Agile Practice Questions And Answers (Answered) With Rationale 2022/2023

Agile Practice Questions And Answers (Answered) With Rationale 2022/2023 A smart phone manufacturer is re-assessing its product development methods in response to a sharp increase in user complaints. Analysis of the complaints indicates that the users try to use some features in ways that designers did not anticipate.Given these findings, which agile practice would most effectively prevent the problem? Select one: a. Smoke Testing b. Acceptance Test-Driven Development c. Red, green, refactor d. Behavior-Driven Development Behavior-Driven Development is an extension of Test-Driven Development whereby automated tests and simulations are created before developing the product. Flaws are discovered by forcing the tests to fail before producing the unit in a way that will pass the tests. Distractors are incorrect because the tests are either based on team assumptions (ATDD), minimal (smoke) or too limited (persona). The correct answer is: Behavior-Driven Development Six months into a strategic agile project, company executives are closely monitoring its progress. The COO expresses his frustration that the last weekly burn-down charts show the projected completion date significantly moving back and forward several times.How can the project manager forecast the completion date with more accuracy and stability? Select one: a. Educate the executive committee on the flexible nature of agile planning. b. Reduce frequency of the progress reports sent to senior stakeholders. c. Plan for variable-size iterations according to story complexity and load. d. Ensure upcoming backlog items are elaborated in more detail with the team. Erratic progress curve variations are typical of inconsistent or uninformed story point estimates. Backlog refinement can ensure that overly complex stories are broken down and that past progress informs new story estimates. Distractors are false because they either ignore stakeholder needs or violate agile timeboxing principle (variable-size iterations). The correct answer is: Ensure upcoming backlog items are elaborated in more detail with the team. A project manager experienced in predictive methods is taking on an agile project for the first time. To help in adjusting, the project manager makes a watchlist of situations that arise from inadequate action as a servant leader.Which situations would result from a lack of servant leadership? (Choose THREE.) Select one or more: a. Team members avoid taking on challenging tasks b. Team members avoid direct communication with other departments c. Team members raise impediments they are unable to eliminate d. High performers in the team move to more senior positions e. Project stakeholders express skepticism of agile methods A is correct because servant leaders must promote professional development through challenges. B is correct because servant leaders help team build bridges with external groups. E is correct because servant leaders educate stakeholders on agile business value. C and D are incorrect, because servant leaders remove impediments and support personal growth beyond project interests. The correct answers are: Team members avoid taking on challenging tasks, Team members avoid direct communication with other departments, Project stakeholders express skepticism of agile methods A new team member, unaccustomed to agile practices, becomes nervous when an operations engineer who often criticized his previous work appears at the morning standup meeting.What could justify the project manager's invitation to the operations engineer? Select one: a. It is a way for the project manager to learn more about the new member b. It is an agile practice used to prevent routine setting in to daily meetings c. It is a way to boost the new member's performance and keep him on his toes d. It is a standard practice in agile to proactively correct misalignments Proactively seeking input from different stakeholders and transparency of project communications is considered good Agile practice. Distractors are wrong because they do not promote the team member's integration to the team by promoting trust (breaking routine, boost performance) or not favoring direct communication (learning about member indirectly). The correct answer is: It is a standard practice in agile to proactively correct misalignments A trend of stories uncompleted at the end of iterations has become apparent. Multiple team members worked on these stories and no blockers were identified .What can the agile team do to resolve the situation? Select one: a. Work with the product owner to further break down the stories in the backlog and update the Definition of Ready b. Put the stories in the blocked column and work with the product owner to remove impediments c. Put the stories back into the product backlog and wait for a less intensive iteration to work on them d. Use the next iteration for a team spike to determine feasibility of completing the stories When stories cannot be completed within one iteration, it is typically because the story is not broken down into small enough goals. Distractors are incorrect because:- they do not address the root cause by waiting or setting to blocked- product owner cannot remove impediments if they are not identified and analyzed- devoting full team to a spike is inefficient and bypasses normal backlog refinement. The correct answer is: Work with the product owner to further break down the stories in the backlog and update the Definition of Ready The empowered agile team showed impressive progress in the first four iterations, but now the product owner has noticed low output in the latest five iterations without any apparent reason.What could be the cause of this situation? Select one: a. Technical debt has set in and the team's output will keep dropping until the cause is eliminated b. The team worked on low complexity stories from the backlog in the first four interactions c. There is most likely a specific under-performing team member slowing the team down d. The team was in the storming stage of the development and now have moved to norming Some agile teams want to favor faster progress by completing less complex stories before more complex ones. Prioritization of backlog should be value-based, not speed-based. Distractors are wrong because:- the change is abrupt: technical debt is a slow degradation- a low performer would have been apparent in earlier iterations- the team is autonomous (post-norming). The correct answer is: The team worked on low complexity stories from the backlog in the first four interactions Several items remain in the Kanban blocked column despite the team's efforts to address them. The retrospective reveals that all the impediments can be traced back to a particular department head, one the project manager has tried to educate previously but who still shows resistance.What should the project manager do next? Select one: a. Set up an information radiator ranking stakeholders according to their active support of the project goals b. Ask the department head for budgetary compensation proportional to the delays incurred due to lack of cooperation c. Ask the team members to find other stakeholders who can help work around the department head's barriers d. Use stakeholder analysis to identify an aligned senior stakeholder to influence the department head If stakeholders remain resistant despite the project manager's efforts it can be a case where escalation is required. Distractors are wrong because: - the project manager normally would have to resolve problems within an established budget - bypassing the stakeholder does not address the root cause, which would be likely to resurface - public "shaming" by rank does not promote trust and cooperation The correct answer is: Use stakeholder analysis to identify an aligned senior stakeholder to influence the department head Several items remain in the Kanban blocked column despite the team's efforts to resolve the issues. The retrospective reveals that all of the impediments relate to mandatory corporate business processes which introduce wait times.What should the project manager do next? Select one: a. Act as a servant leader to resolve the pending business process issues while the team attend a team building event b. Work with process owners to streamline procedures, and secure the team coaching on the processes c. Dedicate the next iteration to team training on the business processes to help them work more autonomously d. Work with the team to increase the story point estimates in the backlog to account for the business process delays The servant leader should work within the organization to simplify processes affecting the team as much as possible. However, large companies typically need internal processes which can rarely be eliminated altogether. Distractors are wrong because: - It is unrealistic to expect all processes to be removed during the time a of team building event - training is part of the solution, but not at the price of a full iteration and there should also be a streamlining effort - story points should reflect the complexity of the story itself while business processes would be more accurately reflected as an overall reduction of story point rate over time. The correct answer is: Work with process owners to streamline procedures, and secure the team coaching on the processes The quarterly results show that competitors are driving prices down. The company is losing market share and midway into a product development project, it appears the sponsoring unit is not likely to get return on their investment.What should the project manager do adapt the project to these new conditions? (Select TWO.) Select one or more: a. Make a cost/benefit analysis of deliverables to optimize delivery cost and speed b. Incrementally replace local staff by outside expert staff who can work at half the hourly rate or less c. Split out an agile track to incrementally maximize value within a fixed budget d. Fast-track the remainder of the project to deliver the intended scope with less overhead costs. e. Re-scope the project to deliver the same features as the competitors to match their pricing You have correctly selected 1. Cost/benefit analysis and fixed-budget incremental development are correct because they address the loss of profitability without disruption to business.