Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

Correct Answer: Facilitate collaboration between the Product Managers of the involved ARTs to plan integration.

In a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) environment, the role of the Scrum Master extends beyond a single team and involves facilitating coordination and collaboration across multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs) when necessary. When handling a high-priority epic that spans multiple ARTs, it's crucial to ensure alignment and integration across the teams and ARTs involved. Facilitating collaboration between the Product Managers of the involved ARTs to plan integration is the most effective way to handle such epics. This approach ensures that all parties are aligned on the vision, objectives, and implementation strategy of the epic, allowing for seamless integration and delivery. The other options are less effective because prioritizing the epic independently within their backlogs could lead to misalignment and integration challenges, recommending delaying the epic simplifies coordination at the expense of delivering value, and splitting the epic into smaller features manageable by individual teams might not address the need for cross-ART coordination and integration.

Correct Answer: Employ Inspect and Adapt sessions to evaluate the team's Iteration goals and effectiveness in achieving them, facilitating improvements for future Sprints.

Within the context of a SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) or any scaled Scrum environment, a common practice to address teams overrunning Sprint commitments is to use Inspect and Adapt (I&A) sessions. These sessions aim to reflect on the team’s work, processes, and outcomes, identifying areas for improvement. The three wrong answers, while related to Agile methodologies, do not directly address the challenge of overrunning Sprint commitments in a manner consistent with best practices. Increasing Sprint length might offer temporary relief but does not solve the root causes. Supplementing Scrum with Kanban or increasing WIP limits without directly addressing the reasons for over-commitment and delays could exacerbate the problem rather than solving it.

Correct Answer: Coach the teams about the value of shared responsibility and the empowerment that comes with decentralized decision making and reiterate that it is a key principle of Agile and SAFe.

The best answer is to coach the teams about the value of shared responsibility and the empowerment that comes with decentralized decision making and reiterate that it's a key principle of Agile and SAFe. Decentralized decision-making empowers teams to make their own informed decisions to deliver the most value faster, directly supporting the principles of Agile and SAFe. Telling the teams to just follow traditional hierarchy until they get used to SAFe promotes a top-down approach, contrary to Agile and SAFe principles. Suggesting the teams take decisions without consulting the rest of the teams can promote silos and hinder collaboration. Onsite management making decisions for the teams also contradicts the Agile value of self-organizing teams.