SAFe Agile Project Management for Enterprise Teams Training Course

Course overview

Enterprise teams often struggle when project plans, delivery teams, portfolio priorities and governance cycles operate at different speeds. Project managers may be asked to report milestones and budgets while Agile Release Trains (ARTs) work through Program Increments, dependencies emerge across teams, and priorities change through Lean Portfolio Management. This course addresses the practical gap: how to manage enterprise initiatives without forcing Agile delivery into a traditional command-and-control project model.

Participants learn to apply SAFe practices to planning, coordinating, tracking and governing complex initiatives delivered by multiple Agile teams. The course covers Agile Release Train structures, Program Increment (PI) Planning, feature and capability roadmaps, WSJF prioritisation, dependency management, RAID adaptation, Lean budgets, metrics and stakeholder reporting. Participants practise translating business objectives into measurable outcomes, building delivery forecasts from team evidence, escalating risks through appropriate SAFe events, and connecting project controls with flow-based delivery measures.

Delivery combines instructor-led explanation with a running enterprise case study in which participants manage a cross-functional product and operations transformation. Working in project teams, participants configure a Program Board, prioritise a feature backlog, build an iteration-aware delivery plan, analyse risks and dependencies, and prepare an executive progress report. Each participant leaves with a practical SAFe Enterprise Project Management Playbook containing templates, decision rules and an application plan for a live initiative.

The course is designed for experienced project and operations professionals who already work with delivery teams, business sponsors, vendors or governance offices. It is particularly valuable where an organisation is adopting SAFe, scaling Agile beyond individual teams, or needs more reliable coordination across technology, operational and change portfolios.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Map project roles, artefacts and governance decisions to SAFe portfolio, large-solution and ART levels
• Facilitate a Program Increment planning workflow using business context, features, capacity inputs and objectives
• Build a Program Board that visualises feature delivery, cross-team dependencies, milestones and risk ownership
• Prioritise features using Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) and document the economic rationale for sequencing decisions
• Create an iteration-aware delivery forecast using team velocity, capacity, flow metrics and confidence assessments
• Adapt RAID management into SAFe risk, dependency, impediment and escalation practices
• Produce executive status reports that connect OKRs, PI objectives, budget guardrails, milestones and delivery evidence
• Develop a SAFe project management application playbook for a current enterprise initiative

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Project Managers — who must coordinate enterprise initiatives delivered through Agile Release Trains
• Programme Managers — who manage dependencies, investment outcomes and governance across multiple Agile teams
• PMO Managers — who are redesigning reporting, assurance and portfolio controls for a SAFe environment
• Delivery Managers — who need dependable planning and forecasting practices across team-of-teams delivery
• Operations Managers — who lead business change dependent on technology, process and operational teams
• Product Operations Leaders — who need to connect product roadmaps, PI objectives and stakeholder commitments

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience managing projects, workstreams, operational change or technology delivery, including familiarity with scope, schedule, risks, stakeholders and status reporting. A working understanding of Scrum or Kanban is expected: participants should recognise backlogs, iterations or sprints, product owners, team capacity and incremental delivery. Experience with Jira or Azure DevOps is helpful because examples use backlog and reporting concepts from these tools. Prior SAFe certification is not required, and participants do not need to be software developers, Scrum Masters or financial specialists.

Training methodology

The instructor uses short SAFe-focused briefings followed by guided work on a shared enterprise transformation case. Participants work with feature backlogs, capacity assumptions, PI objectives, dependency maps and reporting data rather than abstract project scenarios. Small groups conduct WSJF prioritisation, simulate PI Planning decisions, maintain a Program Board and prepare an executive governance review. The final session converts the case methods into an individual application plan, identifying the participant's target initiative, stakeholders, current delivery constraints, first artefacts and 30-day implementation actions.

Course outline

Day 1: SAFe project management foundations

• SAFe configuration levels and enterprise delivery context
• Lean-Agile leadership and project management accountabilities
• Agile Release Train roles, events and core artefacts
• Portfolio, programme and team planning horizons
• Project manager responsibilities within an ART
• Value streams and operational value delivery
• Translating project scope into epics, capabilities and features

Workshop: Participants map a current-style enterprise initiative to SAFe levels, roles, value streams and delivery artefacts, producing a project-to-SAFe operating map.

Day 2: Planning and prioritising the Program Increment

• Program Increment cadence and planning inputs
• Business context, strategic themes and OKR alignment
• Feature definition and acceptance criteria
• Weighted Shortest Job First prioritisation method
• Capacity allocation and team load assumptions
• PI objectives and business value assignment
• Milestone planning within iterative delivery

Workshop: Teams prioritise a feature set using WSJF and construct draft PI objectives, capacity assumptions and a milestone-aware PI plan.

Day 3: Coordinating dependencies and delivery flow

• Program Board structure and dependency visualisation
• Feature sequencing across multiple teams
• Cross-team dependency negotiation techniques
• ROAM risk management during PI Planning
• Impediment escalation and resolution pathways
• Flow metrics for predictability and throughput
• Iteration review evidence and delivery forecasting

Workshop: Participants build a Program Board for the case study, identify dependency conflicts, ROAM key risks and issue a revised delivery forecast.

Day 4: Lean governance, reporting and controls

• Lean Portfolio Management and investment guardrails
• Participatory budgeting and capacity funding
• Adapting RAID logs for Agile enterprise delivery
• Outcome-based status reporting for executives
• PI objective scoring and predictability measures
• Jira and Azure DevOps reporting concepts
• Governance cadence for portfolio and ART reviews

Workshop: Teams prepare an executive governance pack containing PI objective progress, delivery risks, budget guardrails, dependencies and decision requests.

Day 5: Applying SAFe methods to live initiatives

• Stakeholder engagement across sponsors, product and delivery leaders
• Change control through backlog and economic prioritisation
• Vendor and supplier coordination in ART delivery
• Managing compliance, audit and operational readiness work
• Anti-patterns in Agile project governance
• SAFe project management maturity assessment
• Thirty-day implementation planning

Workshop: Participants complete and peer-review an individual SAFe Enterprise Project Management Playbook for a live or planned initiative, including a 30-day action plan.

Tools & standards covered

SAFe 6.0, Jira Software, Azure DevOps, Miro

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions