Test 10

Chris will be conducting an introduction to Agile workshop in the next few days. On one of the slides, he put a number of areas that Agile teams highly value. The list included customer collaboration, working software, responding to change and attention to detail. What mistake did Chris make?

"Attention to detail" is not a value of the Agile Manifesto. Chris has incorrectly showed "Attention to detail" as a value instead of showing "Individuals and Interactions".

Which of the following is an effective and light-weight iteration or release retrospective closing technique that helps the retrospective leader get feedback to improve skills and processes?

"Helped, Hindered, Hypothesis" is an effective and light-weight iteration or release retrospective closing technique that helps the retrospective leader get feedback to improve skills and processes. The rest of the choices are in-depth process analysis models.

During a retrospective event, you want to identify which project events created a positive or negative team atmosphere. Which of the following activities can be used in conjunction with a project timeline to obtain and analyze this information?

A "Color Code Dots" activity is used in conjunction with a timeline to gather data about feelings in a longer iteration, release, or project retrospective. This activity is used to show how people experienced events on the timeline

A higher than expected velocity would most probably result in:

A higher than expected team velocity would generally result in reduced number of expected iterations.

The burndown charts are rarely straight lines. There are many reasons why a straight line cannot always be achieved. Which of the following events doesn't affect the burndown chart?

Addition of scope of work will show up as a burnup. Incomplete stories will move the burndown line above the linear trendline. Inconsistent velocity will show a random walk by the burndown line. However, merging stories into themes will not have any effect on the burndown chart as this doesn't add or remove any story points from the project's scope.

You are leading a project that involves some safety-critical products that will require additional documentation and conformance checks beyond what Agile processes suggest. What should you do?

Agile approaches can still be used in this environment, but they need to have the appropriate additional layers of conformance reviews, documentation, and certification that is required by the project. Agile approaches are not set in the stone and can be tailored according to the needs of the project.

An Agile coach has to wear multiple hats from time to time. All of the following are such roles except:

Agile coaches do not manage the product release. The self-organizing Agile team manages the release.

You are responsible for deploying a new supply chain management system for a client organization. You need to analyze the client organization's current processes and procedures, design future-state processes in consultation with the subject matter experts at the client organization, and customize the supply chain system to suit these processes. According to the contract, all prototypes presented to the client must accompany user instruction sets. Your team is objecting to this documentation requirements and insist in developing a user manual only at the very end of the project. What should you do?

Although according to the Agile Manifesto a working software is preferred over comprehensive documentation, that doesn't not mean Agile approaches do not allow documentation. It is the project manager's duty to conform to all contractual requirements and that needs to be communicated to the team.

You and your Agile team are developing a new workflow management system for your organization. According to the ICT Systems & Tools Development Policy, you are required to produce detailed software documentation. What should you do?

Although according to the Agile Manifesto working software is valued over comprehensive documentation, this doesn't mean that Agile teams do not produce detailed documentation. If documentation is required of the project, the team must develop it.

Which of the following statements regarding Agile environments is incorrect?

Although pragmatic Agile practitioners realize that project managers can add significant value in many situations, the role of the project manager has not been clearly articulated in many Agile frameworks. Many Agile frameworks and approaches do not address the role of the project manager.

You are about to start the third iteration on your project. The team believes that some of the high priority items on the backlog are high risk items. What should you do to manage this risk?

Calling a retrospective is not going to help as retrospectives look in the past in order to identify improvement opportunities. Increasing the iteration duration is not a recommended Agile practice. The risk can be managed by including fewer story points (scope) in the next iteration.

An organization has recently begun its Agile transformation. Which of the following can help motivate more frequent handoffs across departments, and thus more frequent interactions and a faster flow of value across the organization?

Highly functionalized structures and geographically distributed project sites create impediments to Agile approaches. An Agile PMO can help but the frequency of the deliverables is directly related to the size of the deliverables. Reducing the size of a project deliverable will motivate more frequent handoffs across departments, and thus more frequent interactions and a faster flow of value across the organization.

You are leading a complex Agile project and have added a 10% schedule buffer to mitigate the schedule risk on the project. How should you communicate this to the product owner?

Individuals add padding to an estimate if they expect to be beaten up if they are wrong. A schedule buffer is different. A schedule buffer is a necessary margin of safety added to the sum of estimates from which local safety has been removed. Tell the product owner that the buffer is intended to provide a schedule everyone can be confident in.

A fast food retailer has recently hired a team to develop a bespoke inventory management system. The team has never worked with each other in the past. Further, the team requires coaching on Agile approaches. If the firm does not have in-house Agile coaches, what should be done?

Initially, many organizations invite external Agile coaches to help them when their internal coaching capability is not fully developed. Product owners might have a different skillset and are not necessarily Agile coaches.

An Agile team collected all the requirements for a particular project iteration. These requirements were translated to the design specifications followed by the development work. During the acceptance testing, the team realized that some of the design assumptions were not valid and most of the features requires rework. What went wrong?

Mini-waterfalls occur when the team manages project iterations in a waterfall style. Although Agile teams welcome change, the rework in this scenario could have been avoided by delivering smaller finished features to the customer and obtaining feedback.

You are leading an Agile project. The team has proposed using a Kanban board to manage the team's work in progress and spot bottlenecks. The following work flow has been agreed on for the Kanban board: Ready -> Develop and Unit Test -> Dev-Done -> System Test -> Done. If the team wants to limit its WIP, where are these limits shown on the board?

On a Kanban board, the work in progress (WIP) limits are shown at the top of each column.

Your organization needs to select one of the following two projects: Project A: IRR = 8%, NPV = $25,500, duration = 3 years; Project B: IRR = 12%, NPV = $18,700, duration = 6 years. What is the opportunity cost of project A?

Opportunity cost is the foregone benefit of the alternative. If project A is selected instead of project B, the opportunity cost will be the value of project B, $18,700. The given IRR and duration data is extraneous.

When conducting a release planning meeting, what should be the prime goal of the Agile team?

Part of planning a release is determining how much can be accomplished by what date. By prioritizing requirements, Agile teams thrive to deliver maximum value in the shortest possible time.

You will be leading a complex organizational restructure project in the near future. The goal of the project is to optimize organizational workflows and reduce costs by at least 20%. Since, everybody will be affected by this project, you need to consider a big number of stakeholders. During the project, you would need some timely business decisions to be taken. Who makes business decisions on Agile projects?

Product owners make decisions on behalf of business stakeholders on Agile projects.

Which of the following statements is correct regarding the Kanban method?

The Kanban method is based on the principle of pulling work and does not prescribe the use of timeboxed iterations. The Kanban method is less prescriptive than some Agile approaches and less disruptive to being implemented. Organizations can begin applying the Kanban method with relative ease.

Forecasting velocity based on the observed velocity on a project generally produces reliable estimates. If the project team has completed its first three iterations and the observed velocity was 20 story points per iteration (on average), what would be a reasonable estimate of velocity for the fourth iteration?

The cone of uncertainty can be used to calculate the ranges of the estimates. If the team has completed the first iteration, the multipliers are 0.6 and 1.6. If the team has completed two iterations, the multipliers are 0.8 and 1.25. If the team has completed three iterations, the multipliers are 0.85 and 1.15.

You are leading an ERP development project and currently developing a release plan. Which of the following are the general steps involved during a release plan?

The correct sequence is: Conditions of satisfaction -> estimating user stories -> prioritizing user stories -> selecting release date.

Agile teams strive for rapid product delivery. A set of features goes through a series of development and testing stages until the release. Which of the following is considered the first delivery stage?

The first part of the delivery is a demonstration. Demonstrations or reviews are a necessary part of the Agile project flow.

You are currently forming a team for a project that will be developed on Agile principles and practices. You requested a full-time accountant on the team but got a part-time accountant. What should you do first?

The first thing you should do is negotiate with the functional manager for a full-time resource. You must educate the functional manager that Agile teams require dedicated resources.

Most projects with multiple teams benefit from establishing a common estimating baseline at the start of the project. However, the only time separate teams may consider estimating in different units without a common baseline is:

The only time separate team may consider estimating in different units without a common baseline is when the products being built are truly separate and there is absolutely no opportunity for developers from one team to move onto another. Even then, it is recommended to establish a common baseline, if possible, as it facilitates communicating about the project.

In Agile projects with evolving requirements, high risk, or significant uncertainty, the scope is often not understood at the beginning of the project or it evolves during the project. How do Agile projects handle project scope in such circumstances?

The product backlog is prioritized by the product owner and not the team. Agile teams manage project scope by spending less time in defining and agreeing on scope at the start of the project and spending more time in establishing the process of its ongoing discovery.

How can an Agile team ensure that the features an Agile team is developing and releasing delivers the maximum value to the business?

The product owner represents the customer on an Agile team; the Agile team doesn't directly collaborate with the customer. Only customers/end users can determine the value of a required (or already developed) feature.

When conducting a Triple Nickels activity with six team members, which of the following is NOT recommended:

The purpose of the "Triple Nickels" activity is to generate ideas for actions or recommendations and uncover important topics about the project history. If there are seven or fewer people in the group, it is recommended not to divide into small groups and instead do the activity as whole group and pass the paper only five times.

You have recently taken charge of a team managing a complex project that heavily relies on knowledge work. Your team is currently spending four hours per week in refining user stories. What is the probable cause behind this?

The scenario doesn't give enough context to determine the unviability of the product owner or the scrum master. Further, it doesn't give any context behind the use of development methodology. This leaves only one choice. Generally speaking, if the team needs to spend more than an hour per week refining stories, the product owner could be over-preparing, or the team may be lacking some critical skills needed to evaluate and refine the work.

During a retrospective meeting, team members work in pairs to brainstorm all the tasks necessary to complete an improvement idea. After brainstorming, team members eliminate redundant tasks and fill in gaps. The tasks are then arranged in order, and team members sign up for tasks they will complete. What Agile activity is this?

This is a trick question. It must be noted that the team is currently in a retrospective meeting. Planning poker and developing release and iteration plans are not in the scope of retrospective meetings. The activity the team is conducting is a Retrospective Planning Game.

You are managing a complex, high-change project. Although the project doesn't have a completion deadline, there is a general expectation that the project should complete in nine to twelve months. The project team is currently struggling to collaborate to expedite work across the board. Which of the following actions might help the situation and facilitate collaboration?

Traditional project management approaches are not recommended for complex and high-change projects. Crashing the project and increasing the team size doesn't help in increasing the team's agility. However, by limiting the work in progress, it is more likely that team members can collaborate to expedite work across the board.

How many clarifying principles flowed from the Agile Manifesto?

Twelve clarifying principles flowed from the four Agile manifesto values.

Although the payback period is very commonly used to financially compare two or more projects, the primary disadvantage to the payback period is that:

Unlike financial measures such as IRR and NPV, the primary disadvantage to the payback period is that it fails to take into account the time value of money. Money received in the future is valued the same as the money paid out today.

Which of the following is a lean enterprise technique used to document, analyze, and improve the flow of information or materials required to produce a product or service for a customer?

Value Stream Mapping is a lean enterprise technique used to document, analyze, and improve the flow of information or materials required to produce a product or service for a customer.

An Agile team's average velocity for the first couple of iterations is 20 story points per iteration. Since the team wanted to increase the velocity, it decided to increase the iteration duration from 3 week to 4 weeks. What is your view on this?

Velocity is the number of story points completed per iteration. If the iteration size is increased, the team should be able to deliver more story points, which will increase the velocity. But the increase in velocity through this approach will just be a wash as this approach doesn't increase the team's performance

Which of the following two projects should be selected if the goal of the company is to maximize the return on investment? Project A: NPV = $25,081, IRR = 15%; Project B: NPV = $40,318, IRR = 13%.

When the goal is to maximize the return on investment, the project with higher IRR is selected.

When you divide the team into small groups and keep the people who worked closely with each other together, you are creating:

When you divide the team into small groups and keep the people who worked closely with each other together, you are creating affinity groups.

A project team has recently adopted Agile approaches to project management. However, the team is still not proficient in these methods as it has only recently adopted these approaches. Which of the following questions should the team address to ensure it has successfully adopted an Agile Mindset?

Tailoring project management processes, handling confidential information, and compliance to contractual obligations are considerations of all project teams regardless of the chosen project management approach. However, Agile approaches stress on the need to deliver quickly and obtain early feedback to benefit the next delivery cycle.

In Agile software development, what does the term "technical debt" means?

The "technical debt" is the deferred cost of work not done at an earlier point in the product life cycle. This term is usually used in the context of degraded quality of code.

Which of the following regarding AgileUP and Unified Process (UP) is correct?

The Agile Unified Process (AgileUP) is an offshoot of the Unified Process (UP) for software projects. AgileUP features more accelerated cycles and less heavyweight processes than Unified Process.