Pass the Scaled Agile SAFe Practice Consultant SAFe-SPC Questions and answers with CertsForce

The “Definition of Done” and established quality standards are basic Agile practices that ensure every work product meets agreed-upon quality criteria before it is considered complete. This approach drives consistency, transparency, and reliable outcomes across teams and ARTs.

One of the key measures of success in Design Thinking, as highlighted in SAFe, is whether the solution is “desirable”—that is, if it meets real customer needs. Desirability is one of the three core aspects evaluated (desirable, feasible, viable) in Design Thinking.

SAFe creates a second operating system—alongside the existing hierarchical structure—by establishing a value stream network that focuses on customers, products, innovation, and growth. This enables organizations to respond quickly to opportunities without dismantling their existing structure, supporting true business agility.

John Kotter’s model for organizational change, which is adopted in SAFe, emphasizes the need to build a “guiding coalition.” This group has the influence, authority, and credibility to lead the transformation and sustain change. They guide, coordinate, and communicate the transformation vision, making it possible to overcome resistance and drive enterprise-wide change.

Facilitating the “Getting Started with LPM” workshop is a key SAFe recommendation for organizations planning a Lean Portfolio Management implementation. This workshop helps leaders align on LPM concepts, define portfolio roles, and create an actionable roadmap for implementation.

Training Product Owners and Product Management before the ART launch ensures the ART Backlog is well-prepared for the first PI Planning. This training allows them to understand their roles, align on priorities, and develop a clear and actionable backlog, which is crucial for a successful ART launch and the first PI Planning event.

The ART Planning Board is a visual tool used during PI Planning to highlight and track dependencies between teams. Teams use it to indicate where their work is dependent on others, which helps surface and coordinate cross-team dependencies for successful PI execution.

A. Queues are typically processed first-in, first-out (FIFO), meaning in the order items are entered.

B. Backlogs in SAFe are actively managed and continuously re-prioritized and refined to ensure the most valuable work is always ready for selection.

“Backlogs are prioritized lists of work that are actively refined, while queues generally operate in a FIFO manner and are not reprioritized.”

(Source: SAFe 6.0 Framework: Backlog Management, Principle #6)

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The three primary outputs of PI Planning are:

Program Board (A): Visualizes Features, dependencies, and delivery milestones across teams.

Team PI Objectives (B): Clear, measurable commitments from each team.

Vote of confidence/commitment (D): ART-wide commitment to the PI plan.

“Top 10 Features,” “Portfolio Vision,” and “Iteration Goals” are not standard outputs of the PI Planning event.

“The key PI Planning outputs are the Program Board, Team PI Objectives, and a collective confidence vote/commitment.”

(Source: SAFe 6.0 Framework: PI Planning Outputs; SPC 6.0 Guide “Launching an Agile Release Train”)

Spikes are investigative stories for learning, risk reduction, or decision-making. Although spikes may not always yield production code, they produce valuable artifacts or insights. Demoing a spike involves sharing:

Knowledge gained (C)

Prototypes produced (D)

Quantitative data gathered (E)

These outputs support transparency and future development. Spikes should always be demoed as part of the team’s continuous learning.

“Demoing a spike means presenting what was learned, prototypes built, and/or data collected. This demonstrates value to the team and stakeholders, even without production-ready code.”

(Source: SAFe 6.0 Framework: Spikes; SPC 6.0 Guide “Building Solutions with Agile Product Delivery”)

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