SAFe-RTE SAFe Release Train Engineer (RTE) Questions and Answers

Aligning around organizational value streams

Centralized risk management

Decouple deployment from release

Change board community of practice

Continuous Integration

Establishing an architectural vision for the Agile Release Release Train

Defining Program Backlog content

Prioritizing the Portfolio Backlog

Develop more detailed Feature definitions

Add data Architects onto the ART

Confirm attendance of architectural representatives at Program Increment (PI) Planning

Conduct the entire data architecture design upfront

It enables more effective time tracking

It ensures all value streams in the portfolio are appropriately funded

It ensures different types of backlog items are not compared against one another

Backlog refinement

System Demo

Daily stand-up

Program Increment Planning

Because leadership is spontaneous

Because the team is not structured correctly

Because there are conflicts

Because no one guides them

Which themes are on the Roadmap

How many Features have already been released to the Customer

Which problem will the Solution solve

Change the business priorities

Recognize the team with the highest velocity

Combine teams to increase velocity

Change the scope

Hire new people

They stay in the Portfolio Backlog until implementation capacity is available

They are split into Features and acceptance criteria is established

They operate as constraints on the design of the system

Ensure the team gives accurate estimates

Ensure everyone on the team participates

Provide information about customer needs

Limit discussion to manage timeboxes

Determine Epic job size using the Lean business case

Launch Agile Release Trains

Implement the Lean Portfolio Management core competency

Coordinate all Agile Release Trains to provide feedback for cost of delay factors

Top ten Features

Top 20 Features

Business context

Program board

The highest possible quality

A Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Significant team contributions

Improved capacity allocation

The team does not understand the tasks related to the story

The story lacks acceptance criteria

The team has no experience in estimating

The story does not include a role

Gives open, honest opinions

Removes all conflict

As a technical expert

Understands customer needs

Release Train Engineer

Solution Architect/Engineer

Product Management

Business Owner

Transparency

Program Execution

Alignment

Organizational readiness - Strategic alignment; roles, teams, and train setup

Architectural readiness - Defining the Architectural Runway

Operational readiness - Facilitating PI events such as scrum of scrums, Iteration Planning, and System emo

Facilities readiness - Space and logistics for the event

Process readiness - The operational rhythm that enables SAFe governance

Ask the teams to commit only to Enablers as their Program Increment (PI) Objec-tives during the PI Planning event and address Features as uncommitted objec-tives for the first PI

Create alignment with the System Architect and Product Management that the first Program Increment (PI) is all about Enablers in order to plan for creating business value in the second PI

Ask the Business Owner which Enablers have high business value

Work with Product Management and System Architects to identify future Features and determine the Enablers to achieve them

Encourage the team to perform regular self-assessments and discuss findings

Conduct a survey to identify the worst problems the team is having

Observe the team's ceremonies and share observations

Run longer I&A meetings to brainstorm improvement items

Features

Stories

Capabilities

Skip the Inspect and Adapt event

Include inexperienced team members

Start the Agile Release Train without a System Team in place

Overprepare for PI Planning

Risks on the teams' planning boards are resolved by the Release Train Engineer

Teams use color-coding for their backlog items as a reminder that they are re-quired to have all backlog item types on their planning boards

Draft objectives and uncommitted objectives are written

All teams' planning boards are visible and use the same color-coding

Draft objectives are written but do not include exploration Enablers

Key Agile Release Train stakeholders, including Business Owners, Customers, and management can participate along with the teams

The Release Train Engineer gathers the list of problems to be solved during the fi-nal scrum of scrums of the Program Increment (PI)

Encourage teams to sit together during the retrospective portion to ensure an ef-fective outcome

The improvement backlog items resulting from the problem-solving workshop should be items that only leadership can address