What does the SAFe budgeting model suggest?

Question

Options

• AEach Strategic Theme receives a budget allocation when Strategic Themes span portfolios.
• BEpics, Features, and Stories are funded based on their size in normalized Story points, while
• CEach Value Stream receives budget allocation as a whole; individual work is not specifically
• DEach team gets budget allocation and Features are funded according to their size in normalized

• A
  6% (2)
• B
  3% (1)
• C
  81% (25)
• D
  10% (3)

Explanation

SAFe's Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) allocates budgets to Value Streams as a whole, giving them a funding guardrail for a period. Once a Value Stream has its budget, teams within it decide how to sequence and execute work - no individual approval is needed per epic, feature, or story. This replaces traditional project-based funding with a continuous, decentralized model that enables agility.

Why the distractors are wrong:

• A is wrong because Strategic Themes guide portfolio direction and investment priorities but are not themselves budget recipients - Value Streams are.
• B is wrong because SAFe explicitly rejects funding individual work items by size or story points; that approach reintroduces the overhead of project-based accounting that Lean Budgets are designed to eliminate.
• D is wrong because budget authority sits at the Value Stream level, not at the individual team level, and features are not funded by normalized story point size.

Memory tip: Think of the Value Stream as the "pipe" - SAFe funds the pipe, not the individual drops of water flowing through it. Once the pipe is funded, teams decide what flows.

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