SAFe Lean Portfolio Manager (LPM) Certification: Guide 2022

With the SAFe Lean Portfolio Management certification, an enterprise can maintain value flow and innovation while synchronizing its strategy and execution. LPM is a crucial skill for ensuring a company stays on the right path, as it is one of the five essential skills of a Lean enterprise.

When you obtain this certification, you will have a deeper understanding of portfolio management and be able to apply it effectively.

What is the SAFe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) certification?

Obtaining the Lean Portfolio Manager foundational-level certification provides you with the knowledge to manage the LPM function role effectively. You will understand investment funding, the methodologies behind using Lean governance and Agile portfolio operations, and how to design plans to implement the Lean Portfolio Management function. This certification is ideal for enterprise architects, product managers, executives (such as CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, CTOs, and VPs), program office personnel, business unit managers, human resource professionals, RTEs, and epic owners who are involved in the Lean Portfolio Management function.

The LPM online exam verifies your proficiency in using practical tools such as the Portfolio Canvas and portfolio Kanban and the ability to prioritize tasks and adapt to changes in order to maximize economic benefit and successfully establish Value Stream Budgets. Your expertise will help improve the Lean portfolio performance of your organization.

You will learn the following:

• Describe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)
• Connect the portfolio to the enterprise strategy
• Establish the Portfolio Vision
• Implement Lean Budgeting and Guardrails
• Establish flow with the Portfolio Kanban
• Support operational excellence with an Agile Program Management Office (PMO) and Communities of Practice (CoPs)
• Coordinate Value Streams
• Measure LPM performance
• Build a plan for LPM implementation

Exam details

The SAFe Lean Portfolio Manager (LPM) certification exam is a multiple-choice format test that has a duration of 90 minutes. The exam consists of 45 questions, and a passing score of 32 out of 45 questions is required, which equates to a percentage of 71%. The cost for the exam is structured in such a way that the first attempt is free if the exam is taken within 30 days of course completion. However, if an individual needs to retake the exam, each retake attempt will cost $50.

Who should take SAFe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM)?

Lean Portfolio Management is one of the five core competencies of a Lean enterprise, and gaining a deeper understanding of its principles is crucial.

The SAFe Lean Portfolio Management course is designed for individuals in the following roles or positions:

• Program or project manager
• Release train engineer or architect
• Solution, portfolio, or product manager
• Agile coach or safe program consultant
• CEo, CTO, or director
• Consultant or human resources

What does SAFe Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) do?

• Acquire the practical tools and methods to execute the functions of Lean Portfolio Management.
• Utilize the Portfolio Canvas tool to capture your portfolio's current and future state.
• Determine crucial business initiatives to realize the portfolio vision.
• Implement Agile Portfolio Operations and Lean Governance.
• Organize portfolio flow with the Portfolio Kanban, Strategy, and Investment funding.
• Prioritize epics to optimize economic benefit.
• Create Value Stream Budgets and Lean Budget Guardrails and assess the performance of the Lean portfolio.

Why Lean Portfolio Management?

Organizations that prioritize long-term projects can often find themselves in a predicament where teams are motivated to meet outdated project objectives rather than delivering value early or seeking feedback on market fit.

Implementing Lean portfolio management can help organizations:

• Move their operations focus to delivering incremental value at shorter intervals for larger initiatives.
• Utilize these intervals to obtain shorter feedback loops. Feedback from internal teams, external focus groups, customers, or end-users can be used to measure progress toward the organization's target outcomes.
• Act on the feedback to redirect resources to ideas that produce positive outcomes and redirect resources away from those that do not.

The final words

A constantly changing environment can make defining and implementing a difficult strategy. As a result, portfolio management practices must be updated with Lean-Agile principles, and portfolios should be shaped around value streams that consistently deliver value to customers.

To manage the LPM function effectively within an organization, individuals need to earn the SAFe Lean Portfolio Manager (LPM) certification. In addition to helping individuals understand investment funding, plan design, and Lean Portfolio Management, the certification focuses on Lean governance and Agile portfolio operations.