Scaled Agile Framework / SAFe Scrum Master Certification Prep (SSM)

Scaled Agile Framework / SAFe Scrum Master Certification Prep (SSM) job sequencing - ✔the key to economic outcomes WSJF - ✔weighted shortest job first How do you calculate WSJF? - ✔WSJF = CoD (estimated value) / Duration (time to ship or Job Size) RR - ✔risk reduction OE - ✔opportunity enablement How to calculate CoD? - ✔CoD = User-business value + Time criticality + RR & OE value / Job Size or "Duration" PI - ✔program increment NFR - ✔non functional requirement 3 Pillars of Scrum - ✔transparency, inspection, adaptation Scrum values make these things transparent: - ✔process, workflow, progress The 5 SAFe Scrum Values are... - ✔courage, focus, openness, commitment, respect SAFe Iteration length - ✔2-4 weeks Team composition does not change during an Iteration, otherwise the ____ is invalid. ✔velocity product owner - ✔owns, prioritizes and manages the TEAM backlog team increment - ✔a thin vertical slice of functionality Three roles in Agile teams - ✔scrum master, product owner, development team Typical development team size in Scrum - ✔3-9 excluding the scrum master and product owner

The promise of SAFe - ✔Synchronizes alignment, collaboration, and delivery for large numbers of teams 4 core values of SAFe - ✔built-in quality, program execution, alignment, transparency 9 SAFe Lean-Agile principles - ✔1. take an economic view 2. apply systems thinking 3. assume variability; preserve options 4. build incrementally with fast, integrated learning cycles 5. base milestones on objective evaluation of working systems 6. visualize and limit WIP, reduce batch sizes, and manage queue lengths 7. apply cadence, synchronize with cross domain planning 8. unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers 9. decentralize decision making Agile Release Train - ✔a virtual organization of 5-12 teams (50-125+) that plans, commits, and executes together program increment duration - ✔a fixed timebox with a default of 10 weeks.

RTE role - ✔acts as chief scrum master for the train product manager - ✔owns, defines, and prioritizes the PROGRAM backlog system architect/engineer - ✔provides architectural guidance and technical enablement to the teams on the train business owners - ✔key stakeholders on the agile release train 4 program events - ✔PI planning ART sync System Demo Inspect and Adapt event PI planning timebox - ✔2 days art sync timebox - ✔1 hour system demo timebox - ✔2 hours inspect and adapt event - ✔the train reviews and improves its process before the next PI pdca - ✔plan, do, check, act

PI planning cadence - ✔2 days every 8-12 weeks (10 is typical) Product Management role in PI - ✔owns feature priorities Development teams role in PI - ✔own story planning and high level estimations Two things every feature has - ✔benefit hypothesis and acceptance criteria benefit hypothesis - ✔justifies feature implementation cost and provides business perspective when making scope decisions When is acceptance criteria typically defined? - ✔during program backlog refinement What are the 3 C's of user stories? - ✔card, conversation, confirmation What are the 3 components of user stories? - ✔role, activity, value Roles in user stories can be comprised one of the following (3). - ✔people, devices, systems What does INVEST mean in user stories? - ✔Independent Negotiable Valuable Estimable Small Testable Enabler stores support value and represent Exploration, Architecture, and ✔Infrastructure refactoring - ✔a systematic approach to improving the system without changing observable behavior spike - ✔research activities to reduce risk, understand a functional need, increase estimate reliability, or define a technical approach Story points represent these (4) things... - ✔Volume - how much is there Complexity - how hard it is Knowledge - what we know Uncertainty - what we don't know The PI planning event helps create ____ to a common mission - ✔alignment

Risks should be evaluated with the ROAM format, which stands for... - ✔Resolved Owned Accepted Mitigated stretch objectives - ✔provide a reliability guard band are included velocity/capacity are planned (aren't "extra") are NOT included in commitment SMART - ✔Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time -bound Iteration Planning timebox - ✔2 - 4 hours iteration goals - ✔provide Agile Teams with clarity, commitment and management information agile teams are not just committed to the work, they are committed to (3)... - ✔other teams the program the stakeholders agile teams commit to iteration ____ not stories - ✔goals scrum masters should ensure that time is allocated to this activity when iteration planning - ✔technical debt the key to team synchronization and self-organization - ✔daily standup BVIR - ✔big visible information radiator these stories trump prioritized stories - ✔expedited CFD - ✔cumulative flow diagram SoS frequency - ✔twice a week

SoS atttendees - ✔Scrum Masters and RTE backlog refinement timebox - ✔1 - 2 hours weekly white elephant sizing - ✔exercise for rapidly estimating a large backlog iteration review - ✔where teams demonstrate every story, enabler, and NFR iteration review timebox - ✔1 - 2 hours iteration review attendees - ✔iteration team and stakeholders system demo attendees - ✔system team, product management, product owners, stakeholders architectural runway - ✔existing code, hardware components, etc., that technically enable near-term business features dev ops - ✔an agile approach to bridge the gap between development and operations to deliver value faster and more reliably CALMR approach to dev ops - ✔Culture Automation Lean flow Measurement Recovery iteration retrospective timebox - ✔30-60 minutes IP stands for... - ✔iteration planning 3 keys to inspect and adapt are... - ✔the PI system demo quantitative measurement the problem-solving workshop attendees for inspect and adapt - ✔teams and stakeholders inspect and adapt timebox - ✔3-4 hours per PI who facilitates the problem solving workship in the IandA session? - ✔RTE four stages of high performing teams - ✔forming storming

norming performing five dysfunctions of a team - ✔inattention to results avoidance of accountability lack of commitment fear of conflict absence of trust iteration review timebox - ✔1 hour What is the main reason for the system demo? - ✔To enable faster feedback by integration across teams Who facilitates the PO Sync meeting? - ✔RTE The scrum master facilitates... - ✔Retrospective, Daily Standup, Iteration Planning The two inputs to PI planning - ✔Vision and Program Roadmap Who participates in the backlog refinement event? - ✔The Agile team members and other SME's 5 parts of every team increment - ✔plan, build, test, integrate, review Why is it important to organize the work for Iteration Planning - ✔So a realistic work scope can be defined Who defines the final scope of a committed iteration? - ✔The Agile Team features - ✔teams on the train collaborate to deliver user story - ✔features are implemented incrementally via ____ stories - ✔fit in one iteration for one team Enabler stores support value and represent Infrastructure, Architecture, and ✔Exploration Enabler stores support value and represent Exploration, Infrastructure, and ✔Architecture Estimation anti-patterns - ✔pressure by stakeholders to lower estimations only a few people participate

not using the adjusted fibonacci scale team breakouts - ✔where teams develop plans and identify risks and identify impediments program board - ✔where feature delivery, dependencies, and milestones are displayed Program objectives - ✔assigned business value at the second team breakout At the conclusion of PI planning teams should have - ✔Velocity (capacity) and load for each iteration draft PI objectives program risks and impediments confidence vote - ✔during the PI planning, after dependencies are resolved and risks are addressed, a ___ is taken at the team and program levels program PI objectives - ✔the synthesis of each team's PI objectives scrum master role in team breakout #1 - ✔Ensure the team has a draft plan to present Identify as many risks and dependencies as possible for the management review Secure SME's and Program level stakeholders as needed by the team Facilitate the coordination with other teams for dependencies Common Anti-Patterns for team breakout #1 - ✔* No plan or partial plan at the end of the timebox. * Too much time is spent analyzing each story * Shared Scrum Masters and Product owners are not available enough * Part-time scrum masters don't have time to plan as part of the team Common Anti-Patterns for PI Planning - ✔* pressure is put on the team to overcommit * team under-commits due to fear of failure * over-planning ahead of time to make it more efficient loses the essence of PI planning * the plan, rather than the alignment, become the goal Common Anti-Patterns for Iteration Planning - ✔* delving too deep into technical discussions * commitment is unrealistic * velocity and load are exactly the same * SM is more focused on technical hat than facilitator hat * team under-commits due to fear of failure * no time reserved for support activities dsu - ✔used to share information about progress, coordinate activities, raise blocking issues.

Common Anti-Patterns for the DSU - ✔* poor collaboration of the team members during the iteration (don't know/don't care) * lack of collective code ownership * infrequent verification and integration during the iteration * perpetual, unresolved conflict within the team Common Anti-Patterns when tracking iteration progress - ✔* team gets no input form sos * teams are unwilling to change or add objectives mid-PI * SM does all the synchronization, so team is incapable of doing it themselves.

SM role in Backlog refinement - ✔* maintain timeboxes * maintain the right level of a deep backlog vs. ready backlog for two iterations * Make sure all the team members participate * Invite the right SME * Hold the event at regular intervals Common Anti-Patterns in backlog refinement - ✔* Arriving to the iteration with nonready stories * Not doing the backlog refinement consistently * Team sees Stories for the first time during Iteration or PI Planning * Feature estimations impact Story estimation MBSE - ✔Model Base System Engineering Common Anti-Patterns for System Demos - ✔* too much time spent preparing the demo * demo is mainly talk/slides as opposed to working software/hardware * meeting doesn't happen if PO is unavailable * PO sees things for the first time in the team demo * System Demo is not doe because the team demo is enough * team members are not invited to the system demo to save time demos that are not interesting/relevant to program level stakeholders release - ✔For better continuous deployment, decouple deployment from ___. deployment - ✔For better continuous deployment, automate ___. staging - ✔For better continuous deployment, deploy to ___ every iteration. capability - ✔dev ops is a ___ of every agile release train solution - ✔value occurs only when the end users are operating the ____. culture - ✔establish a ____ of shared responsibility for dev, deployment, and operations

automation - ✔dev ops response to continuous delivery pipeline Lean flow - ✔keep batch sizes small, limit WIP, and provide extreme visibility Measure - ✔do this to the flow through the pipeline. Implement application telemetry.

Recovery - ✔architect and enable low risk releases, fast reversion and fast fix-forward cultural - ✔the shift to Dev Ops is primarily this.

Common Anti-Patterns in continuous improvement - ✔* the only focus is on what to improve and not what to preserve * focus on problems that are outside of the team's control * failure to achieve results * inviting people outside the team to the retro.

Common Anti-Patterns in IP innovation and planning - ✔* planning work for the IP iteration in PI planning * leaving testing or bug fixing to the IP iteration * leaving integration of the whole system to the IP iteration PI system demo - ✔at the end of the PI, teams demonstrate the current state of the Solution to the appropriate stakeholders RTE - ✔facilitate the problem solving workshop after a short retro. This workshop is done in organic or ad-hoc teams.

Common Anti-Patterns in Inspect and Adapt - ✔* only the PO presents in the PI System Demo * No actionable improvement Features are created * Improvement items don't enter the PI Planning process * Improvement items are not demoed in the PI system demo Forming - ✔team structure, purpose, safe events, fostering collaboration Storming - ✔surfacing and resolving conflict, dealing with individual performance, relentless improvement Norming - ✔team as a community, improving engineering practices, effective team communication Performing - ✔eliminating team dysfunctions, spontaneous leadership and selforganization, knowledge flow in the team and program

Adding new team members - ✔moves a team back to the forming stage A good scrum coach moves toward - ✔* coaching the team to collaborate * being a facilitator * being invested in the team's overall performance * asking the team for the answer * letting the team find their own way * guiding * focusing on business value delivery * doing the right thing for the business right now * facilitating team problem-solving teams - ✔far more productive than the same number of individuals productivity - ✔changes in team composition impact this assumptions - ✔many arguments are anchored in unexamined ___. working agreements - ✔facilitate conflict management; so make them visible!

IP - ✔Innovation and Planning iteration Four roles of a Scrum Master in SAFe - ✔* teaching and coaching ScrumXP and SAFe * implementing and supporting SAFe principles and practices * identifying and eliminating impediments * facilitating flow The Scrum Master helps other team members - ✔communicate coordinate cooperate The Scrum Master helps teams - ✔self-organize self-manage deliver via effective Agile practices DevOps - ✔is more than a set of practices, it is also about changing the mind-sets of people to break down silos, obtain fast feedback, improve the flow of work, and bring the best economic outcomes Release managment - ✔holds authority over deployment to production NFR's - ✔describe system attributes such as Security

Reliability Maintainability Scalability Usability FURPS - ✔Functionality Usability Reliability Performance Supportability IP iteration - ✔acts as an estimating buffer for meeting PI objectives and provides dedicated time for innovation, continuing education, pi planning, and inspect and adapt events