Scaled Agile SAFe-Agilist - SAFe 6 Agilist - Leading SAFe (SA) (6.0)

Design thinking is a method that provides a continuous understanding of the target market. Design thinking is a human-centered approach to problem-solving that involves empathy, ideation, experimentation, and implementation. Design thinking helps teams discover the real needs and desires of their customers, generate innovative solutions that address those needs, validate their assumptions through fast feedback loops, and deliver value that delights their customers. Design thinking helps teams achieve the core competency of Customer Centricity in SAFe. References: Customer Centricity, Design Thinking

An enabling team is a type of cross-functional Agile team that is organized to assist other teams with specialized capabilities and help them become more proficient in new technologies. Enabling teams provide coaching, mentoring, training, and technical guidance to other teams in areas such as DevOps, test automation, security, compliance, etc. Enabling teams help other teams achieve the core competency of Technical Agility in SAFe. References: Cross-functional Agile Teams, Technical Agility

According to SAFe Principle #8, "Unlock the intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers," beyond purpose and mission, this principle emphasizes that:

“Management sets the mission with minimum constraints… Workers themselves are most qualified to make decisions about how to perform their work.”

This aligns with promoting autonomy, mastery, and purpose—autonomy being enabled by minimal constraints from management.

This statement is one of the values from the Agile Manifesto. The Agile Manifesto is a declaration of four values and twelve principles that guide Agile software development. The four values are: individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and responding to change over following a plan. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation means that Agile teams value building strong relationships with their customers based on trust, feedback, and shared understanding, rather than relying on rigid contracts that limit flexibility and creativity. References: Thriving in the Digital Age, Agile Manifesto

The workbook explains that ROAM stands for:

“Resolved – Addressed; no longer a concern

Owned – Someone has taken responsibility

Accepted – Nothing more can be done and if risk occurs, release may be compromised

Mitigated – Team has plan to adjust as necessary.”

Source: Workbook, Page 4-60

The SAFe Workbook outlines Lean-Agile Leadership as having three core dimensions:

Mindset and principles

Leading by example

Leading the change

Each dimension is explained with specific behaviors and leadership strategies.

Guiding investments by horizon is the Lean budget guardrail that helps ensure the appropriate allocation of budgets to balance near-term opportunities with long-term strategy and growth. A Lean budget guardrail is a policy or guideline that governs how the portfolio operates within the Lean budgeting system. Guiding investments by horizon means allocating budgets across three time horizons: Horizon 1 (current value streams), Horizon 2 (emerging opportunities), and Horizon 3 (exploration and innovation). This helps the portfolio balance the exploitation of existing markets with the exploration of new ones, and foster a culture of experimentation and learning. References: Lean Portfolio Management, Traditional and Lean Budgeting Approaches

Comprehensive and Detailed Explanation From Exact Extract:

In SAFe’s Continuous Delivery Pipeline, the practice of separating deployment from release allows organizations to:

Deploy code to production-like environments frequently

Test features safely in production without exposing them to end users

Use techniques like feature toggles, dark launches, canary releases

Release to customers when business conditions are right

This means the main benefit is that it enables testing in a production environment, even before the actual release.

(Source: Scaled Agile Framework – Release on Demand)

Trust is developed by:

“Delivering value consistently and predictably… Predictability builds confidence between teams and stakeholders.”

This is reinforced during PI Planning and Iteration Reviews.