Agile tradition and culture have always been essential and critical. In recent years, a number of methodologies—including the Scaled Agile Framework SAFe, Scrum@Scale, and Large-scale Scrum (LeSS) —have been established. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) is a set of organizational and workflow principles designed to help businesses scale lean and agile techniques.
SAFe® promotes coordination, delivery, and collaboration across larger teams of agile. It is created mainly for practitioners and is based on three main knowledge areas: agile software development, development of products, and system thinking.
Agile’s 14th Annual Status Report states that SAFe® is again the framework of choice for scaling, leading to 35% of respondents. That’s an increase of 5% over the prior year. Therefore, getting the SAFe® certification looks like a good idea for any Agilist or project manager. From Leading SAFe® to SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master to SAFe®, Scaled Agile, Inc. provides a wide range of qualifications.
Why Should One Become a SAFe Agilist?
The present agile product design system has to be transformed, and a SAFe Agilist provides valuable insights into what is needed. They also understand how to incorporate agile portfolio management into a productive business that offers stakeholders and consumers a steady stream of value in the quickest possible time to market.
In order to effectively drive the implementation of the Scaled Agile Framework across their business, a SAFe Agilist confirms their knowledge by using the Scaled Agile Framework, lean management, and principles for product development flow in a business setting.
Responsibilities of a SAFe Agilist:
· Giving advice: One of the main duties of a good SAFe Agilist is guiding the success, adoption, and ongoing advancements of SAFe in a business.
· In order to effectively convey strategic agreements, a company’s views and goals must be defined in order to meet the requirement for innovation. SAFe Agilists respond to the demand for innovation from internal teams as well as stakeholders.
· Motivation: Assisting workers in improving their skills and careers by encouraging them to use their potential to promote the perceptions and objectives of either themselves or their employer.
Roles as SAFe Agilist
- In their management and leadership roles, SAFe Agilists can include the Lean-Agile approach.
- Within a SAFe organization, a SAFe Scrum Master, or even a SAFe Advanced Scrum Master, can coach and guide one or more Agile Teams.
- An Agile Team receives direction and expertise from a SAFe Product Owner, who makes feature-level choices.
- A SAFe Product Manager manages stakeholder and customer demand while simultaneously providing lots of teams in an Agile Release Train (ART) with product priorities and expertise.
- An organization’s Agile Trains are maintained on course by Release Train Engineers (RTEs). Their primary responsibilities “include assisting the teams in providing quality and facilitating the ART events and procedures”.
- A SAFe Program Consultant (SPC), a hybrid internal consultant and trainer who recruits team members to assume SAFe responsibilities and implements the full SAFe framework in the organization, is the main agent of change.
Lessons You’ll Learn From the SAFe Agilist Course
Here are the following aspects you will get to learn in the SAFe Agilist course.
1. Recognize the basics: Discover how the flow for development of the product works as per agile and lean.
2. Beneficial scaling: Scale Lean and Agile development throughout your organization by using the SAFe® ideals of a Lean-Agile mindset.
3. The concepts of Lean-Agile: Use the Lean-Agile principles to become a manager who practices the Lean-Agile Approach
4. Increase value: Value should be integrated, deployed, and released to enable PI planning and program execution events.
5. Lean Portfolio: Employ Lean-Agile concepts to the roles and tenets of SAFe® to engage with a lean portfolio.
6. Seven fundamental skills: Coordination of the generation of solutions and knowledge of the seven SAFe® 5.1 key competencies.
7. Effective leadership: Enhance leadership skills using Lean-Agile Approach
8. Initiate change: The SAFe Development Roadmap can help your company through a Lean-Agile transition.
9. Lean Portfolio Administration: Lean Portfolio Management with strategic theme alignment and execution (LPM).
What Are the SAFe Agilist Learning Objectives?
- Investigate the SAFe Principles evolved from the Lean and Agile product development philosophies.
- To demonstrate and spread the lean-agile attitude throughout the organization, establishing lean-agile leaders
- Building technical agility and a team
- Agile Product Delivery through the use of Design and Systems Thinking, a customer-centric mentality, and organization around value.
- PI Strategy Event is happening. One of the iconic SAFe activities with significant advantages is the PI Planning. Business Leaders may better grasp the importance of such an event and the advantages it offers to the firm by participating in a mock PI Planning event throughout the training.
- Establishing a DevOps culture and a continuous delivery pipeline.
- Investigating the implementation of lean portfolio management inside the company.
This training is open to everyone who is interested, regardless of background. However, it is strongly advised that anyone planning to take the SAFe® 5 Agilist (SA) certification test possess the following:
5+ years of prior work experience in software, testing, business analysis, product management, or project management
Exam Preparation Resources
- Course Materials – The best SAFe® workbook is available here, and it covers both the theory and practice of SAFe®.
- The PMP® Handbook from the Project Management Institute is comparable to the Reference Materials: The resource materials are similar to Project Management Institute’s PMP® Handbook. No tips but an overview of exam preparation and the area of study from which the topics are taken.
- Practice Test – According to the website of Scaled Agile, Inc., “Practice tests are used to assess the performance of the certification exam and contain certain questions in terms of numbers, difficulty level, and time.” It is free to use and has no time restrictions.
Online, printable examples of the study guide’s sample questions in the form of flashcards are available.
Conclusion
A crucial, tried-and-true framework for implementing Agile at scale is the Scaled Agile Framework. An increasing number of businesses are beginning their SAFe transformation journeys, and those that are currently using SAFe are developing implementation strategies to maintain and update it. The Lean-Agile Leaders, who are in charge of implementing change throughout the whole business, are the cornerstone of these significant improvements and changes. The Agile community offers many fascinating options, and being a Certified SAFe Agilist is unquestionably a highly legitimate accomplishment.
