Leading SAFe®️ 5.1 Certification Training

The 1st attempt is part of the course fee and needs to be taken 30 days post the course completion. Each re-attempt costs $50. The second attempt on the exam (first retake) can be done immediately after the first attempt. The third attempt requires a 10-day wait. The fourth attempt requires a 30-day wait.

Duration – 90 minutes 

Questions Total – 45 

Passing – 35 Questions and Above 

Format – Multiple Choice Questions 

There are no eligibility criteria for the Leading SAFe 5.1 course. However, it is recommended that you have:

• 5+ years of experience in software development, testing, business analysis, product or project management
• Experience in Scrum

SAFe Agilist Exam 

The digital badge of SAFe Certified professional is a global recognition of the proof of achievement. 

The digital badge helps to share online verifiable certifications online on digital signatures, social media sites, and email signatures. The badges include metadata describing the qualifications of a Certified SAFe professional.
Scaled Agile is partnered with Acclaim for providing digital versions of SAFe certifications. Once the individual has earned their SAFe certification and set their Community Platform privacy reference for sharing their data with Acclaim, they will receive an email from Acclaim to claim their digital badge. All you have to do for activating the digital badge is click the link present in the email, make an account on the Acclaim, claim the badge, and share it through email or social media.

Scaled Agile is the certifying body for the Scaled Agile Structure or SAFe. It is a professional certification program that assesses the knowledge, skills, and mindset of professionals. Here are the various SAFe Certifications available from Scaled Agile:

• Certified SAFe Agile Product Manager

This certification combines the values and principles of Lean-Agile with design thinking for developing viable, sustainable, feasible, and desirable solutions and products. For this certification, you must have the following prerequisites:

• Familiarity with the principles of Agile
• Accomplished at least one SAFe course
• Background in solution or product management
• Experience being a business owner, product manager, product marketer, or product owner

• Certified SAFe Lean Portfolio Manager

These professionals understand how to set up a strategy and investment fund, apply Lean governance and Agile portfolio operation, and develop a plan for the implementation of Lean Portfolio Management. Here are the prerequisites for this certification:

• An understanding of SAFe, strategy, and funding models
• Knowledge of value stream company
• Should have attended the Lean Portfolio Management course
• Certified SAFe Architect

These professionals are change agents and very efficient leaders who deliver the Agile Architecture for empowering the creation of business value. The requirements for this program are:

• Knowledge of the application of Lean-Agile principles
• Should have attended the SAFe for Architects course

• Certified SAFe Agile Software Engineer

These professionals are in charge of applying test-first principles so that they can build alignment between needs and tests, communicate with Agile modeling, apply Lean-Agile principles, develop applications with design and code quality, etc. You must satisfy the following requirements for this program:

• Understand the SAFe framework
• Have a background in development, engineering, managing development, or quality assurance.
• Should have attended the SAFe 5 Agile Software Engineering course

• Certified SAFe Government Practitioner

This program is for the SAFe change agent who utilizes the principles and practices of SAFe to implement and release value through Agile Release Trainings (ARTs) while leading a Lean-Agile transformation. The requirements for this certification are:

• Foundational understanding of SAFe principles, House of Lean, and Agile Manifesto.
• understanding of the lifecycle of government technology programs.
• Should have attended the SAFe Government course

• Certified SAFe DevOps Practitioner

This is a SAFe professional who enhances the flow of value throughout the Continuous Delivery Pipeline, from idea to the operational solution. Here are the requirements for this certification program:

• Experience of working in operations or development environment
• Should have attended the SAFe 5 DevOps Practitioner course

• Certified SAFe Program Consultant

These individuals are SAFe change agents leading all organizational levels through the Lean-Agile transformation by coaching, mentoring, training, and facilitation. The certification has the following requirements:

• Should possess facilitation, time, and classroom management skills
• Adequate Agile experience to be able to teach it to beginners
• Technical skills to work with the workflows and processes
• Should have attended the Implementing SAFe course

• Certified SAFe Release Train Engineer 

These are coaching professionals and program servant leaders who encourage end-to-end delivery of value in a value stream or a single program of a Lean-Agile enterprise. Requirements for this program are as follows:

• Skills for cross-team communication
• Working knowledge of team dynamics
• Knows how to utilize SAFe principles in action and can coach
• Launch or participate in at least one Program Increment (PI) or ART
• Minimum 3 months of hands-on, real-world experience as an RTE
• Attend the SAFe Release Train Engineer Course

• Certified SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager

This SAFe professional works with development companies and customers to recognize and prioritize requirements. The requirements for this certification program are:

• Experience in Agile and Lean
• Should have attended the SAFe Product Owner/Product Manager course

• Certified SAFe Advanced Scrum Master

These individuals are Scrum Masters who are responsible for improving the results of the team by facilitating relentless improvement and cross-team interactions. Here are the requirements for this certification program:

• Hands-on experience in a Lean-Agile environment
• Should have attended the SAFe Advanced Scrum Master course

• Certified SAFe Scrum Master 

These are SAFe Scrum Master Professionals who integrate the Scrum practices into an organization. Here are the requirements for this certification program:

• Hands-on, real-world experience working in an Agile-Lean environment
• Should have attended the SAFe Scrum Master course

• Certified SAFe Practitioner

They are SAFe team members responsible to utilize Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), and Kanban in a SAFe environment. Here are the requirements:

• Familiarity with Scrum, XP, Kanban, concepts, and principles of Agile
• Working knowledge of hardware and software development process
• Should have attended the SAFe for Teams course

• Certified SAFe Agilist

These are SAFe enterprise leaders who are a part of the Lean-Agile transformation. Requirements for this certification are:

• Experience in Scrum
• At least 5 years of experience in software development, testing, product or project management, and business analysis
• Should have attended the Leading SAFe course

You need to pay USD 195 to be active in the community of SAFe.

The Validity period of SAFe certification is of 1 year that is 365 days from the date on which you have received your certification. After a year, a professional needs to renew the certification.

The SAFe Certifications need to be renewed every year. You need the following things to renew the SAFe certification 

• PDUs: A minimum of 10 continuing education/outreach hours (PDUs) 
• Certification Renewal Cost: You will need to purchase the bundled product which includes Membership and Certification and comes at a price of $295 ($100 for renewal and $195 for membership). If you possess more than one certification from Scaled Agile, you can renew all of them together at this cost. For example, if you have a Leading SAFe certification expiring on 31 Mar 2021 and a SASM certification expiring on 30 Sept 2021, when you pay $295, both certifications will get renewed and will have the same expiry of 30 Sept 2021 or whichever is the later date.

You can renew the SAFe certification by the following steps: 

• Log in to the SAFe Community platform using your credentials.
• Click on the "Renew" button next to your certification (located at the top of the homepage)
• You will then be presented with the payment Screen (Shopping Cart), allowing you to complete the renewal process.

The latest update 5.1 was rolled out to the latest version, SAFe 5 on February 10, 2021. The key updates are as follows:

• An updated Big Picture (now at version 5.1)
• New guidance for operational and development value streams to support organizing around value, the #1 request from our customers
• ART and Team Topologies, patterns for organizing teams, and ARTs to improve flow.
• New guidance around DevSecOps technical skills and tools that power the Continuous Delivery Pipeline.
• Integrated Participatory Budgeting, a dynamic and collaborative process of allocating funding to value streams.
• Specific guidance for applying Lean-Agile practices to business and technology domains, including a new SAFe for Hardware article.

More information can be found on Scaled Agile.

Scaled Agile wants the latest updates aligned with the ever-evolving SAFe practices. Scaled Agile continuously updates its existing articles and adds new ones to reflect the updated understanding from the SAFe community and practitioners on best practices in Lean-Agile at scale.

An upgrade is when Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) is significantly changed and the new changes or version is released; this is recognized typically by an increase in the major version number (e.g. 4 to 5). 

Updates are when incremental changes are made to the existing version of the Framework and no upgrade is required.  Updates do not require a retest if you already have the most up-to-date certification available, and no upgrade is required. 

The change from SAFe 5 to 5.1 is an update, not an upgrade.

The version of SAFe remains SAFe 5. The change from SAFe 5 to 5.1 is simply a set of updates to SAFe 5. One of these updates includes a new SAFe 5.1 Big Picture, but this and the other updates, are all in support of SAFe 5 for Lean Enterprises.

The latest release of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) is version 5, update 5.1. ProThoughts offer a Leading SAFe 5 Certification course which is aligned with the latest version of SAFe.