SAFe PO/PM Training Course

Role Definition for Product Owners and Product Managers within the SAFe Enterprise

• Adoption of the Lean-Agile mindset and SAFe 6.0 core values, emphasizing alignment, transparency, and respect for people.
• Clarification of distinctions between Product Owner and Product Manager roles, including scope, accountabilities, and decision-making boundaries at team and program levels.
• Integration of role responsibilities within Value Streams, Agile Release Trains (ARTs), and Lean Portfolio Management structures.
• Application of customer-centric discovery practices and principles for continuous value delivery for government initiatives.
• Lab 1: Conduct an accountability mapping workshop and role alignment exercise utilizing actual organizational structures.

Preparation for Program Increment (PI) Planning

• Development of business context and vision, focusing on problem spaces, desired outcomes, and hypothesis-driven planning.
• Construction of program backlog architecture, progressing from Epics to Features, User Stories, and acceptance criteria.
• Utilization of story mapping, capacity planning, and backlog refinement techniques.
• Identification of cross-team dependencies, maintenance of risk registers, and execution of pre-PI synchronization activities.
• Lab 2: Perform a draft backlog refinement simulation and develop a comprehensive draft PI agenda and pre-read package.

Facilitation of PI Planning

• Overview of PI Planning structure, agenda items, and team breakout mechanics.
• Execution of plan reviews, confidence voting, risk mitigation strategies, and management review processes.
• Facilitation of collaborative planning, resolution of constraints, and tracking of commitments.
• Development of post-PI execution plans, including milestone definitions, checkpoint schedules, and stakeholder communication protocols.
• Lab 3: Participate in a full PI Planning simulation involving cross-team dependency mapping, risk workshops, and confidence scoring.

Execution of Iterations

• Iteration planning activities, including story prioritization, capacity allocation, and establishment of definitions of ready and done.
• Conduct of Daily Scrums, iteration demonstrations, and team retrospectives.
• Management of scope changes, impediment removal, and establishment of continuous stakeholder feedback loops.
• Analysis of flow metrics, including velocity, throughput, lead time, and burn-up/down tracking.
• Lab 4: Engage in an iteration execution simulation featuring live backlog grooming, stakeholder demonstrations, and impediment resolution.

Execution of the Program Increment (PI)

• Monitoring PI execution through milestone tracking, health indicators, and delivery forecasting.
• Facilitation of Inspect and Adapt (I&A) workshops, including solution demonstrations, A3 problem-solving, and roadmap adjustments.
• Implementation of continuous improvement mechanisms, including backlog grooming cadence, governance adherence, and value stream optimization.
• Integration of Continuous Delivery Pipeline and DevOps culture, emphasizing CI/CD integration, automation, and platform readiness for government systems.
• Lab 5: Complete an I&A simulation involving A3 root-cause analysis, solution demonstration critique, and creation of an improvement backlog.

Pathway to SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager Certification

• Overview of the SPM-61 exam structure, question formats, domain weighting, and time management strategies.
• Review of key certification domains: Lean-Agile principles, ART execution, iteration/PI planning, role accountabilities, and flow metrics.
• Access to practice questions, exam readiness checklists, and retake policy information.
• Information on certification pathways, ongoing learning resources, and engagement with the SAFe community for government professionals.
• Capstone: Development of a personal implementation roadmap, certification readiness assessment, and participation in a peer coaching session.
• Conclusion of the course with open questions and distribution of reference materials.