SAFe-APM SAFe Agile Product Manager (APM 6.0) Questions and Answers

Buy a Feature is a research game that is primarily used to better understand the priorities of Solution requirements. Buy a Feature is a collaborative prioritization technique that involves giving participants a fixed amount of virtual money and a list of features or requirements with different costs. The participants then have to decide which features or requirements they want to buy, either individually or in groups. The game reveals the preferences,trade-offs, and consensus of the participants, as well as the relative value and importance of each feature or requirement.

References:

Buy a Feature - Scaled Agile Framework

Buy a Feature - Innovation Games

What Innovation Game is primarily used to better understand the priorities of Solution requirements?

Gemba is a Japanese term that means “the real place” or “the place where value is created”. In the context of the CDP, Gemba refers to the practice of going to the source of customer needs and feedback, and observing and learning from them. Gemba is an integral part of Continuous Exploration (CE), which is the first aspect of the CDP that drives innovation and fosters alignment on what should be built. CE involves applying Customer Centricity and Design Thinking to understand and create alignment on new development opportunities, and validating them with customers using hypothesis-driven experiments.

References:

Continuous Exploration: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the purpose, process, and benefits of CE, and how it uses Gemba, design thinking, and lean startup methods to explore the market and customer needs, and define a vision, roadmap, and set of features for a solution.

Gemba Walk: How to Drive Continuous Improvement in Manufacturing with Connected Work: This article from Parsable describes how Gemba walks can help manufacturing leaders and teams identify and solve problems, improve processes, and increase customer value. It also provides some tips and best practices for conducting effective Gemba walks using connected worker technology.

A journey map is a research technique that is used to develop personas. A journey map is a visual representation of the steps, interactions, and emotions of a user as they go through a process or a service. A journey map can help develop personas by identifying the pain points, opportunities, and gaps in the current state, and by generating ideas for improving the user experience and value proposition in the future state. A journey map can also help communicate the user needs and expectations to the stakeholders and align them on a common vision and goal.

References:

Journey Maps - Scaled Agile Framework

Journey Mapping 101 | Nielsen Norman Group

Journey Mapping: The Ultimate Guide | Miro

Journey Mapping: How to Create One and Why It’s Important

Personas are fictional characters that represent the ideal customers or users of a product or service. They help product teams understand and empathize with the needs, goals, and preferences of their target segments. Personas can help define the features and benefit hypothesis of a product’s strategic intent, which is the assumption that a certain set of features will deliver a specific benefit to the customers or users. By using personas, product teams can validate their feature and benefit hypothesis with real user feedback, and prioritize the features that deliver the most value and satisfaction to their personas.

References:

Personas: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the concept and purpose of personas, and how they can be used in a SAFe context to support customer-centricity, design thinking, and lean UX.

Strategic Intent: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework defines the concept and components of strategic intent, and how it guides the portfolio vision, lean budget guardrails, and portfolio backlog.

Feature and Benefit Hypothesis: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework describes the concept and process of feature and benefit hypothesis, and how it helps product teams test and validate their assumptions about customer value.

Using personas and empathy maps together is a result of applying design thinking, which is a customer-centric development process that creates desirable products that are profitable and sustainable over their lifecycle. Personas are fictional characters that represent archetypal users of a product or service, while empathy maps are visual tools that capture the thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and needs of the users. Using personas and empathy maps together can help to improve product design by:

Understanding the problem and the context from the user’s perspective

Generating ideas and solutions that address the user’s pain points and goals

Testing and validating the assumptions and hypotheses behind the product

Aligning the stakeholders on the scope, value, and quality of the product

References:

Design Thinking - Scaled Agile Framework

Personas - Scaled Agile Framework

Empathy Map vs Persona: What’s the Difference and Why You … - Userpilot

A roadmap is an artifact that shows the planned features and milestones for a solution over a timeline. It helps Product Managers communicate the vision and strategy to Product Owners and other stakeholders, and align them on the priorities and dependencies of the work. A roadmap also provides a feedback loop for validating assumptions and adapting to changing customer needs and market conditions.

References:

SAFe Roadmap

Product and Solution Management

Product Owner

A successful minimum viable product (MVP) that has value in the market reveals that the Epic hypothesis has been validated and that development should continue. An MVP is an early and minimal version of a new product or solution that is used to test the assumptions and hypotheses behind an Epic. An MVP provides the fastest and cheapest way tolearn from real customers and to measure the impact and value of the Epic. A successful MVP means that the Epic has proven its desirability, viability, feasibility, and sustainability, and that there is still more value to be delivered by implementing additional features and capabilities. Therefore, development should continue until the Epic is completed or the value hypothesis changes.

References:

Epic - Scaled Agile Framework

Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - Scaled Agile Framework

Innovation Accounting in SAFe - Scaled Agile Framework

Design Thinking is a creative process that involves empathizing with customers, defining the problem, ideating possible solutions, prototyping, and testing. Design Thinking can help API design and development by ensuring that the APIs are user-centric, meet the needs and expectations of the customers, and deliver value to the business. Design Thinking can also help API design and development by fostering collaboration, experimentation, and feedback among the stakeholders, such as product managers, developers, and customers.

References:

Design Thinking - Scaled Agile Framework

How to Design an API – Application Programming Interface Best Practices

Best Practices in API Design - Swagger

The ART Sync is a weekly event that brings together the representatives of the teams and stakeholders of an Agile Release Train (ART) to review the progress and status of the current Program Increment (PI). The ART Sync tracks the progress of the ART toward meeting the PI Objectives by using various metrics and indicators, such as the PI burnup chart, the team and ART predictability measures, the feature completion report, and the dependencies and risks status. The ART Sync also provides an opportunity to identify and resolve any impediments, issues, or blockers that may affect the PI delivery.

References:

ART Sync: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the purpose, agenda, and participants of the ART Sync, and how it supports the alignment, collaboration, and execution of the ART.

PI Objectives: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework defines the concept and attributes of PI Objectives, and how they can be used to align and measure the outcomes of an ART or Solution Train.

Feature estimates are aggregated back into the Epic estimate as part of the lean business case. The lean business case is a lightweight and collaborative artifact that captures the rationale, assumptions, and financial projections for an Epic. The lean business case includes the Epic value statement, which consists of the value proposition, the benefit hypothesis, and the Epic estimate. The Epic estimate is the total effort required to implement the Epic, expressed in story points. The Epic estimate is derived from the sum of the Feature estimates, which are the effort required to implement each Feature that contributes to the Epic, also expressed in story points. The Feature estimates are aggregated back into the Epic estimate as part of the lean business case to provide a realistic and data-driven projection of the cost and duration of the Epic.

References:

Lean Business Case - Scaled Agile Framework

Epic - Scaled Agile Framework

Feature estimates are aggregated back into the Epic estimate as part of …

The chasm is the gap in the technology adoption lifecycle between the early adopters and the early majority. The early adopters are enthusiasts who are open to trying new technologies, whereas the early majority is more pragmatic and cautious. The chasm occurs due to the differing expectations and requirements of these two groups. An innovative product is a product that introduces a new or significantly improved technology, functionality, or design that creates a new market or disrupts an existing one. An innovative product might face a chasm in its adoption, because it may not appeal to the mainstream customers who value reliability, compatibility, and convenience over novelty and differentiation. Therefore, an innovative product needs to cross the chasm by finding a niche market, establishing a clear value proposition, and creating a strong word-of-mouth.

References:

Crossing the Chasm in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle: This article from Business to You explains the concept and purpose of the technology adoption lifecycle and the chasm, and how they can help marketers understand and target different customer segments.

How to Cross the Chasm & Scale Your SaaS: This article from Userpilot provides a practical guide on how to cross the chasm and scale a SaaS product, with examples and tips on finding product-market fit, defining a beachhead market, and creating a whole product.

According to the SAFe® Agile Product Management APM (6.0) documents and learning resources, innovation context type refers to the level of uncertainty and risk associated with the innovation. There are four types of innovation context: portfolio, solution, feature, and business agility. Solution context type is the most complex and uncertain type, as itinvolves creating integrated, end-to-end products and service offerings that solve complex market problems across trains. Solution context type requires a high degree of collaboration and alignment among multiple teams and stakeholders, as well as frequent experimentation and validation of assumptions.

References:

SAFe Innovation Framework for Lean Enterprises: What to Know

Solution Context - Scaled Agile Framework

Personas are fictional characters that represent the ideal customers or users of a product or service. They help product teams understand and empathize with the needs, goals, and preferences of their target segments. Personas explain how the customers want to use the product by describing their behaviors, motivations, pain points, and expectations. Personas also help product teams design and deliver solutions that meet the customer needs and create value.

References:

Personas: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the concept and purpose of personas, and how they can be used in a SAFe context to support customer-centricity, design thinking, and lean UX.

What are Personas?: This article from Agile Alliance defines personas and describes their benefits and characteristics. It also provides some tips and examples on how to create and use personas effectively.

According to the Scaled Agile Framework, the Portfolio Backlog contains the highest-level portfolio epics, which are large, cross-cutting initiatives that require analysis, approval, and funding by the Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) team1. The ART Backlog contains the features, which are services provided by the system that fulfill stakeholder needs2. Features are derived from epics and are typically implemented by one Agile Release Train (ART) within one Program Increment (PI)3. Therefore, Request 1, which is an incremental innovation that can be done by one ART in one PI, should be added to the ART Backlog as a Feature. Request 2, which is a major opportunity impacting multiple stages of the Value Stream and requiring the participation of two ARTs over multiple PIs, should be added to the Portfolio Backlog as an Epic.

References:

Portfolio Backlog: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the purpose, structure, and content of the Portfolio Backlog, and how it is managed by the LPM team using the Portfolio Kanban system.

Features: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework defines the concept of features, their attributes, and their relationship with epics and stories.

ART Backlog: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework describes the role, composition, and management of the ART Backlog, and how it supports the PI Planning process.

Qualitative research fuels innovation when it is designed to explore the context in which Customers use the product. Qualitative research is a type of research that collects and analyzes non-numerical data, such as words, images, or emotions. Qualitative research can help understand the needs, problems, and opportunities of the Customers, as well as their behaviors, attitudes, and preferences. By exploring the context in which Customers use the product, qualitative research can help identify the pain points, gaps, and unmet needs of the Customers, and generate ideas for improving the user experience and value proposition of the product. Qualitative research can also help validate the assumptions and hypotheses behind the product design, and test the prototypes and solutions with the Customers.

References:

Design Thinking - Scaled Agile Framework

Qualitative Data – Strengths and Limitations

New Research: Data And Culture Fuel Innovation - Forbes