:

Roles Responsibilities

System Team System Team is a unique Agile Team that helps with continuous integration, build environments
automation frameworks, and integrating code from Agile Teams.

Product Manager The tasks that fall within the scope of product managers include determining customer needs, pri
via the programme Kanban, and creating the program's vision and roadmap.

System Architect A system architect is someone who establishes the overall design of the system, aids in the defini
requirements, chooses the main components and subsystems, and aids in the definition of collabo
them.

Release Train Engineer The Release Train Engineer is indeed the Chief Scrum Master, who enables program-level proce
(RTE) escalates impediments, controls risk, and enhances program-level continuous improvement.
 Release Management The process of managing, planning, scheduling, and controlling a software build across many en
Team testing and deploying software releases, is handled by the release team.

Conclusion
The above-mentioned 24 Scaled Agile Interview Questions and Answers can prepare you for the interview.
This article covered some of the popular SAFe Agile certification questions and answers. Since most
industries use this framework, it is essential to know how this model would apply to that particular
industry and where it falls short, so that you can voice your decisions and answers clearly in the interview
and later at the job.