safe mortgage loan originator test Advanced Practice Exam: Hard Questions 2025

A 600-person product development organization has strong Scrum adoption but persistent delivery delays because work is optimized locally by teams. Dependencies surface late, and integration fails frequently. A senior leader proposes "standardize all team backlogs and enforce a single definition of done" as the first SAFe move. As an SAFe Agilist, what is the best first recommendation to address the systemic issue while setting up a successful SAFe adoption?

An ART is under pressure to meet a regulatory deadline. Management wants to "lock the PI scope" and prevent changes after PI Planning to reduce risk. Mid-PI, a critical compliance requirement changes, and delaying it would create legal exposure. Which SAFe principle-driven response best balances compliance, predictability, and economic outcomes?

A platform team acts as a shared service across three ARTs. They are the bottleneck, frequently pulled into urgent work, and their roadmap is constantly disrupted. Each ART complains about delays. What is the most SAFe-aligned approach to reduce the bottleneck while improving flow and predictability across ARTs?

During PI Planning, teams repeatedly commit to too much work and miss objectives. The RTE suspects that estimation is not the main issue; rather, hidden work and quality problems are consuming capacity mid-PI. Which action best reflects SAFe principles to create predictability without resorting to command-and-control?

An organization is launching its first ART. Most teams are component-aligned, and managers insist this is "more efficient" because specialists are scarce. The initial ART design shows heavy cross-team handoffs and high dependency risk. What is the best SAFe approach to ART team design given these constraints?

A newly launched ART has 12 teams. After three iterations, System Demos reveal that many features are "almost done" but not integrated. Teams claim they are blocked by environment issues and late architecture guidance. What is the most effective SAFe-aligned corrective action to restore fast feedback and integrated value delivery?

An ART is struggling with large, multi-team features that cannot be completed within a single iteration. Teams repeatedly start many items and finish few, causing low predictability and growing WIP. The Product Management group argues that "big features are unavoidable." What should the ART do to improve flow while still delivering the intended outcomes?

In PI Planning, Business Owners and teams disagree strongly on the viability of several objectives due to significant external dependencies on another ART. The dependency ART cannot commit to dates, and the risk is high. What is the best SAFe-aligned way to handle this during PI Planning?

Mid-PI, the ART meets most iteration goals but System Demo feedback shows the solution is not meeting key user needs. Stakeholders are frustrated that teams are "delivering the wrong thing." Which change best improves alignment and learning without disrupting flow?

A leader wants to "drive accountability" by ranking teams publicly by velocity and tying performance ratings to the rankings. Morale is declining, and teams are gaming estimates. What should a SAFe leader do instead to improve performance and outcomes at scale?