SAFe for Teams

Question	Answer
What is an Agile Release Train (ART)?	A long-lived team of Agile teams, which, along with other stakeholders, incrementally develops, delivers, and where applicable operates one or more solutions in a value stream.
ART common principle: The Schedule is fixed	The train departs the station on a known, reliable schedule, as determined by the chosen PI cadence. If a Feature misses a timed departure, it can catch the next one.
ART common principle: A new system increment every 2 weeks	Each train delivers a new system increment every two weeks. The System Demo provides a mechanism for evaluating the working system, which is an integrated increment from all the teams.
ART common principle: The PI timebox is fixed	All teams on the train are synchronized to the same PI length (typically 8 – 12 weeks) and have common iteration start/end dates and duration.
ART common principle: The train has a known velocity	Each train can reliably estimate how much cargo (new features) can be delivered in a PI.
ART common principle: Agile Teams	Agile Teams embrace the ‘Agile Manifesto’ and the SAFe values and principles. They apply Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), Kanban, and other Built-In Quality practices.
ART common principle: Dedicated people	Most people needed by the ART are dedicated full time to the train, regardless of their functional reporting structure.
ART common principle: Face-to-face PI Planning	The ART plans its work at periodic, largely face-to-face PI Planning events.
ART common principle: Innovation and Planning (IP)	IP iterations provide a guard band (buffer) for estimating and a dedicated time for PI planning, innovation, continuing education, and infrastructure work.
ART common principle: Inspect and Adapt (I&A)	An I&A event is held at the end of every PI. The current state of the solution is demonstrated and evaluated. Teams and management then identify improvement backlog items via a structured, problem-solving workshop.
ART common principle: Develop on Cadence. Release on Demand	ARTs apply cadence and synchronization to help manage the inherent variability of research and development. However, releasing is typically decoupled from the development cadence. ARTs can release a solution, or elements of a solution, at any time, subject to governance and release criteria.
Development Team	Three to nine dedicated individual contributors, covering all the roles necessary to build a quality increment of value for an iteration.
Continuous Exploration	The process of constantly exploring market and user needs, and defining a Vision, Roadmap, and set of hypotheses to address those needs.
Continuous Integration	The process of taking features from the program backlog and developing, testing, integrating, and validating them in a staging environment where they are ready for deployment and release.
Continuous Deployment	The process that takes validated features from continuous integration and deploys them into the production environment, where they’re tested and readied for release.
Release on Demand	The process of delivering the value to the end user, measuring the results of the hypotheses and learning from them, as well as operating the solutions.
Lean-Agile Mindset	The combination of beliefs, assumptions, and actions of SAFe leaders and practitioners who embrace the concepts of the Agile Manifesto and Lean thinking.
The Agile Manifesto Values	Individuals and Interactions over processes and tools Working Software over comprehensive documentation Customer Collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to Change over following a plan
Product Owner	A member of the Agile Team responsible for defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog to streamline the execution of program priorities while maintaining the conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components for the team.
Product Owner: Responsibilities	Maintains the team backlog Iteration planning Just-in-time story elaboration Applies Behavior-Driven Development Accepts Stories as done Understands enabler work Participates in team demo and retrospective
SAFe Core Values	Alignment Built-in Quality Transparency Program Execution
ScrumXP	A lightweight process to deliver value for cross-functional, self-organized teams within SAFe.
Stories	Short descriptions of a small piece of desired functionality, written in the user’s language.
Enabler Stories	Bring visibility to the work items needed to support exploration, architecture, infrastructure, and compliance.
Epic, Capability, Feature, Story	A four-tier hierarchy of artifacts that outline functional system behavior
INVEST	Independent Negotiable Valuable Estimable Small Testable
CALMR	Culture Automation Lean flow Measurement Recovery
Volume Complexity Knowledge Uncertainty	Things that affect the size of story
SMART PI Objectives	Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Time-bound
4 Levels of SAFe for Lean Enterprises	Team Program Large Solution Portfolio
House of Lean: Value	Achieve the shortest sustainable lead time with: - Best quality and value to people & society - High morale, safety and customer delight
House of Lean: Respect	People do all the work Your customer is whoever consumes your work Build long-term partnerships based on trust Cultural change comes last, not first To change the culture, you have to change the organization
House of Lean: Flow	Optimize continuous and sustainable throughput of value Avoid stop-start-stop project delays Build quality in Understand, exploit and manage variability Integrate frequently Informed decision making via fast feedback
House of Lean: Innovation	Producers innovate; customers validate Get out of the office Provide time and space for creativity Apply innovation accounting Pivot without mercy or guilt
House of Lean: Relentless Improvement	A constant sense of danger Optimize the whole Consider facts carefully, then act quickly Apply lean tools to identify and address root causes Reflect at key milestones; identify and address shortcomings
House of Lean: Leadership	Lead the charge Know the way; emphasize life-long learning Develop people Inspire and align with mission; minimize constraints Decentralize decision making Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers
Learning Fast	Plan Do Check Adjust
Team Events	Iteration Planning Daily Stand-up Iteration Review Iteration Retrospective
Feature Teams	Fastest velocity Minimize dependencies Develop T-shaped skills
Component Teams	High reuse, high technical specialization, critical NFRs Creating each component as a 'potentially replaceable part of the system, with well-defined interfaces'
Release Train Engineer (RTE)	A servent leader who facilitates and guides the work of the ART.
User Story - the 3 Cs	Card Conversation Confirmation
Iteration Planning for Kanban Teams	Find less value in try to plan the Iteration in detail Still publish Iteration Goals Commit to the goals as well as to a cycle time SLA for incoming work
Burn Up Chart	Measures how many story points have been completed toward the iteration total
Cumulative Flow Diagram	Identifies - bottlenecks - size of batches in Kanban states - average time an epic stays in a state
Separate Deploy from Release	To enable business to release on demand
Backlog Refinement Session	Helps teams "sleep" on new Stories prior to Iteration Planning Provides enough time to identify and resolve dependencies and issues that could impact the next iteration The team can improve Stories, add acceptance criteria, and point out missing information Most of the focus is on the next Iteration
ROAMing Risks	Resolved Owned Accepted Mitigated
Program Events	Scrum of Scrums PO Sync System Demo Prepare for PI Planning Inspect & Adapt PI Planning

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	Created by Daniel Gray-Brewer almost 6 years ago