SAFe® Trainings and Workshops

In contrast to the traditional understanding of leadership, agile organizations distinguish between professional leadership and employee development. Servant leadership is an underlying concept of the agile leadership method.

Participants of this training course will learn how to execute and lead an agile business transformation using the SAFe® agile scaling framework and its underlying principles of lean thinking and product development flow. The course also imparts a basic understanding of the importance of a lean-agile mindset, building a lean portfolio, the concept of agile release trains for continuous delivery of business value, leadership in the context of agile teams and programs, and establishing a continuous delivery pipeline based on DevOps.

Participants will be able to gain SAFe® Agilist certification subsequent to the training.

In an agile organization based on the SAFe® principle, the product manager and product owner roles ensure that development takes place in line with customer needs and so as to create value for the company. Product managers focus mainly on product strategy issues such as identifying customer needs and long-term product planning. Product owners focus on tactics and execution such as working with teams to establish requirements and incrementally implement them.

Participants of this training will learn about the activities, tools and mechanisms to effectively execute the role of product owner or product manager to drive value creation in a lean organization.

Other content includes agile release trains (ART) and their value contribution; writing and prioritizing backlog entries from epic to breaking them down into features and stories; planning iterations and program increments; supporting the continuous delivery pipeline and DevOps culture by the product owner and product manager as well as their role in ensuring continuous improvement.

The product management team of an agile organization strongly focuses on customers and their feedback and sets ambitious goals for incremental development. The right mindset, skills and tools for applying agile techniques to develop successful products – from idea to market – are critical to success.

Participants will learn how to continuously foster innovation; how to define the vision, strategy and roadmaps needed to enter new markets; and how to deliver exciting products and solutions to customers more quickly in line with the corporate strategy.

Participants will be able to gain SAFe® Agile Product Manager certification subsequent to the training.

This training is aimed at candidates who already are SAFe® release train engineers (RTE) or will be taking on this role. Participants learn how to build a high-performance agile release train (ART) that delivers end-to-end business value. The main learning objective is to enable participants to act as servant leaders and coaches in the role of an RTE.

Participants will gain a deep understanding of the role and responsibilities of a release train engineer (RTE) in the context of a SAFe® implementation.

They will learn how to set up release trains as well as coach executives, teams and Scrum Masters in dealing with these new structures, processes and ways of thinking. A key component of the training is the preparation, planning and execution of a program increment (PI) event in the context of an extensive simulation.

Participants will be able to gain SAFe® Release Train Engineer certification subsequent to the training.

To survive in a disruptive global market, companies must rapidly deliver high-value technology solutions. This requires a common DevOps mindset for all roles involved in defining, building, testing, deploying and releasing software-based solutions – not just for the engineers maintaining a continuous integration/delivery pipeline.

Participants will learn what DevOps is and why and how it is relevant to technical, business and leadership roles. They will jointly design a pipeline tailored to their business for the continuous delivery of value-added solutions.

Participants will be able to gain SAFe® DevOps Practitioner (SDP) certification subsequent to the training.

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) supports transformation processes and related initiatives by providing reusable architecture elements and proven reference architectures. Participants will learn about the changing requirements that lean-agile organizations place on EAM and its roles, such as system, solution and enterprise architects.

They will also learn about the roles, responsibilities and mindset of agile architectures and how to align architectures with business value and promote continuous flow in complex system landscapes that form part of large agile initiatives.

Participants will be able to gain SAFe® Architect certification subsequent to the training.

It takes a harmonized strategic and portfolio strategy in order to tap the potentials of an agile organization. Clearly defined, quantifiable objectives, budgeting and coordinating value streams as well as setting up, continuously reviewing and controlling initiatives are among the main tasks of lean portfolio management (LPM).

Participants will learn the tools and practices of the three lean portfolio management dimensions of the scaled agile framework:

• Control and financing of investments,
• Agile portfolio operations and
• Lean governance.

Participants will be able to gain SAFe® Lean Portfolio Manager certification subsequent to the training.

A SAFe® Program Consultant (SPC) takes the lead in adapting and implementing SAFe in organizations. SPCs design the approach, drive the analysis and agilization of value streams with Agile Release Trains (ARTs), and they coach and train all SAFe® roles.

Training participants will gain a deep understanding of the meaning, application and adaptation of the underlying principles, practices and core competencies of SAFe®. Other focal points include the coaching required during an agile transformation, the analysis of value streams, the introduction of agile release trains, the establishment of a continuous delivery pipeline, the establishment of a DevOps culture and the introduction of a lean portfolio.

In an inspiring lecture with discussions, we will deepen your understanding of the agilization of teams, units and organizations.

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) is the most widely used agile scaling framework in the world. We provide you with an in-depth overview of the principles, structures and processes as well as the roles that make up the framework.

We compare SAFe® with alternative models and illustrate its strengths and limitations. We outline what a good SAFe® implementation entails and what mistakes you should avoid.

As a framework designed to provide end-to-end scaling from the team level through to corporate strategy, SAFe® offers attractive methods for managing the company portfolio in an agile manner. In particular, we address the alignment of portfolios with corporate strategy as well as dynamic budgeting, the integration of customers into the value creation process, and we introduce metrics for measuring operational and business success.

The software delivery pipeline includes all steps from the initial product idea to development, quality assurance, deployment and provision to the customer (release). Value stream mapping has two objectives:

• Detection and reduction of bottlenecks in the individual process steps and during handovers.
• Visualization and measurability of operational and business metrics.

In an optimal software delivery process, the individual steps should interlock such that a continuously flowing value stream is generated. The analysis and optimization of the pipeline is based on international best practices, in particular the SAFe DevOps Health Radar. Our workshop concludes with the definition of concrete measures and a discussion.

When funding development projects and portfolios, decisions must be made about how to allocate a limited budget among projects, solutions, initiatives, epics, or other types of endeavors. Traditional projects usually rely on annual budget planning, which is implemented through complex, hierarchical decision-making processes. Annual or even more far-reaching roadmaps are drawn up on the basis of estimates that cannot be substantiated.

Participatory budgeting (PB) is a lean and flexible budgeting strategy for both agile and traditional organizations: Two to four times a year, specialists and technical experts meet to agree transparently and collaboratively on the budgeting for the next term. This makes the purpose and scope of projects more transparent and provides a more solid foundation for budget decisions. Roadmaps are derived based on more accurate estimates, while still allowing for adaptation.