SA Agile Release Train (ART) 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What are PI Objectives in SAFe?
- Business and technical goals the ART commits to achieving during a Program Increment (Correct answer)
- KPIs tracked by business owners on a quarterly basis separate from PI execution
- Individual performance targets assigned to each team member at PI Planning
- Technical debt items to be resolved in future Program Increments
Correct answer: Business and technical goals the ART commits to achieving during a Program Increment
PI Objectives summarize the business and technical goals that each Agile team and the ART agree to accomplish during a Program Increment.
Question 2: What is the purpose of the Program Board created during PI Planning?
- To track defects found in production systems across the PI
- To document architecture decisions made during the PI
- A visual display mapping team objectives, features, milestones, and cross-team dependencies across iterations (Correct answer)
- To assign work items to individual team members throughout the PI
Correct answer: A visual display mapping team objectives, features, milestones, and cross-team dependencies across iterations
The Program Board is a visual aid that maps features to iterations across all teams, highlights cross-team dependencies, and identifies key milestones for the PI.
Question 3: What is an Architectural Runway in SAFe?
- The timeline for decommissioning legacy systems at the end of their lifecycle
- A series of architecture reviews conducted before each PI planning event
- A migration plan for transitioning to new technical infrastructure
- Existing code, components, and infrastructure that support near-term business features without requiring additional enabler work (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Existing code, components, and infrastructure that support near-term business features without requiring additional enabler work
The Architectural Runway consists of existing technical foundations that allow business features to be implemented without significant delays waiting for architectural work.
Question 4: How does an ART measure its predictability in SAFe?
- By counting the total number of user stories completed per iteration
- By measuring the ratio of planned business value to actual business value delivered at the PI System Demo (Correct answer)
- By tracking individual developer productivity and throughput metrics
- By monitoring customer satisfaction scores on a monthly basis
Correct answer: By measuring the ratio of planned business value to actual business value delivered at the PI System Demo
ART predictability is measured by Business Owners comparing planned business value scores set during PI Planning against the actual scores assigned at the PI System Demo.
Question 5: What is the role of Business Owners in the Agile Release Train?
- Managing daily standups and sprint retrospectives for each Agile team
- Writing detailed technical specifications for all features in the Program Backlog
- Providing business context, validating PI Objectives, and assigning business value scores to team objectives (Correct answer)
- Approving all pull requests and code reviews before merging to the main branch
Correct answer: Providing business context, validating PI Objectives, and assigning business value scores to team objectives
Business Owners are key stakeholders who validate PI Objectives during PI Planning, assign business value scores, and actively participate in PI reviews and demos.
Question 6: What happens during the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event at the end of a PI?
- Teams plan their next sprint's user stories and allocate capacity
- Business owners review and formally approve feature requests for the next PI
- The ART reviews PI results, holds a quantitative and qualitative retrospective, and runs a problem-solving workshop (Correct answer)
- The Release Train Engineer assigns new roles and responsibilities for the upcoming PI
Correct answer: The ART reviews PI results, holds a quantitative and qualitative retrospective, and runs a problem-solving workshop
The I&A event includes a PI System Demo, a retrospective, and a structured problem-solving workshop to generate improvement stories committed to in the next PI.
Question 7: What is a 'Feature' in the SAFe Program Backlog?
- A small piece of work completed in a single iteration by one developer
- A service or function that delivers business value to stakeholders and is sized to be completed within a single PI (Correct answer)
- A technical task assigned to an individual team member during sprint planning
- A business requirement captured in a traditional waterfall project charter
Correct answer: A service or function that delivers business value to stakeholders and is sized to be completed within a single PI
A Feature is a unit of value that delivers a service or function to fulfill stakeholder needs and is sized appropriately to be implemented within a single Program Increment.
SA Agile Release Train (ART) 2
What are PI Objectives in SAFe?