A SAFe Agile Product Delivery (APD) Assessment is a tool for evaluating how effectively an organization delivers valuable products and services, focusing on customer needs and market demands within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). It measures performance in the Agile Product Delivery core competency to identify specific opportunities for improvement in technical and business practices, helping to achieve overall business agility. The assessment provides instant results and benchmark comparisons, using a tool like Agility Surveys to collect data, visualize strengths & weaknesses and guide growth.
What it assesses
The assessment focuses on the Agile Product Delivery competency, one of SAFe’s seven core competencies, which involves building the right product by:
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Understanding Customer Needs:Utilizing techniques like design thinking, empathy interviews, and building personas to uncover unmet customer needs.
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Forming Benefit Hypotheses:Creating hypotheses to validate that solutions are meeting customer needs.
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Using Metrics:Employing leading indicators (e.g., customer behavior changes) and lagging indicators (e.g., increased purchases) to assess the solution’s effectiveness.
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Ensuring Customer Centricity:Maintaining a strong customer focus throughout the product development lifecycle.
Key aspects of Agile Product Delivery in SAFe
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Continuous Exploration: Researching the market to identify opportunities and test hypotheses.
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Continuous Integration: Integrating code and solutions from all teams to ensure they work together seamlessly.
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Continuous Deployment: Validating solutions in a staging environment before releasing them to production.
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Release on Demand: Making solutions available to customers when there is a clear business or customer need.
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Developing on Cadence: Working in consistent iteration cycles to manage development variability and accelerate learning.
Sample SAFe Agile Product Delivery (APD) Assessment Questions:
1. The ART’s purpose and mission are widely understood and aligned with enterprise strategy.
2. All ART roles (RTE, Product Management, System Architect) are clearly defined and staffed.
3. The ART has a well-defined, stable team structure.
4. Teams on the ART are organized around value delivery and have minimal dependencies.
5. Each team within the ART can deliver value independently.
6. The ART has an agreed-upon common Definition of Done across all teams.
7. ART-level governance (ART events, data artifacts, metrics, roles and standards) is in place and understood.
8. There is clear ownership and accountability for cross-team coordination.
9. The ART Product Manager maintains a clear and prioritized ART Backlog.
10. ART Backlog Items directly support product goals and objectives.
11. There is ongoing collaboration between Product Managers and Product Owners.
12. ART Backlog items are sized appropriately for PI planning and delivery.
13. Architectural Enablers are visible and prioritized on the ART Backlog.
14. The ART Backlog is updated continuously based on new insights and learnings.
15. Business stakeholders actively participate in ART backlog refinement and prioritization.
16. ART Backlog items are clearly traceable to business value.
17. Teams are consistently ready for PI Planning with a refined backlog.
18. ART-level capacity planning is realistic and includes a buffer for innovation.
19. Dependencies between teams are proactively identified and managed.
20. Risks and constraints are raised, discussed, and tracked in the planning process.
21. The ART’s PI Objectives are clearly defined, measurable, and aligned with business strategy.
22. Teams have time and support to conduct proper team breakout planning.
23. Business owners are actively involved in the PI planning process.
24. The ART’s PI plan includes a clear risk mitigation strategy for critical dependencies.
25. Teams consistently meet their ART-level PI Objectives.
26. Cross-team coordination is effective and lightweight.
27. Feature completion is tracked and measured across all teams.
28. System Demos occur regularly and show working tested features.
29. Cadenced events are in place to support inspection and adaptation throughout PI execution.
30. Escalations and blockers are addressed swiftly during execution.
31. Teams have clear visibility into progress toward PI Objectives.
32. Agile technical practices (CI, automated testing, trunk-based dev) are applied consistently.
33. The ART holds a PI Inspect & Adapt event at the end of every PI for learning and improving ART effectiveness.
34. Quantitative metrics (predictability, lead time, throughput) are collected and reviewed.
35. Lessons learned are shared across teams to accelerate learning across the ART.
36. Teams and leadership take improvement actions based on feedback and data.
37. Improvement actions are prioritized and planned like any other work.
38. There is a culture of psychological safety for raising issues and learning.
How it works
- Create the assessment using the above questions. This can be done with something like Google Forms, or use the Agility Surveys free survey application which has the assessment already setup with these questions. Email the assessment link to team members.
- Take the Assessment: All teams on an ART (Agile Release Train) complete the assessment.
- Receive Instant Results: Results are provided instantly and can be displayed in a number of reporting formats (example below).
APD Survey Results (Partial) - Benchmark Comparisons: Results can be compared against previous assessments to understand trends.
- Identify Opportunities:The assessment highlights specific areas for growth and improvement in the organization’s APD practices.
- Take Action: The insights gained are used to develop strategies and take action to enhance agility.
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