Leading SAFe® Certification

There are no prerequisites to take this course and anyone interested regardless of experience, who is interested in exploring the SAFe framework and building their skills to leverage this powerful framework can attend this course.

If you intend to take up the SAFe 6.0 Agilist (SA) certification exam, you would benefit from having the following prior experience:

• At least 5+ years’ experience in software development, testing, business analysis, product, or project management
• Prior experience in Scrum

After completing the SAFe Agilist course, you have several options to enhance your SAFe skills and expertise. Consider pursuing these additional credentials:

1. Certified SAFe Scrum Master (SSM): Focuses on the Scrum Master role within SAFe and provides advanced insights into facilitating Agile teams and Scrum events.
2. Certified SAFe Program Consultant (SPC): If you aspire to become a certified SAFe Program Consultant, you can further advance your career by helping organizations implement SAFe practices and lead Agile transformations.
3. Certified SAFe Practitioner: This certification broadens your knowledge and understanding of SAFe principles, roles, and practices, making you more versatile in Agile teams and organizations.
4. Certified SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager (POPM): Ideal for those who want to deepen their expertise in Product Owner and Product Manager responsibilities in SAFe, focusing on delivering value to customers.
5. Certified SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE): For those interested in taking on the crucial role of an RTE, this certification equips you to facilitate and lead Agile Release Trains (ARTs) effectively.

Each of these certifications represents a valuable step in your SAFe journey, enabling you to specialize in specific roles or expand your knowledge across various SAFe domains. Tailoring your certification path to align with your career goals and interests will help you excel in your Agile career and contribute to successful Agile transformations.

Scaled Agile is the certifying body for the Scaled Agile Framework or SAFe. It is a professional certification program that assesses the knowledge, skills, and mindset of professionals.

Explore the SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) career path, a structured journey for professionals interested in building expertise in Agile and Lean practices at various levels within an organization. Here are the various SAFe Certifications available from Scaled Agile:

1) Certified SAFe Agile Product Manager: This certification combines the values and principles of Lean-Agile with design thinking for creating viable, sustainable, feasible, and desirable solutions and products.

2) Certified SAFe Lean Portfolio Manager: These professionals understand how to establish a strategy and investment fund, apply Lean governance and Agile portfolio operation, and build a plan for the implementation of Lean Portfolio Management.

3) Certified SAFe Architect: These professionals are a change agent and an effective leader who delivers the Agile Architecture for enabling the creation of business value.

4) Certified SAFe Agile Software Engineer: These professionals are responsible for applying test-first principles so that they can create alignment between requirements and test, communicate with Agile modelling, apply Lean-Agile principles, build applications with design and code quality, etc.

5) Certified SAFe Government Practitioner: This program is for the SAFe change agent who uses the principles and practices of SAFe to execute and release value through Agile Release Trainings (ARTs) while leading a Lean-Agile transformation.

6) Certified SAFe DevOps Practitioner: This is a SAFe professional who improves the flow of value throughout the Continuous Delivery Pipeline - from idea to the operational solution.

7) Certified SAFe Program Consultant: These professionals are SAFe change agents leading all organizational levels through the Lean-Agile transformation by coaching, training, mentoring, and facilitation.

8) Certified SAFe Release Train Engineer: These are coaching professionals and program servant leaders who drive end-to-end delivery of value in a value stream or a single program of a Lean-Agile enterprise.

9) Certified SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager: This SAFe professional works with development organizations and customers to identify and prioritize requirements.

10) Certified SAFe Advanced Scrum Master: These professionals are Scrum Masters who are responsible for improving the results of the team by facilitating relentless improvement and cross-team interactions.

11) Certified SAFe Scrum Master: These are SAFe Scrum Master Professionals who integrate the Scrum practices into an organization.

12) Certified SAFe Practitioner: They are SAFe team members responsible to use Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), and Kanban in a SAFe environment.

13) Certified SAFe Agilist: These are SAFe enterprise leadership professionals who are a part of the Lean-Agile transformation.

The following individuals will benefit from SAFe Agilist course:

• Executives and Leaders, Managers, Directors, CIOs, and VPs
• Development, QA, and Infrastructure Management personnel
• Program and Project Managers
• Product and Product Line Managers
• Portfolio Managers, PMO, and Process Leads
• Enterprise, System, and Solution Architects

Not at all. Professionals in IT industries or non-IT industries who want to work in a SAFe environment can take up this course as well. This includes:

• Executives and Leaders
• Managers, Directors, CIOs, & VPs
• Development, and QA
• Infrastructure Management personnel
• Program & Project Managers
• Product & Product Line Managers
• Portfolio Managers, PMO, and Process Leads
• Enterprise, System, & Solution Architects

Our Leading SAFe instructors and trainers are professionals with a practical understanding of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) and hands-on experience (over a decade) in implementing it within complex organizations. They bring invaluable real-world knowledge to their training sessions, having actively participated in Agile transformations using SAFe principles and practices.

The instructors possess expertise in SAFe's principles, roles, and practices and utilize proven training methods to create exceptional learning experiences for participants. Their diverse professional backgrounds, including roles like Agile coaches, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, and Lean-Agile leaders, enrich their training delivery.

Participants in Leading SAFe training sessions can expect to benefit significantly from the instructors' practical expertise, industry experience, and the insights they provide on successfully applying SAFe in their organizational contexts, making them essential contributors to Agile transformations and business agility initiatives.

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is a complete methodology for large-scale Agile project teams to carry out an Agile transformation seamlessly. It provides a guide to work at the Portfolio, Large Solution, Program, and Team levels. After implementing SAFe, businesses are yielding benefits that include:

• 10 – 50% happier, more motivated employees
• 30 – 75% faster time-to-market
• 20 – 50% increase in productivity
• 25 – 75% defect reduction

History of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)
Since its inception in 2011, Scaled Agile, Inc. has come up with 5 major updates to its SAFe framework that reflect the changing industry needs. The latest upgrade is version 6.0, which introduces the ‘Seven Core Competencies’ of the Lean Enterprise. These competencies help SAFe organizations in building a truly Lean enterprise, which is critical to achieving an advantage over your peers in an increasingly competitive age.

SAFe consists of different roles at four levels of the organization. The responsibilities of the Scaled Agile (SAFe) roles are as follows.

1) Team Level: The roles at this level synchronize and coordinate with the team level events. This helps Agile teams develop and deliver a value in the context of the Agile Release Train (ART). The team level roles include:

• Agile Team: A cross-functional team which includes Product Owner, Scrum Master, and Dev Team.
• Development Team: A cross-functional team which includes testers, developers, and other specialists, delivers a vertical slice of functionality.
• Product Owner: Responsible for prioritizing the blog and defining user stories.
• Scrum Master: An Agile Team coach and servant leader who helps the team to facilitate team events, removes impediments and fosters an environment for high-performing teams.

2) Program Level: The roles at the Program level keep the team aligned to a project goal and support the ARTs with the necessary governance. The roles include:

• System Engineer: An individual that applies system thinking in the project
• Product Management: They are responsible for the program backlog and work with the customers and product owners to understand the requirements.
• Release Train Engineer: A chief Scrum Master and a servant leader who facilitates optimizing the flow of value using different mechanisms.
• Business Owner: A small group of stakeholders who have the technical responsibility for ROI.

3) Large Solution Level: The roles at the Large solution level coordinate multiple supplier and ARTs and provide the required governance. The roles include:

• Customer: The buyer of every solution.
• Solution Architect/Engineering: A small team or an individual that defines a common architectural and technical vision for the solution under development.
• Solution Management: Work with customers in order to understand their needs.
• Solution Train Engineer: A coach and servant leader who guides and facilitates the suppliers and ARTs.
• Supplier: An internal or external organization that builds and delivers the components, services, or subsystems.

4) Portfolio Level: The roles at the Portfolio level coordinate at the multiple stream level and provide the highest level of governance and accountability:

• Lean-Portfolio Management: Represents the individuals with the highest level of decision making and financial accountability.
• Epic Owners: Coordinate portfolio epics via the portfolio Kanban systems
• Enterprise Architect: Optimizes portfolio outcomes by providing the strategic technical direction.
• Other supporting Roles:
• • System Team: Helps in creating and using the Agile development environment.

• • Lean User Experience (Lean UX): A process, culture, and mindset that embraces Lean-Agile methods.
  • Lean-Agile Leaders: Responsible for the successful adoption of SAFe.

Scaled Agile announced a new version of the Scaled Agile Framework, SAFe 6.0 on 15th of March 2023. Here are some important upgrades made in the SAFe 6.0, listed out as six primary themes:

• Strengthening the foundation of Business Agility
• Empowering teams and clarifying responsibilities
• Accelerating value flow
• Enhancing Business Agility with SAFe across the business
• Building the future with AI, Big Data, and Cloud
• Delivering better outcomes with measure and grow and OKRs

The SAFe Implementation Roadmap provides a strategy and a set of activities that can help in implementing SAFe successfully. Achieving the benefits of Lean/Agile development and business agility at scale takes a lot of effort. Before you can get the rewards of SAFe, your organization needs to embrace the Lean/Agile mindset and implement the Lean/Agile principles. And even though there are no perfect step-by-step instructions for implementation, the following 12 steps can help in getting the best results to the businesses:

1. Recognize the tipping point
   Organizations must recognize once they have reached their tipping point, a point at which the only reasonable way forward is toward success. The reason for change will get so compelling that resisting it will be unacceptable
2. Train Lean-Agile Change Agents
   All the Lean-Agile change agents will be trained as the Certified SAFe Program Consultants who can offer the knowledge and horsepower to the business for implementing the change.
3. Train executives, managers, and leaders
   Implementing any change requires strong leadership. In the case of SAFe, some leaders will provide ongoing and direct sponsorship for the change as participants in the LACE (Lean-Agile Center of Excellence). Some others will be involved with implementing SAFe or leading, influencing, and managing the transformation.
4. Create a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence
   LACE is a team of people who are dedicated to the implementation of SAFe in the organization. This is among the key differences between companies that are committed to the practices of Lean-Agile and those who are practicing Agile just for the purpose of the name.
5. Identify Value Streams and ARTs
   This requires an in-depth understanding of the organizational model that will be facilitating the flow of value through functional silos, boundaries, and activities.
6. Create the Implementation Plan
   The newly trained Lean-Agile leaders will apply their new knowledge for identifying the strategies to implement the framework. This leads to the creation of the implementation plan.
7. Prepare for ART Launch
   This includes executing the activities required for the successful ART launch. SAFe Program Consultants will lead this implementation.
8. Train teams and launch the ART
   This includes focusing on the Agile teams who will be creating the system needed by the organization.
9. Coach ART Execution
   By now, organizations will have made an investment in training stakeholders and developing SPC change agents in the new working ways. Now the time is for the Lean-Agile leaders to focus on what actually matters. This will start with ART-level and team-level coaching.
10. Launch more ARTs and Value Streams
    This stage involves moving at an accelerated speed. The enterprise will launch more ARTs and value streams for consolidating gains and producing more change. The organization will be able to realize the complete benefits of SAFe.
11. Extend to the Portfolio
    With the success of the ARTs and value streams, the organization will be exposed to traditional and phase-gated processes that impede performance. This will put pressure on the portfolio triggering the need for more changes that can improve strategic flow.
12. Accelerate
    This is the start of another journey that is based on relentless improvement. The emerging Lean enterprise will now have to start to create a new operating culture and model, one where the practices and principles of Lean and Agile are the norms.

The cost of Leading SAFe certification varies based on the training provider. Typically, it includes training fees, study materials, mock exams, and the official SAFe certification exam fee. With upGrad KnowledgeHut, the course fee is all-inclusive, covering real-world simulations, mentor guidance, and post-training support.