SAFe-APM SAFe Agile Product Manager (APM 5.1) Questions and Answers

The BMC is a strategic management tool that lets you visualize and assess your business idea or concept. It consists of nine boxes that represent different fundamental elements of a business, such as customer segments, value propositions, channels, and cost structure. The BMC helps you to design, analyze, optimize, and communicate your business model, and to test and iterate it as you learn from the market feedback. The BMC can be used for any type of business or product, regardless of whether it generates revenue or not, as long as it delivers value to the customers.

References:

• Business Model Canvas - Wikipedia: This article from Wikipedia explains the concept and history of the BMC, and describes its nine building blocks and their relationships.
• Business Model Canvas: Explained with Examples | Creately: This article from Creately provides a detailed guide on how to create a BMC, with examples and templates for different types of businesses and products.
• Business Model Canvas – Download the Official Template: This website from Strategyzer offers the official template and online courses, books, and webinars to master the BMC.

 Time criticality is one key component of Cost of Delay (CoD), which is the money or value that will be lost by delaying or not doing a job for a specific time period relative to other jobs. Time criticality reflects the urgency or sensitivity of a job to time, and how its value changes over time. For example, a job that has a fixed deadline, a seasonal demand, or a high risk of obsolescence has a high time criticality, and its CoD increases rapidly as time passes. A job that has a stable demand, a low risk of competition, or a long-term benefit has a low time criticality, and its CoD increases slowly or remains constant over time.

References:

• WSJF: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the concept and purpose of Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF), which is a prioritization model that uses CoD and job duration to sequence jobs for maximum economic benefit. It also describes the four components of CoD: user or business value, time criticality, risk reduction and/or opportunity enablement, and job size.
• Cost of Delay - Scaled Agile Framework: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework defines CoD as the numerator in WSJF prioritization, and provides some examples of how to estimate CoD for different types of jobs.

A product vision is a description of the future state of the product and what problems it tries to solve or what ambitions it tries to fulfill. The most important information to communicate in a product vision is how life/work will improve by using this solution. This information captures the value proposition and the benefit hypothesis of the product, which reflect the needs and expectations of the customers and the stakeholders. This information also inspires and motivates the people who work on the product, as well as the potential users of the product. This information sets the direction and the purpose of the product, and guides the development and delivery of the features and capabilities.

References:

• Vision - Scaled Agile Framework
• Solution Vision - Scaled Agile Framework
• Product Vision | Agile Product Management

A secondary persona is a type of persona that represents another user of the primary interface who can be accommodated as long as the targeted persona’s experience is not compromised. A secondary persona is not the main focus of the product design, but still has some needs and expectations that should be considered. A secondary persona can help to identify additional features, functionalities, or scenarios that can enhance the product value and usability, without sacrificing the primary persona’s satisfaction.

References:

• Design Thinking - Scaled Agile Framework
• Personas - Scaled Agile Framework
• When dealing with a complex product, a secondary persona could be best defined as what?

Personas are fictional characters that represent the ideal customers or users of a product or service. They help product teams understand and empathize with the needs, goals, and preferences of their target segments. Personas can help define the features and benefit hypothesis of a product’s strategic intent, which is the assumption that a certain set of features will deliver a specific benefit to the customers or users. By using personas, product teams can validate their feature and benefit hypothesis with real user feedback, and prioritize the features that deliver the most value and satisfaction to their personas.

References:

• Personas: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the concept and purpose of personas, and how they can be used in a SAFe context to support customer-centricity, design thinking, and lean UX.
• Strategic Intent: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework defines the concept and components of strategic intent, and how it guides the portfolio vision, lean budget guardrails, and portfolio backlog.
• Feature and Benefit Hypothesis: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework describes the concept and process of feature and benefit hypothesis, and how it helps product teams test and validate their assumptions about customer value.

The expected product is the aspect of whole-product thinking that captures a Customer’s price sensitivity. Whole-product thinking is a framework that helps to define and deliver a complete solution that meets the Customer’s needs and expectations. Whole-product thinking consists of four levels: generic product, expected product, augmented product, and potential product. The expected product is the level that includes the basic features and benefits that the Customer expects from the product, and that determines the Customer’s willingness to pay for the product. The expected product reflects the Customer’s price sensitivity, which is the degree to which the Customer’s behavior is influenced by the price of the product.

References:

• Customer Centricity - Scaled Agile Framework
• Analysis of the Effects of Perceived Value, Price Sensitivity, Word-of …
• Pricing Sensitivity: Meaning, Calculation & Strategy | Qualtrics
• Which aspect of whole-product thinking captures a Customer’s price …

According to the SAFe® Agile Product Management APM (6.0) documents and learning resources, the Product Manager is responsible for defining and communicating the product vision and roadmap to the Agile Release Train (ART) during PI Planning. The product vision describes the future state of the product and the value it will deliver to the customers and the enterprise. The roadmap outlines the features and enablers that will realize the vision over time. The Product Manager also presents the top 10 features for the upcoming Program Increment (PI) and their priorities based on the Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) method.

References:

• Agile Product Management - Scaled Agile Framework
• Product and Solution Management - Scaled Agile Framework
• PI Planning - Scaled Agile Framework
• WSJF - Scaled Agile Framework

Design Thinking is a creative process that involves empathizing with customers, defining the problem, ideating possible solutions, prototyping, and testing. Design Thinking can help API design and development by ensuring that the APIs are user-centric, meet the needs and expectations of the customers, and deliver value to the business. Design Thinking can also help API design and development by fostering collaboration, experimentation, and feedback among the stakeholders, such as product managers, developers, and customers.

References:

• Design Thinking - Scaled Agile Framework
• How to Design an API – Application Programming Interface Best Practices
• Best Practices in API Design - Swagger

Product strategy is the high-level plan that defines the vision, goals, and direction of a product. Product strategy guides the development and delivery of a product that meets the needs and expectations of the customers and the business. Product strategy is primarily driven by the research activity of understanding Customers and values. This activity involves identifying and segmenting the target market, analyzing the customer needs, problems, and opportunities, defining the value proposition and the benefit hypothesis, and validating the assumptions and hypotheses with customer feedback. Understanding Customers and values helps to align the product strategy with the customer-centric mindset and the business outcomes.

References:

• Customer Centricity - Scaled Agile Framework
• Product and Solution Management - Scaled Agile Framework
• Using Market Research To Drive Business Strategy | PlanBeyond

According to the Scaled Agile Framework, the Portfolio Backlog contains the highest-level portfolio epics, which are large, cross-cutting initiatives that require analysis, approval, and funding by the Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) team1. The ART Backlog contains the features, which are services provided by the system that fulfill stakeholder needs2. Features are derived from epics and are typically implemented by one Agile Release Train (ART) within one Program Increment (PI)3. Therefore, Request 1, which is an incremental innovation that can be done by one ART in one PI, should be added to the ART Backlog as a Feature. Request 2, which is a major opportunity impacting multiple stages of the Value Stream and requiring the participation of two ARTs over multiple PIs, should be added to the Portfolio Backlog as an Epic.

References:

• Portfolio Backlog: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the purpose, structure, and content of the Portfolio Backlog, and how it is managed by the LPM team using the Portfolio Kanban system.
• Features: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework defines the concept of features, their attributes, and their relationship with epics and stories.
• ART Backlog: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework describes the role, composition, and management of the ART Backlog, and how it supports the PI Planning process.

The horizon model is a framework that helps organizations balance their investments across different time horizons and types of innovation. According to the Scaled Agile Framework, there are four horizons: Horizon 0, Horizon 1, Horizon 2, and Horizon 31. Horizon 1 describes the desired state as stable solutions that deliver high value with minimal new investment. These are the core products or services that generate most of the current revenue and profit, and have a loyal customer base. Horizon 1 solutions require continuous improvement and optimization, but not significant new investment or disruption. Horizon 1 can be further divided into two sub-horizons: Investing and Extracting2.

References:

• Horizon Planning: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the concept and purpose of horizon planning, and describes the four horizons and their characteristics, challenges, and best practices.
• SAFe®’s investment horizon model — A synopsis: This article from Medium provides a summary of the SAFe investment horizon model, and illustrates how it can help organizations allocate their resources and manage their portfolio.

Investment horizon 3 is the longest-term horizon that focuses on exploring and developing breakthrough innovations that can create new markets and revenue streams for the business. It is important for every business to allocate funding to investment horizon 3, because it enables the business to anticipate and respond to the changing customer needs, technological trends, and competitive threats, and to secure its future growth and survival. Investment horizon 3 requires a high level of creativity, experimentation, and risk tolerance, but it can also generate a high level of return and differentiation.

References:

• Horizon Planning: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework explains the concept and purpose of horizon planning, and describes the four horizons and their characteristics, challenges, and best practices.
• SAFe®’s investment horizon model — A synopsis: This article from Medium provides a summary of the SAFe investment horizon model, and illustrates how it can help organizations allocate their resources and manage their portfolio.
• Enduring Ideas: The three horizons of growth | McKinsey: This article from McKinsey presents the original framework of the three horizons of growth, and discusses how it can help businesses balance their current and future opportunities and challenges.

A product vision is a statement that describes the desired outcome and value proposition of a solution. It helps guide the development of the solution by providing a clear and compelling direction. A product vision also helps drive a solution roadmap, which shows the planned features and milestones for the solution over a timeline. A product vision is part of the solution intent, which is the repository of the current and intended solution behavior and design.

References:

• Solution Intent
• Solution Vision
• Roadmap
• Solution Management

A successful minimum viable product (MVP) that has value in the market reveals that the Epic hypothesis has been validated and that development should continue. An MVP is an early and minimal version of a new product or solution that is used to test the assumptions and hypotheses behind an Epic. An MVP provides the fastest and cheapest way tolearn from real customers and to measure the impact and value of the Epic. A successful MVP means that the Epic has proven its desirability, viability, feasibility, and sustainability, and that there is still more value to be delivered by implementing additional features and capabilities. Therefore, development should continue until the Epic is completed or the value hypothesis changes.

References:

• Epic - Scaled Agile Framework
• Minimum Viable Product (MVP) - Scaled Agile Framework
• Innovation Accounting in SAFe - Scaled Agile Framework

Primary data is information collected through original research by the marketer or researcher themselves. Primary data is used to test hypotheses, which are tentative statements or assumptions about the relationship between variables or the outcome of an experiment. Testing hypotheses helps to validate or invalidate the assumptions and predictions made by the marketer or researcher, and to measure the effectiveness and impact of their product or service.

References:

• Primary Data - Types, Methods and Examples: This article from Research Method defines primary data, explains its types and methods, and provides some examples of primary data collection and analysis.
• [Hypothesis Testing]: This article from the Scaled Agile Framework describes the concept and process of hypothesis testing, and how it helps to evaluate the value proposition and assumptions of a product or service using experiments and feedback.