ACO Exam QUESTIONS & CORRECT ANSWERS

C - ANS-- The Managing Director (MD) of the organization stops by the task board of the team and makes a suggestion of an important feature that the development team should deliver in the current iteration. What should the development team do? A. Since it is coming from the MD, it must be done at any cost. So drop an item of equal size from the backlog. B. Say yes to the MD and then ask the team members to work overtime to achieve their target. C. Ask the product owner so that he can discuss the value and priorities with the MD. D. Ignore it, the MD will most likely forget what he said a few weeks later. D - ANS-- A newly formed development team is working on Sprint zero. In terms of doing the following activities, which is false? A. Team completes the entire architecture and high-level design for the project, leaving out the low-level design. B. Develop the detailed project plan. C. Deliver a few stories. D. All of the above. C - ANS-- Who makes the final call on priority order in the Product Backlog? A. The Development Team B. The Scrum Master C. The Product Owner D. Someone in senior leadership like the MD or the CEO D - ANS-- With respect to the roles on a Scrum team, choose the odd one out? A. Scrum Master B. Product Owner C. Development Team D. Project Manager C - ANS-- The Development Team is expected to have all the skills needed to: A. Complete the project by the given deadline and budget shared upfront with the sponsor. B. Do analysis and development work, but leave out all forms of testing since that is handled by another specialized team. C. Turn the Product Backlog items into potentially shippable product increments. D. Master all state-of-the-art technology practices and tools available. C - ANS-- What is the main way that a Scrum Master contributes to maximizing the productivity in the development team? A. By maintaining a risk-adjusted Product Backlog in priority order. B. By making sure hygiene is maintained on meeting - agendas, start & end times, capturing and sending out minutes, etc. C. By facilitating Development Team decisions and removing impediments. D. By providing news about the newest technology trends in the market. B - ANS-- All of the following are Scrum artifacts except: A. Product backlog B. Gantt chart C. Sprint backlog D. Burndown chart C - ANS-- During an estimation session each team member is asked to provide an estimate. Which of the following is correct? A. The team member provides estimates for only the story that will be assigned to him. B. The developer provides a development estimate, the analyst provides an analysis estimate and the tester does his part. Ultimately all the estimates are aggregated. C. The team members provide a relative estimate in units of ideal days. D. Participation of a team member is voluntary as the Scrum Master can fillin wherever necessary. D - ANS-- A project stakeholder wants to have a look at how the Agile team is progressing in the middle of an iteration. As a member of the Agile team, you can guide him to: A. The most recent weekly status report. B. The sprint backlog. C. The defect log. D. The combined burnup and burndown charts. B - ANS-- XP teams take collective ownership of code. For such a team, _______ and _______ are the key. A. Definition of done and pair programming. B. Trust and collaboration. C. Velocity and co-location. D. Onsite customer and test-driven development. C - ANS-- Barry is a team member currently in a sprint planning session. After hearing about the requirement from the product owner, he estimates the amount of effort required by taking account that he will be working on this story and nothing else. He assumes that he will not face any interruptions. Which unit of estimate is he using? A. Story points B. T-shirt sizes C. Ideal days D. Either A or C B - ANS-- What is the primary role of a Product Owner? A. The PO is basically a project manager who balances scope, time, cost and risk. B. Maximizing the Return on Investment (ROI) of the software developed. C. People management for the Team. D. Avoiding distracting and keeping stakeholders at bay. A - ANS-- Which of the two ceremonies are executed after all development for a sprint and beginning of the next one? A. Sprint review and sprint retrospective B. Sprint review and sprint planning C. Daily stand-up and sprint review D. Sprint retrospective and sprint planning D - ANS-- Kanban board is an example of: A. Toyota production system B. Information refrigerator C. High-tech and low-touch system D. Information radiator C - ANS-- What happens during a Sprint Review? A. Review of what the team could do more or less off during the next sprint. B. Figure out the scope for the next sprint. C. End of the sprint demo for everyone to solicit feedback on the work done in the sprint. D. It is an opportunity to brainstorm and do a root cause analysis of work items that could not get done. C - ANS-- How do we know when a sprint isover? A. When all items in the sprint goal have met their definition of done. B. When the Product owner accepts all the work that was committed in the sprint planning meeting. C. When the timebox expires. D. None of the above. A - ANS-- While inspecting a release burndown chart, it is observed that the bar graph moves below its X-axis. Choose the best conclusion. A. This is normal. Scope could have gotten added by the product owner. B. This is normal. The developers would have underestimated the complexity of the story. C. This is abnormal and indicates poor data quality being plotted on the burndown chart. The bar graph can touch the X-axis, but not go below it. D. This is abnormal. The team should have completed what was committed by them. A - ANS-- Under what condition can a sprint be abnormally terminated? A. When the PO determines that it no longer makes sense to carry on with a sprint. B. The team has overcommitted and the sprint scope is too large to be achieved. C. A production defect needs to be addressed by priority. D. There is another project for which some analysis needs to be completed by the SME's in the current team. D - ANS-- During a planning session, the product owner and the team sit down together and sort the stories from the backlog into must-have, should-have, couldhave and won't-have. The must-haves top the chart and along with those a few should-haves get selected for implementation during the iteration. Which prioritization technique did the team follow? A. Kano model analysis. B. Weighted prioritization technique. C. Simple ranking technique. D. MoSCoW. D - ANS-- In Agile vocabulary. a spike is a: A. Sudden increase in the quantum of work received. B. Sudden increase in the quantum of risks. C. Sudden increase in the resource demand. D. A task that the team undertakes to experiment on a hypothesis or a new technology. C - ANS-- Fill in the blanks for the following Agile principle. Build projects around _______ individuals. Give them the environment and _______ they need and ________ them to get the job done. A. cross-functional, training, trust B. empowered, support, believe C. self-motivated, support, believe D. motivated, morale boost, trust C - ANS-- An XP team realizes that a story is more complex than estimated earlier and so it cannot be completed in the current iteration. Which option should the team exercise? A. At the next daily stand-up, propose that the "definition of done" condition be relaxed to allow the partially completed story to look close to being completed. B. Extend the iteration by 3-4 days, as you cannot let the team's velocity go down. C. Discard the code and put the story back to the backlog for future prioritization and implementation in a successive sprint. D. Keep the code commented so it does not do any harm and tell the customer you will pick up and complete in the next iteration. B - ANS-- Some teams use a hardening sprint ahead of a release to: A. Train the operations team so that they can support the product post-release. B. Complete some of the final tasks related to productionizing of the code. C. Perform acceptance testing for all the previous sprints that were part of the release. D. Ask all programmers to check-in all the code in version control. D - ANS-- An Agile team is using relative sizing to estimate for stories on the backlog. What are the most common units of estimates used? A. Days / weeks / months B. Story points C. Ideal days D. Either B or C C - ANS-- Bill has worked hard over the last few days and finds that the build is broken because Richard has checked in code without properly unit testing it. It will mean that Bill will have to wait until Richard comes back and fixes the issue. Bill is furious at Richard and he makes statements like, "I know Richard. He is always careless and doesn't bother how others get affected by his actions." Which stage of conflict do you think is reflected in Bill's language? A. Level 1: Problem to Solve B. Level 2: Disagreement C. Level 3: Contest D. Level 5: World War A - ANS-- The two highest levels of conflict are Level 4: Crusade where there is hardly any direct speaking terms and Level 5: World war where the conflict is escalated to a level that is beyond repair and resolutions. As a manager encountering the situation, which are the best approaches you will follow to resolve conflicts? A. For Level 4: use shuttle diplomacy until the intensity of the conflict is lowered and team members can be brought into a table discussion. For Level 5: separate the team members such that they do not cause harm to each other or to the environment. B. For Level 4: use problem solving to get to the bottom of the issue. For Level 5: ask one party to compromise on a stand that they have rigidly held. C. For level 4: separate the team members such that they do not cause harm to each other or to the environment. For Level 5: bring in a third party and take the two team members to battle out in the court. D. For Level 4: remind the two members that they need to collaborate and reach consensus, even if that means that they will have to sacrifice. For Level 5: avoid the situation since nothing can be done about it. B - ANS-- What is the formula for Risk severity? And how do you expect risks to change during a project? A. Risk severity = Risk probability + Risk impact. We expect risks to be highest at the beginning and decrease over time. B. Risk severity = Risk probability x Risk impact. We expect risks to be highest at the beginning and decrease over time. C. Risk severity = Risk probability x Risk impact. We expect risks to be lowest at the beginning and increase over time. D. Risk severity = Risk probability x Risk impact. We expect risks to be highest at the beginning and remain static until the project is over. C - ANS-- The product owner is not able to commit enough time for the Scrum team. He is however, very supportive and leading the cause for the project. Who could be the best choice of a proxy user? A. Technical lead of the project who knows the ins and outs of the product. B. UX designer because they have close proximity to the business and knows how the UI is expected to behave. C. A business analyst reporting to the product owner since she will be able to articulate the user stories in plain business language that is free from technical jargon. D. A customer care representative who interacts with the real users on a daily basis and resolves support tickets. C - ANS-- Which is the odd line out of the following? A. Responding to change over following a plan. B. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation. C. Customer interactions over processes and tools. D. Working software over comprehensive documentation B - ANS-- A reflection workshop is also called: A. Sprint review B. Sprint retrospective C. Backlog grooming session D. None of the above B - ANS-- Richard joins as an Agile coach and observes that there are a few Scrum teams working on a single product that is used by financial planners. The teams are struggling to arrive at a common "definition of done." What should Richard do? A. Richard should give each development team freedom to choose their definition of done. Reconcile differences only during the hardening sprint. B. Richard should give each development team freedom to choose their definition of done, as far as there is convergence and common ground at the time of integration such that the product is potentially releasable. C. Richard should ignore the situation. It's too messy too get involved in dayto- day work of the development. D. Richard should get hands-on, laying out the definition of done himself and teach all development teams how to follow them. D - ANS-- Agile teams use personas thatare imaginary user roles to provide a real-life flavor of the users interacting with the system. While building a persona, which of the following relevant information should they include? A. Age and gender B. Educational and Professional background C. A name and a picture D. All of the above A - ANS-- Agile teams practice value-based delivery. While determining and delivering value, who are we targeting? A. Users B. Developers C. Product owners D. Testers D - ANS-- Alistair Cockburn has introduced the Crystal family of methodologies, which consists of Crystal clear, Crystal yellow, crystal red, crystal maroon. What are the core differences between them? A. From left to right, they denote progressively increasing complexity of projects. B. From left to right, they denote progressively increasing criticality of projects. C. From left to right, they denote progressively increasing size of teams working on projects. D. All of the above. C - ANS-- A team hires you as an Agile coach to see if the team's efficiency could be enhanced and the velocity improved.What could be your recommendation to improve velocity? A. Have the team commit to fewer stories every sprint, so the probability of getting them completed in time are more. B. Reduce the daily-stand-up meetings from 15 to 10 minutes. C. Suggest bringing in the business representative to sit together with the development team. D. Compare velocities of similar projects running in the same organization and present them to the team. A - ANS-- Barry joined as an Agile coach and he wants to improve the way the team conducts retrospective meetings. He states that there are 5 stages for effective retrospectives. They follow the sequence of: A. Set the Stage, Gather Data, Generating Insights, Decide What to Do, Wrap up. B. Set the Stage, Generating Insights, Gather Data, Decide What to Do, Wrap up. C. Set the Stage, Decide What to Do, Generating Insights, Gather Data, Wrap up. D. Set the Stage, Gather Data, Decide What to Do, Generating Insights, Wrap up. C - ANS-- The Scrum team owns the sprint burndown chart. What is the primary significance of the chart? A. Use as a base for weekly status report for senior management. B. An Agile team is characterized with information radiators on team walls. A sprint burndown chart is a relevant artifact for putting up on the team wall. C. Team can view their daily progress and adapt based on the situation. D. Keep other stakeholders at bay. Those who are interested in knowing the status can view the sprint burndown chart and not bother the development team. D - ANS-- The acronym TIMWOOD is used to describe the 7 wastes in Lean. The letters T, M and D stand for: A. Transport, Machine, Defects B. Turnaround time, Motion, Defects C. Transport, Machine, Deliberate D. Transport, Motion, Defects A - ANS-- The Japanese words Muda, Kanban and Kaizen respectively mean: A. Waste, signboard, continuous improvement B. Waste, billboard, continuous integration C. Improvement, signboard, continuous removal of waste D. None of these C - ANS-- A new team member Billy, fresh from college, joins the team and sees that at every workstation two developers are sitting next to each other. One of them is typing code and the other is looking on and giving some suggestions at times. Billy thinks that privacy could be lost and discusses this with his mentor. His mentor explains that the team is following XP methodology and are involved in ___________. A. Sharing best practices sitting next to each other. B. Pair programming. C. One is coding and the other is deciding on test cases based on the code written. D. Coaching session for coding skills. C - ANS-- The ___________ is also called "the voice of the customer"? A. Development manager B. Scrum Master C. Product Owner D. Sponsor C - ANS-- An Agile team is in its formative stage. One of the first few things that they want to do is determine the length of an iteration. Which is the most important factor to make this decision? A. Determine the estimate of the longest story, convert from story points to man-days and then choose the iteration size to accommodate that. B. Look up historical data from other projects and teams. C. Discuss with project stakeholders on how long they can go without demonstrating progress or giving feedback. D. Follow guidelines from the Scrum Master since he is the most seasoned player in the team and has had a varied experience running Scrum teams elsewhere D - ANS-- The commitments made by the product owner to the team include the following EXCEPT? A. Bring a prioritized list of features from the backlog to the planning meeting. B. Clarify requirements as and when asked by the team. C. Resist any temptation of changing scope midway through a sprint. D. Mandatorily attend every daily-standup meeting. C - ANS-- The product owner creates an elevator speech to articulate the vision of a product to the Agile team and its stakeholders. The elevator speech is expected to contain all of the following attributes EXCEPT: A. Who is the target customer? B. What is the key benefit that the customer will get by using the product? C. Location and the technology where the product will be developed and tested. D. What differentiates it from its competitors? A - ANS-- All the following are Agile methodologies EXCEPT: A. Test-driven development B. Feature-driven development C. Extreme Programming D. Scrumban B - ANS-- Who is responsible for prioritization of stories, epics and features in the product backlog? A. Product owner B. Product owner with inputs gathered from the team C. ScrumMaster D. Development team B - ANS-- The Scrum team has committed for a sprint goal. Midway during the sprint, the team discovers that there are some new tasks that need to be done before the committed stories are completed. However, given the time constraint, the team feels it cannot be done. What are the things the team should do now? A. Abandon the sprint. B. Bring it up during the daily-standup and then discuss proactively with the product owner. C. Hope for the best and let the stakeholders know during the sprint review that some stories were not completed. D. Find someone to blame. D - ANS-- The marketing team is looking for firm commitments from an Agile team based on the estimates that came out of the Affinity estimation session held by the team. What could possibly be wrong in that approach? A. Affinity estimation is a very quick estimation technique used for release planning and generally precision of estimates is not the goal. B. The marketing team should direct all their requirements to the product owner and not approach the Agile team directly. C. Agile estimates are relative measure of size. They should not be treated as commitments. D. A and C. A - ANS-- At the time of release planning, an epic was estimated to have 13 story points. However, during iteration planning, when the epic was broken down into stories and tasks, the sum of the estimates came to about 15 story points. Choose the most appropriate option below. A. This is likely to happen as the estimates don't necessarily add up. B. This is likely to happen as the estimates are done by different people at different times. C. This is likely to happen as the estimates are less accurate at a release level. D. This is a mistake, as it appears that somewhere there was a scope creep, that is, addition of 2 story points. D - ANS-- All the following could belong to the definition of done of a team EXCEPT: A. Code has been checked into version control. B. Code has passed through the integration test cases and regression suite. C. Acceptance test cases have passed. D. Daily Scrum meetings have been attended. D - ANS-- An Agile team is coming together for the first time. They have no prior experience working together, but would like to estimate an initial velocity to target.All the following options are possible EXCEPT: A. Use historical values as the working environment and the technology used is the same as a previous project. B. Run an iteration and observe the velocity. C. Make a forecast by breaking stories into tasks and see what fits. D. Use the velocity from any arbitrary project team. The level of accuracy does not matter since the team is new. C - ANS-- During a series of conflicts, you get to hear one party blaming the other by generalizing statements like, "They are always late - no surprises in that," "He has forgotten to check-in the file and again! Careless as ever!" Referring to Lea's conflict model, which stage do you think the team members are in? A. Problem to solve. B. Arbitration. C. Crusade. D. World war. D - ANS-- Which of the following statements is not true? A. Higher the IRR the better, higher the BCR the better. B. Higher the IRR the better, lower the payback period the better. C. Higher the NPV the better, higher the IRR the better. D. Higher the NPV the better, higher the payback period the better. B - ANS-- Leaving low-priority requirements at a high level, but sufficiently detailing out the high priority (and immediate) ones is called ________. A. Incremental development. B. Progressive elaboration. C. Version control. D. Continuous improvement D - ANS-- Retrospectives can be held: A. After an iteration. B. After a release. C. After an unexpected and a significant event in the project. D. Any of the above. B - ANS-- What does the acronym MMF stand for? A. Maximum Marketable Feature B. Minimal Marketable Feature C. Maximum Measurable Feature D. Must-have and Marketable Function A - ANS-- Which of the following do you NOT expect to see on an information radiator for an Agile team? A. Gantt chart B. Task board C. Burnup chart D. Velocity trends C - ANS-- For an emergency reason Richard, the product owner could not make it to the sprint planning meeting. Who do you think could be in a position to play his role for the time being? A. The self-organized team. B. The development manager. C. The Scrum Master. D. The CEO who is closely aligned to the project. C - ANS-- Which of the following statements is false? A. Agile projects do just-in-time planning. B. Agile projects balance progress and flexibility. C. Agile projects do not require a PMO. D. Agile projects value collaboration over documentation D - ANS-- Team A has a velocity of 20 story points and Team B has 40 story points over a 3-week iteration. What does this mean? A. Team B is twice more efficient than Team A. B. Team B has double the capacity (team size) than Team A. C. Team B is more mature, uses sophisticated tools and achieves more in the same time. D. Nothing. Velocity of two teams cannot be compared. A - ANS-- The three levels of active listening are: A. Level I - Internal Listening, Level II - Focused Listening, Level III - Global Listening. B. Level I - Focused Listening, Level II - Internal Listening, Level III - Global Listening. C. Level I - Internal Listening, Level II - Global Listening, Level III - Focused Listening. D. Varies based on the circumstances. D - ANS-- An Agile team has an average velocity of 25. During a sprint planning session, they have come up with estimates for a list of stories in priority order as follows: Story 1 estimate of 12 story points Story 2 estimate of 3 story points Story 3 estimate of 8 story points Story 4 estimate of 5 story points Story 5 estimate of 2 story points Story 6 estimate of 1 story points Story 7 estimate of 1 story points What is the choice that the team makes? A. Choose stories 6, 7,5,2,4 and split the larger ones 1 and 3 so that maximum number of stories can be accommodated. B. A team's velocity is subject to change. Also estimates are not absolute. Choose all stories and complete whatever is possible. After all, customer will be pleasantly surprised if the team overachieves. C. Club stories that are dependent on each other and deliver them together. D. Choose stories 1,2,3,5 - the highest priority ones that add up to the team's velocity. C - ANS-- After the story writing workshop the team has come up with a set of 80 story cards that need to be very quickly estimated such that the release plan can be built. The product owner is interested in getting this completed in less than 2 hours. Which estimation technique is best suited for this purpose? A. Work breakdown structure or bottom-up estimation. B. Planning Poker. C. Affinity estimation. D. Delphi. A - ANS-- The DEEP acronym is used to describe the characteristics of a product backlog. The acronym stands for A. Detailed Appropriately, Estimated, Emergent, Prioritized. B. Detailed Appropriately, Economic, Emergent, Prioritized. C. Defined properly, Estimated, Emergent, Prioritized. D. Defined properly, Estimated, Enlisted, Probabilistic. B - ANS-- Passing of acceptance test cases is an example of: A. Definition of ready B. Definition of done C. Collective ownership D. Teamwork D - ANS-- The INVEST acronym is used to describe the characteristics of user stories. The letters I, V and S in the acronym stands for: A. Interesting, Verifiable, Small B. Independent, Validatable, Small C. Independent, Valuable, Specific D. None of the above A - ANS-- Agile releases could be one of: A. Feature-driven or Date-Driven. B. Date-driven or Priority-driven. C. Team-driven or feature-driven. D. Both release dates and constituent features are variable and negotiated on the fly. C - ANS-- Sarah is joining an Agile team. On the first day she observes that the team has a task board that contains lots of sticky notes denoting tasks in various stages of progress. She is confused about the small numbers written next to column headers of the task board and asks her manager Jane about their significance. Jane explains that the numbers depict: A. Velocity for each column in the task board. B. Number of resources assigned for each column in the task board. C. WIP limit. D. Maximum number of escaped defects allowed per column. A - ANS-- XP programmers are required to continuously submit their code into the code repository and run a 10-minute build to assess whether anything has broken or not as a result of the newly made changes. This practice is called: A. Continuous integration. B. Continuous improvement. C. Version control. D. Informative team space. C - ANS-- The Lean team has understood the benefits of creating value stream maps. After a bit of effort they prepared a value stream map and proceeds to calculate the cycle time for each step and the total lead time to handover value to the business user. What is the most important next step? A. Continuously improve on process efficiencies. B. Amplify learning. C. Identify non-value added activities and eliminate them. D. Organize daily stand-up meetings. C - ANS-- The project steering board is having a meeting to evaluate and select one of the two projects being presented by their sponsors. Project A has IRR of 6% and requires an investment of 100K USD Project B has IRR of 7.5% and requires an investment of 150K USD Which project should be chosen and what is the opportunity cost? A. Project A, 100K USD B. Project A, 150K USD C. Project B, 100K USD D. Project B, 150K USD B - ANS-- The ________ is best placed to author user stories. A. Development team since they know the technical intricacies of the features. B. Customer or business representative because they can articulate business requirements in plain language (no technical jargon). C. The project manager because he knows what it takes to balance scope, time and cost. D. The tester since the acceptance test cases needs to be written at the back of the story card. C - ANS-- When is it okay for a team to extend an iteration by 4-5 days to complete what they promised? A. Use a groupdecision-making technique and agree at a daily stand-up meeting. B. Once the Scrum Master approves. C. Iteration length should not be changed. D. Instead of extending the iteration, think of 'crashing' the iteration by putting in more resources or requesting overtime and weekend work. A - ANS-- As per Alistair Cockburn, Shu-Ha-Ri is a learning technique that is applied to software development methodologies. The words Shu Ha Ri means: A. Follow the rule, break the rule and be the rule respectively. B. Break the rule, follow the rule and be the rule respectively. C. Be the rule, break the rule and follow the rule respectively. D. Follow the rule, be the rule and break the rule respectively. B - ANS-- 5 Why's is an example of a/an: A. Estimation technique B. Retrospective technique C. Conflict resolution technique D. Facilitation technique D - ANS-- In the situational leadership model, the different leadership styles in ascending order of team maturity are as follows: A. Selling, Telling, Supporting, Delegating B. Telling, Delegating, Participating, Selling C. Delegating, Directing, Coaching, Supporting D. Telling, Selling, Participating, Delegating B - ANS-- Value stream mapping is a technique that has its origin in Lean. Why do we use value stream mapping? A. Without a visualized workflow, conversations with the customers are difficult. B. To identify and eliminate wastes in the process. C. To charter the future roadmap. D. To energize the development team. C - ANS-- Active listening consists of all the following EXCEPT: A. Paying attention to the nonverbal signs of the speaker. B. Providing feedback on what is understood. C. Interrupting the speaker to express your personal views and perspectives. D. Deferring judgment. A - ANS-- User stories have enough requirements that serve as a reminder to the team and they can converse to drill down to the specifics during coding. How do the developers confirm that the requirement is met? A. Discuss with the users, write down the acceptance test cases behind the card. and execute them. B. There is always more chances, so the team can make assumptions, demo them. and incorporate feedback later. C. Developers expect the product owner to maintain a checklist separately. D. Since the user stories are not sufficient, developers need to augment with comprehensive documentation behind the scenes. D - ANS-- User stories should be valuable to ________. A. The development team B. The Agile coach C. The organization D. The user or customer C - ANS-- The different stages of Test-Driven Development are 1) Red - when the test cases fail. 2) Green - when the test cases succeed with barely minimum code. 3) Refactor - when the code is evolved by considering design patterns, code quality etc. What is the right sequence? A. Green, Red, Refactor. B. Red, Refactor, Green. C. Red, Green, Refactor. D. None of the above as the blue stage is missing. D - ANS-- XP teams conduct spike tasks. The product owner realizes that there is no direct value to the customer in conducting such tasks, but yet permits them in the iteration backlog because: A. Through spikes teams are able to gain knowledge of an unknown technology. B. Through spikes teams are able to prove a hypothesis. C. Through spikes teams are able to mitigate a risk. D. All of the above. A - ANS-- With respect to size, which is the correct order? A. Epic, theme, story, task. B. Story, feature, theme, subtask. C. Story, task, subtask, feature. D. Epic, feature, subtask, theme. C - ANS-- The Scrum Master in a team plays the following roles EXCEPT: A. Servant leader B. Shepherd C. Line manager D. Bulldozer of impediments B - ANS-- In Scrum who takes the responsibility to prioritize stories? A. Scrum Master. B. Product owner with the help of the whole team. C. Exclusively product owner. D. Whoever is knowledgeable about the stories. A - ANS-- The product owner is looking at the backlog, shuffling priorities, adding more epics and features. and removing some that are no longer necessary. The task he is doing is called: A. Backlog grooming B. Product roadmap creation C. Project charter creation D. Backlog review D - ANS-- An Agile team consists of the following attributes: A. Self-organized B. Generalized specialist C. Multilingual D. A and B C - ANS-- ________ is a unit of estimates for user stories. A. Velocity B. Weeks C. Story points D. Work breakdown structure B - ANS-- A persona is: A. A real customer or user. B. Imaginary representation of a user role. C. Any stakeholder who can provide system requirements. D. A business analyst or a domain specialist. C - ANS-- Regarding ideal days and calendar days, all of the following statements are correct EXCEPT: A. Calendar days are the usual days at work and includes interruptions like breaks and meetings. B. Ideal days are the days of work minus the interruptions like breaks and meetings. C. Calendar days are valid units of estimate in Agile, since the definition of ideal days varies from one developer to another. D. Ideal days are valid units of estimate in Agile, since the worth of work done on a calendar day varies from one developer to another B - ANS-- Spot the statement that is incorrect as per the Agile Manifesto: A. Individuals and interactions over processes and tools B. Customer collaboration over vendor management C. Working software over comprehensive documentation D. Responding to change over following a plan A - ANS-- Which of the following could be the biggest cause for failure in an Agile project? A. Lack of availability of the customer to collaborate closely with the team. B. A distributed team. C. Some team members who are not yet well versed in devops practices. D. Resources that have fractional allocation to multiple projects at the same time. C - ANS-- You get to see all of the following practices in a, XP team except: A. Continuous build and integration. B. Checking in code into a single repository. C. Onsite customer facilitating daily stand-up meetings. D. Test-driven development. D - ANS-- Which of the following statements regarding technical debt is false? A. The quantum of technical debt can be measured by counting the number of days of effort required to address it. B. Technical debt can be introduced at any time, during initial development, during maintenance and enhancements. C. XP teams continuously refactor code to reduce technical debt. D. All of the above are true. D - ANS-- PMI®'s code of ethics applies to: A. PMI® members. B. PMI® certification seekers. C. PMI® volunteers and chapter members. D. A, B and C. D - ANS-- When should individual development team members signup for implementing a particular story? A. At the time of estimation, when they are submitting the estimates. B. Once the sprint goal has been agreed at the end of the planning meeting. C. During the daily stand-up meeting. D. At the last responsible moment and based on capacity of the team. All items are owned by the entire development team. C - ANS-- The Agile team has started working on an iteration. On the third day, a business representative comes up to you and requests another feature to be included in the same iteration. What should the Agile team do? A. Accommodate the feature since otherwise the business representative will not accept the iteration results. B. Accommodate the feature since otherwise the business representative will escalate that the team is not adaptable to change. C. Accommodate the feature by putting it into the product backlog and asking the product owner to check its ROI relative to other stories in the backlog. D. Accommodate the feature as it is a small change and self-organized team knows how to manage last-minute requirements. B - ANS-- An Agile team is working on the software for life-saving medical equipment. The product has already been in the market for about 2 months, when the product team detects a defect in the software that could be fatal to the patients being monitored. Fixing the product and rolling out the solution to all the clients who have purchased the product will be very costly and affect the balance sheets badly. What is the most important thing that the company should do? A. Wait and watch, as the clients have not discovered the defect and have not been affected. B. Since it is software for a life-saving medical apparatus, immediately warn all clients and stop their use. C. Immediately sanction a project to fix the software and roll out to all clients. This is estimated to take 4-5 months. D. Wait for the next planned release that is 6 months away and prioritize this production defect fix over anything else. A - ANS-- To eliminate dusplication in code, the word DRY is used. It stands for ________: A. Don't repeat yourself. B. Don't refactor your code. C. Do review your product. D. None of the above C - ANS-- Agile teams do emergent architecture and design. At the end of every iteration, they deliver ________. A. Shippable product increment. B. Vertical slice of the cake. C. A and B. D. Horizontal slice of the cake C - ANS-- An Agile team is currently reviewing the proposals submitted by prospective vendors. The outcome of the review is to shortlist and award the contract to the vendor that is considered best to work on the project. Harry, a member of the team comes to know that BigFive Consulting Company, which is owned by his relative, has also bid for the project. In this situation Harry should: A. Keep it to himself and patiently see what goes on. B. Keep it to himself and recommend the rest of the team to go with BigFive Consulting Company since you know them all and trust their capabilities. C. Disclose it and stay out of the seller selection process. D. Pass on some insider information D - ANS-- Which of the following is not an attribute of a product backlog? A. Prioritized B. Large C. Detailed appropriately D. Measurable B - ANS-- The Agile team is sitting together in a room. Harry asks a quick question on the build configuration and Sally responds where Harry could find it. In between, Richard, who was busy writing code, overhears and cautions that the configuration file at that location has an issue and Harry should use the one at an alternate location. Harry was able to get what he needed in no time and continued with his tasks. This type of communication between co-located teams is called? A. Verbal communication. B. Osmotic communication. C. Information radiators. D. Informal communication A - ANS-- On the back of the story card the acceptance test cases are found. Who specifies the acceptance test cases? A. Customer B. The whole team C. Test manager D. Scrum Master D - ANS-- Which of the following represents the richest and most effective mode of communication in a team? A. Recorded webinar B. Video conferencing C. Audio conferencing D. Face-to-face meeting accompanied by a whiteboard session. C - ANS-- To launch a product in a foreign country, one needs to pay a facilitation fee required by the municipal department to get the required no objection certificate. Going by PMI®'s code of ethics and professional conduct, one should: A. Not pay the fee since it amounts to bribe and violates the code. B. Pay the fee. C. Check with the legal team whether the fee is justifiable and ethical and then decide. D. Revoke the decision to launch the product in a country that asks for such a fee. A - ANS-- Harry and Sally have been fighting for a while on the proposed design options. Harry thinks Sally's option will be very difficult to implement and will cost lots of money upfront. Sally thinks that isn't the case as some basic components could be reused from the existing code. She also thinks that Harry is stubborn and refusing to listen to her justifications. Both approaches askyou to resolve the conflict. You think that both Harry and Sally have positive intent, so you ask Sally to present a small prototype that demonstrates her design. You also ask Harry to be patient and be attentive to what Sally demonstrates and all constructive feedback should be registered. The conflict resolution technique you followed was: A. Problem Solving B. Avoiding C. Compromising D. Forcing C - ANS-- In a planning poker session, the cards used to provide estimates are numbered as: A. T-shirt sizes S, M, L, XL, XXL, etc. B. Odd number 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, etc. C. Fibonacci series like 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc. D. Arithmetic progression like 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, etc. C - ANS-- Richard has recently joined company ABC as a senior designer. While working on the project, he faintly recollects that he had seen such a design solution in his ex-company. So he calls up his old buddy and asks him to email the design document from his previous company to his personal id. Is this action correct? A. Yes, since Richard is reusing the design that saves time and cost. B. Yes, since Richard is showing his prowess in networking. C. No, since this is a violation of intellectual rights and unethical. D. No, since he should have not still been speaking terms with colleagues in his ex-company. C - ANS-- Which of the following activities does a servant leader NOT do? A. Remove impediments. B. Reiterate the vision of the project. C. Come up with a detailed project plan at the end of the planning poker session. D. Help in logistics and facilitation. D - ANS-- A team determines its velocity to be 30 story points in a 3-week iteration. Given that there are 300 stories in the backlog, how long will the project take to complete? A. 30 weeks. B. 30 weeks provided the scope remains unchanged during this period. C. 30 weeks provided the scope doesn't change and the estimates don't change. D. 30 weeks provided the scope, estimates and the velocity of the same remains constant. C - ANS-- Richard is tasked with evaluating a few proposal received from vendors. One of the vendors met Richard over lunch to explain their value proposition and also handed over a small token of appreciation for Richard's time. Going by the gift and entertainments policy in the company, Richard should: A. Deny the gift from the vendor and tell him that his proposal will be rejected for trying to bribe him. B. Accept the gift because it is not expensive. C. Accept the gift as it is not inappropriate, disclose it in the organization and continue to fairly assess rest of the proposals. D. Call up his manager before leaving the meeting to let him decide whether the gift should be accepted or denied. C - ANS-- Which of the following conflict resolution techniques results in a lose-lose outcome? A. Problem Solving B. Avoiding C. Compromising D. Forcing D - ANS-- Which of the following conflict resolution technique results in a win-lose outcome? A. Problem Solving B. Avoiding C. Compromising D. Forcing B - ANS-- A team consumes the data produced by the software written by another team. The 'producer' team will be ready on Day 8, but to be on the safe side, the 'receiver' team inserts a buffer of 3 days and plans a start on Day 11. These 3 days between systems are called? A. Management reserve B. Feeding buffer C. Backup D. Dependency adjustments D - ANS-- Planning poker technique is NOT: A. An estimation technique B. A group decision-making technique C. A variation of the Wideband Delphi technique D. A sprint retrospective technique A - ANS-- The Agile team is during the second last stage of the retrospective meeting where the action items are being decided. Who will take ownership of the action items? A. The whole team B. The product owner C. The Scrum Master D. Whoever raised the topic in the first place A - ANS-- In MoSCoW prioritization technique, 'S' and 'C' standfor: A. Should have, could have B. Shouldn't have, could have C. Should have, couldn't have D. Shouldn't have, couldn't have C - ANS-- An Agile coach is tasked on suggesting ways to enhance the velocity of the team. Which of the following is not an option he states? A. Remove non-value added tasks from the team. B. Refactor code and remove technical debt. C. Ask the customer to stay aloof and not interfere with the team at work. D. Invest behind devops tools for version control, continuous build and integration. D - ANS-- Which of the following will not help a distributed team? A. A kickoff meeting at the beginning of the project. B. Sensitivity and awareness of cultural diversity of the team in multiple locations. C. Rotations of the team members if travel budget permits. D. Making teams sit in groups of specialism, like the BA's together, developers together, testers together