SAFe® DevOps with SDP Certification

DevOps Foundations

DevOps

A mindset, culture, and set of technical practices that unite development and operations to deliver value continuously, improving the flow of value from idea to production.

Business Value of DevOps

DevOps accelerates time-to-market, improves quality and stability, and enables faster feedback, directly supporting strategic business objectives.

Culture of Shared Responsibility

DevOps breaks down silos so development, operations, security, and the business share responsibility for the full spectrum of solution delivery.

Idea to Cash / Concept to Cash

The full flow of value from an initial idea through development and delivery to realized business value; DevOps optimizes this end-to-end flow.

CALMR

CALMR Approach to DevOps

SAFe's DevOps approach: Culture (shared responsibility), Automation (of the pipeline), Lean flow (small batches, limited WIP), Measurement (of everything), and Recovery (low-risk releases and fast recovery).

Culture (CALMR)

Establishing a culture of shared responsibility across development, operations, and the business so people collaborate to deliver and operate solutions.

Automation (CALMR)

Automating the continuous delivery pipeline — builds, tests, deployments — to increase speed, repeatability, and quality, while avoiding automating broken processes.

Lean Flow (CALMR)

Optimizing flow with small batch sizes, limited work in process, and short queues to reduce lead time and expose bottlenecks.

Measurement (CALMR)

Measuring the full pipeline — flow, quality, and business outcomes — to make bottlenecks visible and guide improvement decisions.

Recovery (CALMR)

Designing for low-risk releases and fast recovery from failures, so teams can deploy frequently with confidence and minimal blast radius.

Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Continuous Delivery Pipeline (CDP)

The workflows, activities, and automation that deliver new functionality: Continuous Exploration, Continuous Integration, Continuous Deployment, and Release on Demand.

Continuous Exploration (CE)

The pipeline stage focused on understanding customer needs and defining what to build — hypothesis, research, architecture, and backlog — gaining alignment before development.

Continuous Integration (CI)

The pipeline stage where developed changes are frequently integrated, built, and tested to ensure quality and that the system always works.

Continuous Deployment (CD)

The pipeline stage that automatically moves validated changes to production-like and production environments, reducing time-to-market and deployment risk.

Release on Demand

Releasing value to customers when the business needs it — all at once, staggered, or continuously — decoupled from the development cadence.

Value Stream & Flow

Value Stream Mapping

Mapping the steps value takes through the delivery pipeline from idea to cash to measure flow, expose delays and handoffs, and identify bottlenecks to remove.

Bottleneck Identification

Finding the constraint that most limits flow in the pipeline and focusing improvement there for the greatest impact.

Lead Time & Process Time

Lead time is total elapsed time through a step (including waiting); process time is active work time. Their ratio reveals flow efficiency and waste.

Percent Complete and Accurate (%C/A)

A flow measure of how often work passed downstream is usable without rework, highlighting quality problems that disrupt flow.

Deployment vs. Release

Deployment moves code to production; release exposes features to users. Separating them (e.g., with feature toggles) enables safe, on-demand release.

Quality & Security

Continuous Testing

Building automated testing into every stage of the pipeline so quality is verified continuously rather than inspected at the end.

Continuous Security (DevSecOps)

Integrating security practices and controls throughout the pipeline so security is built in continuously rather than bolted on late.

Test Automation

Automating tests to enable fast, reliable feedback and frequent integration, a prerequisite for continuous delivery.

Version Control & Trunk-Based Development

Managing all changes in version control with practices that support frequent integration and small batches, reducing merge risk and improving flow.

Tools & Investment

Selecting DevOps Tools Strategically

Choosing skills and tools based on where they most improve flow and outcomes, rather than adopting technology for its own sake.

Prioritizing for Economic Benefit

Sequencing DevOps investments and solutions to deliver the greatest economic benefit first, using flow and value as the guide.

Automating the Toolchain

Connecting build, test, deploy, and monitoring tools into an automated pipeline to reduce manual effort, errors, and delay.

Implementation

DevOps Transformation Plan

A multi-phased, tailored plan to improve the delivery pipeline, sequencing changes to people, process, and technology for measurable results.

Implementation Plan (Taking Action)

The concrete set of next steps attendees leave with to improve their delivery pipeline and the knowledge needed to support and sustain the plan.

Working Across Roles and Levels

Engaging all roles and organizational levels to continually optimize the value stream, since DevOps improvement is a shared, cross-functional effort.

Avoiding Automating Broken Processes

Improving and simplifying a process before automating it, so automation amplifies value rather than locking in waste.

Relentless Improvement of the Pipeline

Continuously measuring and improving the delivery pipeline so flow, quality, and time-to-market keep getting better over time.