Full Guide: Core Competencies of Business Agility in SAFe
What is Business Agility?
In the digital age, every business is a software business. Business Agility is the ability to compete and thrive in the digital age by quickly responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative, digitally-enabled business solutions. It requires that everyone involved in delivering solutions—business and technology leaders, development, IT operations, legal, marketing, finance, support, compliance, and security—use Lean and Agile practices to continually deliver innovative, high-quality products and services faster than the competition.
Why is it Important?
Without Business Agility, enterprises struggle to adapt to the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) nature of the modern market. Traditional, hierarchical organizational structures are often too slow to react. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) provides a dual operating system—stability through hierarchy and speed through a value stream network—empowered by the Seven Core Competencies of Business Agility.
The Seven Core Competencies
To achieve Business Agility, an organization must master the following seven competencies:
1. Lean-Agile Leadership: This explains how leaders drive and sustain organizational change and operational excellence by empowering individuals and teams to reach their highest potential. They do this by leading by example, adopting a Lean-Agile mindset, and leading the change.
2. Team and Technical Agility: This competency describes the critical skills and Lean-Agile principles that high-performing Agile teams and Teams of Teams (Agile Release trains) use to create high-quality solutions for their customers. It focuses on Agile Teams, Built-in Quality, and Team of Teams.
3. Agile Product Delivery: This is a customer-centric approach to defining, building, and releasing a continuous flow of valuable products and services to customers and users. Key dimensions include Customer Centricity and Design Thinking, Developing on Cadence/Releasing on Demand, and DevOps.
4. Enterprise Solution Delivery: This describes how to apply Lean-Agile principles and practices to the specification, development, deployment, operation, and evolution of the world’s largest and most sophisticated software applications, networks, and cyber-physical systems. It involves Solution Trains and coordinating suppliers.
5. Lean Portfolio Management (LPM): LPM aligns strategy and execution by applying Lean and systems thinking approaches to strategy and investment funding, Agile portfolio operations, and Lean governance.
6. Organizational Agility: This describes how Lean-thinking people and Agile teams optimize their business processes, evolve strategy with clear and decisive new commitments, and quickly adapt the organization as needed to capitalize on new opportunities.
7. Continuous Learning Culture: This describes a set of values and practices that encourage individuals—and the enterprise as a whole—to continually increase knowledge, competence, performance, and innovation. It involves becoming a learning organization, relentless improvement, and innovation culture.
How to Answer Questions Regarding Core Competencies in an Exam
When answering questions about Business Agility on the SAFe Agilist (Leading SAFe) exam, you must identify which specific competency solves the problem presented in the scenario.
Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Core Competencies of Business Agility
1. Look for Keywords:
If the question mentions strategy, funding, or budgets, the answer is likely Lean Portfolio Management.
If the question mentions CI/CD, DevOps, or Customer Centricity, the answer is usually Agile Product Delivery.
If the question mentions large cyber-physical systems or suppliers, look for Enterprise Solution Delivery.
If the question is about code quality, Test-Driven Development (TDD), or Scrum/Kanban skills, select Team and Technical Agility.
2. Customer is the Center:
Remember that in the SAFe configurations, the Customer is placed at the very center of the seven competencies. Questions asking 'Who determines value?' or 'Who is the center of business agility?' always point to the Customer.
3. Distinguish Leadership from Culture:
Confusing 'Lean-Agile Leadership' with 'Continuous Learning Culture' is common. Use this rule: If the question asks about the behavior of executives (leading by example, mindset), it is Leadership. If it asks about the organization's ability to innovate and improve, it is Culture.
4. Measure and Grow:
Be aware that organizations measure their proficiency in these competencies using the Business Agility Assessment to determine where to focus their transformation efforts.