The correct answer is to guide the team in re-negotiating scope. During PI Planning, creating a realistic plan is paramount. The RTE should facilitate a conversation between the team and the Product Manager to adjust scope, ensuring the team commits to what they can confidently deliver, which is a core principle of planning in SAFe.

The correct answer is PI Planning. A key outcome of PI Planning is the creation of a common, agreed-upon set of PI Objectives that are visible to all stakeholders. This plan, and the visibility it provides, helps align stakeholders and sets the expectation that new work should flow through the Product Owner and the backlog, not directly to teams, thereby protecting them from uncontrolled disruption.

The correct answer is the Release Train Engineer. While Scrum Masters focus on team-level flow, the RTE is responsible for optimizing the flow of value through the entire Agile Release Train. Addressing systemic issues like cross-team dependencies, excessive unplanned work, and pipeline bottlenecks falls squarely within the RTE’s responsibilities to improve the overall health and performance of the train.

The correct answer is merging code into a shared trunk. Continuous Integration is the process of taking features from the backlog and developing, testing, and integrating them into a full system. Frequent integration (e.g., multiple times a day) is its hallmark. The other options—production deployment, feature toggles, and dark launches—are practices associated with the later ‘Release on Demand’ aspect of the pipeline.

The correct answer is that it reduces the long-term cost of delay. The Lean-Agile Mindset emphasizes understanding economics, including the cost of delay. Automating this process speeds up the feedback loop, reduces manual effort and errors, and ultimately gets features to market faster with higher quality. This directly decreases the economic penalty of waiting (cost of delay), which is a fundamental Lean-Agile economic principle.

The correct answer is to document it as a PI Objective. Significant, systemic improvements identified during I&A are captured as ‘Improvement Stories’ back into the ART’s backlog. The proper way to address them is to make them visible and planned. During the next PI Planning, they are often formulated as a PI Objective (a ‘process’ objective) that requires coordination across teams, allowing the train to commit to the improvement work formally.

The correct answer is to enable time for innovation, planning, and learning. The IP Iteration occurs at the end of each PI and serves multiple critical purposes: it provides dedicated time for teams to work on innovation (hackathons, new ideas), participate in PI Planning and the I&A workshop, attend training, and handle activities that don’t fit into the development rhythm. It is not merely a buffer for spillover work.

The correct answer is business value and cost of delay. WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) is the primary model used in SAFe for prioritizing backlogs. WSJF is calculated as the Cost of Delay (which includes business value, urgency, and risk) divided by job size (duration). Therefore, the factors of value, time criticality, risk reduction, and opportunity enablement (components of Cost of Delay) are paramount, not internal politics or arbitrary measures.

The correct answer is that the team is likely under-committing. In SAFe, teams are encouraged to commit to what they *know* they can do, but also to stretch with objectives that challenge them. Consistently finishing early with idle time at the end of every iteration suggests the team is not being challenged or is playing it too safe with commitments. This can be a sign of a fixed mindset and reduces the overall throughput of the ART. The goal is sustainable pace, but also continuous improvement and full utilization of capacity.

The correct answer is to guide the team in re-negotiating scope. During PI Planning, creating a realistic plan is paramount. The RTE should facilitate a conversation between the team and the Product Manager to adjust scope, ensuring the team commits to what they can confidently deliver, which is a core principle of planning in SAFe.0