Free Practice Questions for Scaled Agile SAFe-DevOps Exam

The reason why it is important to take a structured approach to analyze problems in the delivery pipeline is that it helps ensure that actual causes of problems are addressed, rather than symptoms. A structured approach to problem analysis involves following a systematic and logical process to identify, define, and understand the root causes of a problem, and to propose and evaluate possible solutions. A structured approach can help avoid jumping to conclusions, making assumptions, or applying band-aid fixes that do not solve the underlying issues. A structured approach can also help involve the relevant stakeholders, collect and analyze data, prioritize and categorize problems, and communicate and document the findings and recommendations. Some examples of structured approaches to problem analysis are the 5 Whys, the fishbone diagram, the Pareto chart, and the PDCA cycle

According to the SAFe DevOps Practitioner 6.0 study guide and handbook, value flows through Continuous Integration in the Continuous Delivery Pipeline. This aspect involves merging code changes from multiple developers into a shared repository and running automated tests to ensure quality and functionality. The handbook states that "Continuous Integration is the process of merging code changes from multiple developers into a shared repository and running automated tests to ensure quality and functionality."1 Therefore, Continuous Integration enables teams to deliver value faster and more reliably by reducing integration errors and conflicts.

The DevOps Health Radar aligns the four aspects of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline to four stakeholder concerns: alignment, quality, time-to-market, and business value. The DevOps Health Radar is a tool that helps Agile Release Trains (ARTs) and Solution Trains assess their ability to Release on Demand, which is the process of delivering value to customers whenever there is a business need. The DevOps Health Radar consists of four dimensions that correspond to the four aspects of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline: Continuous Exploration (CE), Continuous Integration (CI), Continuous Deployment (CD), and Release on Demand. Each dimension has four sub-dimensions that reflect the key practices and capabilities that enable the flow of value. The DevOps Health Radar helps the ARTs and Solution Trains to measure their maturity in each sub-dimension, using a scale of Sit, Crawl, Walk, Run, or Fly. The DevOps Health Radar also helps the ARTs and Solution Trains to identify the gaps and improvement opportunities in their DevOps practices, and to prioritize the next steps toward achieving higher levels of maturity. The DevOps Health Radar aligns the four aspects of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline to four stakeholder concerns, as shown in Figure 1:

Alignment – Alignment is the concern of ensuring that the solution is aligned with the customer needs, market opportunities, and strategic goals of the enterprise. Alignment is achieved by applying the CE aspect, which involves exploring the market and customer problems, defining a vision, roadmap, and set of features for the solution, and validating the assumptions and hypotheses with customer feedback and data.

Quality – Quality is the concern of ensuring that the solution meets the functional and nonfunctional requirements and standards, and that it does not introduce any defects or vulnerabilities. Quality is achieved by applying the CI aspect, which involves developing, testing, integrating, and validating new functionality in preparation for deployment and release.

Time-to-market – Time-to-market is the concern of ensuring that the solution can be delivered and deployed to the production environment as fast and as frequently as possible, without compromising quality or security. Time-to-market is achieved by applying the CD aspect, which involves automating and streamlining the deployment process, and ensuring the stability and reliability of the production environment.

Business value – Business value is the concern of ensuring that the solution delivers the expected outcomes and benefits to the customer and the enterprise, and that it can be adapted and improved based on the changing needs and feedback. Business value is achieved by applying the Release on Demand aspect, which involves releasing new functionality to the customer incrementally or immediately, based on the market demand, and measuring and learning from the results12

1: https://scaledagileframework.com/blog/assess-your-devops-health-with-the-safe-devops-radar/ 2: https://support.scaledagile.com/s/article/Exam-Study-Guide-SDP-6-0-SAFe-for-DevOps

Refactoring is the activity of improving the internal structure or operation of a code or component without changing its external behavior. The goal of software development is the continuous delivery of business value to users and stakeholders. Constantly changing technology and evolving business objectives make maintaining and continuously increasing business value difficult. Refactoring enables an emergent design, ensuring the system continues to meet future business needs. Refactors are a particular type of Enabler story in SAFe, and, like any other Story, they must be estimable, verifiable, and valuable, as well as accepted by the Product Owner. SAFe emphasizes the importance of keeping all work visible, including refactoring. Like user value work, refactoring must be planned for, estimated, and prioritized. Therefore, developers should create and estimate refactoring Stories in the Team Backlog, and work on them according to their WSJF1

 According to the SAFe DevOps Practitioner 6.0 study guide and handbook, Continuous Deployment is a practice that helps developers deploy their code into production. This means that Continuous Deployment involves moving changes from the staging environment to the production environment, without requiring manual intervention or approval. The handbook states that "Continuous Deployment is the practice of moving changes from the staging environment to the production environment, without requiring manual intervention or approval."1 Therefore, Continuous Deployment enables teams to deliver value to customers faster and more reliably.

According to the SAFe DevOps Practitioner 6.0 study guide and handbook, test data management is one reason for test data management. This means that test data management helps teams ensure that the application under test has a consistent and reliable state, by automating the provisioning of data from various sources and formats. The handbook states that "Test data management is the process of automating provisioning of data to an application in order to set it to a known state before testing begins."1 Therefore, test data management enables teams to perform end-to-end testing with confidence and accuracy.

The Respond activity in the SAFe DevOps Health Radar is about proactively detecting and resolving production issues before they cause business disruption. It requires two skills: cross-team collaboration and version control. Cross-team collaboration enables faster resolution of incidents by involving the right people and teams. Version control enables tracking changes and restoring previous versions of the code or configuration if needed

According to the SAFe DevOps Practitioner 6.0 study guide1, a canary release is a type of release on demand that involves making a Solution available to any subset of users, such as a specific team, product, or region. A canary release allows the DevOps teams to test the Solution in a controlled environment and monitor its performance and feedback before rolling it out to the entire customer base. A canary release can help reduce the risk of introducing errors or failures into production and improve the quality and reliability of the Solution.

The primary purpose of creating an automated test suite is to enable continuous testing in SAFe DevOps. Continuous testing is the process of executing automated tests as part of the software delivery pipeline to obtain immediate feedback on the business risks associated with a software release candidate. Continuous testing supports the other aspects of the Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP) by providing fast and frequent feedback on the quality and compliance of the solution. Continuous testing also reduces the cost and effort of manual testing and increases the confidence and reliability of the solution. Continuous testing requires a test automation strategy that covers all types of tests, such as unit, integration, functional, performance, security, and user acceptance tests

One of the recommended ways to architect for operations is to implement feature toggles, which are mechanisms that allow developers to turn features on or off without redeploying the code. Feature toggles enable faster and safer deployments, as well as experimentation and testing in production. They also allow the operations team to control when and how new features are released to the end users, based on business needs and market demand. Feature toggles can also be used to mitigate risks and roll back changes in case of errors or failures