This guide will show you exactly how to choose the best SAFe certification. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) helps large organizations leverage the benefits of lean-agile, making SAFe certified professionals in demand.

This in-depth guide on SAFe certification will help you steer your career in the right direction.

What is SAFe Certification?

SAFe Certification helps you to become a SAFe-certified professional. Certified professionals are in higher demand today. Scaled Agile issues SAFe Certification.

By earning a SAFe Certification, you can help your organization initiate and deploy projects with a higher degree of agility.

There are a number of SAFe certifications on offer, grouped at the foundational, intermediate, and advanced levels targeted according to the roles.

SAFe Certification Training

First, before choosing a SAFe Certification, you must have a solid understanding of what your organization needs, how it can adapt to SAFe, and identify the source of problems in your current organization.

If you are a project manager or a team leader, understand your roles and responsibilities and develop key skill sets required to accomplish your projects. After confirming what you need exactly from SAFe, you can choose a specialization and start pursuing your SAFe Certification Training at Lean Wisdom.

SAFe Certification Courses

As of now, there are 13 SAFe Certification courses available; it consists of 5 foundational, 5 intermediate, and 3 advanced courses. SAFe courses help every role responsible for Lean agile transformation, including but not limited to program/project managers, Scrum masters, architects, release train engineers, business analysts, agile coaches.

SAFe Certifications can be divided into 3 Major Categories

Foundational
- Agile Product Management
- Leading SAFe
- SAFe DevOps
- SAFe for Government
- SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager
Intermediate
- Agile Software Engineering
- SAFe for Architects
- Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
- SAFe for Teams
- SAFe Scrum Master
Advanced
- SAFe Advanced Scrum Master
- Implementing SAFe
- SAFe Release Train Engineer

So without further ado, let’s dive right into the SAFe certifications.

Agile Product Management

The Agile Product Management certification will suit someone interested in design thinking and a passion for innovation.

There will be 60 questions you are supposed to answer in this course. It would help if you prepared yourself in the following areas.

Design Thinking with Customer Centricity
Vision and Product Strategy
Tools to create successful products
Innovation in the value stream
Work Flow of Product Strategy
Develop and Evolution of Roadmaps

Note: The candidates must have gone through at least one SAFe certification training session and be familiar with Agile principles and practices. They should be from a background in Product or Solution Management. Also, they should have solid experience in being a product manager, product marketer, Product Owner, Business Owner or bringing products to market.

Leading SAFe®

SAFe agilist course introduces you to SAFe principles and constructs; in this Certification course, you need to prepare yourself with a 2-day course Leading SAFe.

As per the name, once you complete this course, you can drive lean-agile transformation in your organisation, for which you need to understand the framework from a strategic level in the first place..

This exam will consist of 45 questions. It will test your abilities on

Apply Lean Agile to scale the development process and progress
Agile Product Development
Agile Portfolio Management
Lean Thinking
Agile Release Trains
Lean Agile Principles and Execution
Create an agile portfolio with Lean Agile Budgeting

Note: Candidates should have an experience of 5+ years in Software Development, Testing, Business Analysis, Product or Project Management. Also the candidate should have experience and exposure in scrum.

SAFe® DevOps

The SAFe DevOps Practitioner certification is not just for engineers who built softwares, but also it helps people in technical, nontechnical and leadership roles. You are going to design a continuous delivery pipeline.

This exam will consist of 45 Questions. It will test the abilities of candidates on,

Continuous Security and Continuous Testing into the delivery pipeline.
Integrate continuous exploration, integration, and deployment.
Design and Implement an actionable DevOps transformation plan.
Devops Health Radar
Transformation Canvas

Note: Candidates should have working experience in operations or a development environment before pursuing the DevOps Practitioner Certification.

SAFe® for Government

The SAFe Government Practitioner course helps generate better results for stakeholders, government and military personnel, contractors and civilians.

After completing this course, you will be able to implement Lean-Agile and SAFe practices in a government organisation. As a result, you can deliver projects correctly and quickly.

This exam will consist of 45 Questions. It will test the abilities of candidates on,

Specific Leadership Behaviours
Agile Release Trains
Agile Principle and Practices
Agile in Multi Vendor Environment
Organize government projects into ART’s

Note: Basic understanding of Agile Manifesto, SAFe House of Lean and SAFe principles. Basic understanding of the full lifecycle of government technology programs is helpful.

SAFe® Product Owner/Product Manager

As the name suggests, SAFe POPM course is best suited for Project Managers/Owners. This course covers the tactical responsibilities of these roles in the Agile Release Train. An additional advantage of completing this course is you can work remotely with distributed teams.

This exam will consist of 45 Questions. It will test the abilities of candidates on,

Integrate customer centric mindset.
SAFe Lean Agile Principles
Lead PI Planning
Decompose epics to features
Collaborate with Agile teams to forecast work

Note: Prior work experience in a SAFe environment and experience with Lean and Agile.

Agile Software Engineering

This certification works best for a person from the Software Engineering discipline to deliver continuous value flow and built-in quality. Here you learn foundational principles and practices that make up the Agile Software Engineering discipline.

In this course, you learn test-first principles to create alignment between tests and requirements and optimize the flow of value.

Test includes 60 questions to test your ability in the following:

Application of test-first principle
SAFe Continuous Delivery Pipeline (detail, model, design, implement, verify, and validate stories)
Agile software engineering plan
Foundations of Lean, Agile, and DevOps principles and practices.
Developing built in quality in code/design

Note: Candidates should have working experience in engineering, development, managing development, or quality assurance before pursuing and understand SAFe for teams

SAFe® for Architects

The SAFe for Architects certification prepares Architects aspiring to transform into effective leaders and change agents to support SAFe program execution.

You will understand the roles, responsibilities, and mindset of Agile Architects, aligning architecture with business value to drive continuous flow.

Test includes 60 questions to test your ability to:

Lay architectural vision for an ART
Architecture and business alignment to drive continuous value flow
Plan and execute program increment
To achieve sustainability with SAFe principles

Note: Candidates should have prior participation in Agile Release Train (ART) and Program Increment (PI).

Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)

The Lean Portfolio Management Certification aims at executives, project management officers (PMOs), and other key stakeholders.

You will understand collaboration across silos, empower teams, and quickly adapt to customer needs and organize around value.

This exam will consist of 45 Questions. It will test the abilities of candidates on,

Establish a Lean portfolio vision binding with enterprise strategy
Employ Agile Portfolio Operations and Lean Governance
Establish Lean budgeting and guardrails
Organize value streams and measure performance

Note: Candidates should have prior experience working with SAFe. Also familiar with agile concepts and principles, value streams, and portfolio management funding models

SAFe® for Teams

This certification is intended for Lean-Agile team members looking to become familiar with SAFe Agile Release Train (ART).

You will understand your role on an Agile team and how your team works with others in an ART. Also, learn how to plan and execute work, apply Scaled Agile Framework and Agile principles, and improve continuously.

There will be 45 questions you are supposed to answer in this course. You need to prepare yourself in the following areas

SAFe agile principles
Agile team function inside of an ART
Plan and execute iterations and the PI
ART processes improvements

Note: Candidates must be familiar with Scrum, Kanban, and Extreme Programming (XP), as well as agile concepts and principles with working knowledge of software or hardware development processes.

SAFe Scrum Master

As the name suggests, the SAFe Scrum Master course is best suited for Scrum Masters, who want their Agile Teams to deliver the maximum business value achievable through SAFe.

You will learn to facilitate events at Team and Program Level for successful program execution, principles of servant leadership. Also, understand Scrum in the context of the entire enterprise.

This exam includes 45 Questions to test the abilities of candidates on:

Coach and lead Agile teams
Facilitate program execution
Aid planning and execution of work during a PI

Note: Candidates must have experience working in a Lean-Agile environment to attend the exam.

SAFe® Advanced Scrum Master

To join the SAFe Advanced Scrum Master course, you should have completed the SAFe Scrum Master. In that case, since you are already working in an agile environment, you will learn how to facilitate success for Agile Teams, Agile Release Trains and the organisation.

This course will take your Leadership skills to the next level. Also, in this course, you will learn how to apply Lead, Kanban, DevOps, and SAFe principles to improve team and business outcomes.

This exam will consist of 45 Questions. It will test the abilities of candidates on,

Coaching and Facilitation Skills
Coach in Multi Team Environment
Coach Agile Teams in Delivering Business Value
Discover how to facilitate success with Agile Teams and Agile Release Trains

Note: This course is not available to everyone regardless of your experience. One or more of the following certifications will be an added advantage, though not mandatory, SAFe Scrum Master (SSM), Certified Scrum Master (CSM), Professional Scrum Master (PSM).

Implementing SAFe

In this course, you will learn how to plan and coach SAFe Transformations in an organisation. Among the top 20,000 global enterprises, there is a huge growing demand for Agile Coaches and Trainers.

Once you have completed this course, you are enabled to lead the Lean-Agile Transformation in your industry. Once you become a SAFe Program Consultant working in a SAFe environment alone will not be your work. You can present yourself as a consultant in Scaled Agile Framework and help companies to lead Agile Transformation.

This exam will consist of 45 Questions. It will test the abilities of candidates on,

Design, Develop and Lead the Lean Agile Transformation
Enterprise Transformation
Identifying Value Streams and Agile Release Trains
Lean Agile Center of Excellence (LACE)
Prepare and Launch an ART

Note: This is an advanced certification course. To enter this course you must have the following. 5+ years of experience in software development, testing, business analysis, product, or project management or 3+ years of experience in Agile One or more relevant Agile certifications will be helpful. All Stakeholders in a Lean Agile Transformation are welcomed into attending this course.

SAFe Release Train Engineer

This course helps you to Lead the process of Agile Train Releases (ART) to deliver value.

To do this you as a Release Train Engineer must create the right environment, have the right conversations, facilitate the right meetings, and gather the right people to make correct decisions based on the right data.

This exam will consist of 45 Questions. It will test the abilities of candidates on,

Lead, Design, Deploy and Implement ART’s
How to Foster Relentless Improvement?
Coach Agile Teams and ART’s to deliver value at scale
Solid grasp of Scaling Lean Practices
Align Large Development Programs with ART’s
Simplifying complex scenarios
Leading and actioning change

Note: Foundational knowledge in agile principle and practises is recommended. Previous Certification in a SAFe course will be an added advantage.

Prior experience and exposure in a SAFe team environment will be an added advantage. Prior experience as a Product Manager, Product Owner or a Business Owner.

Conclusion

Now you can decide the best suitable SAFe Certification for you. SAFe Certified Professionals are in higher demand today, and the demand will only increase in the coming years. The IT industry is updating and getting more accustomed to SAFe practices now.

Master a SAFe Certified Course and Boost your career now. To get a free consultation about your doubts on the SAFe Certification Course, you can request an expert call-back from Lean Wisdom.