PMI-ACP Exam 01 Test Questions with Verified Answers &
Rationales.
What's the maximum allowed build cycle on XP projects?
A. 120 minutes
B. 10 minutes
C. 30 minutes
D. 60 minutes - Correct Answer B - On XP projects, builds should be run many times a
day, initiated by a schedule or in response to some asynchronous event such as checking
source code into the repository. XP requires investing in continuous improvement and
code optimization to maintain a ten-minute build cycle; any longer than ten minutes and
the build won't be used as often and won't provide as much feedback. [Agile Practice
Guide, 1st edition, Page 102] [Value-driven Delivery]
Which of the following tools can help Agile teams in measuring earned value?
A. Product backlog burnup chart
B. Cost baseline
C. S-Curve
D. Box plot - Correct Answer A - Cost baseline and S-Curves are used in traditional
approaches to earned value management. Agile teams can use a product backlog burnup
chart to measure earned value. Box plot is a statistical tool. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st
edition, Page 68] [Team Performance]
Which of the following Crystal methods would you consider if the project has a low
criticality rating and has a small Agile team assigned?
A. Crystal Red
B. Crystal Yellow
C. Crystal Orange
D. Crystal Clear - Correct Answer D - Crystal Clear is the simplest method in the Crystal
Family of methods. This method is advisable for projects with a low criticality rating and
smaller Agile teams. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 106] [Value-driven Delivery]
Which of the following conditions is of topmost priority for a feature-driven project?
,A. Delivering the highest value features by the agreed deadline.
B. Delivering maximum features by the agreed deadline.
C. Delivering the agreed set of features as soon as possible.
D. Delivering the agreed set of features by the agreed deadline. - Correct Answer C -
Many project are either date-driven or feature-driven. A date-driven project is one that
must be released by a certain date but for which the feature set is negotiable. A feature-
driven is one where the release date is as soon as possible but the completion of a set of
features is more important. [Cohn, M., 2006. Agile Estimating and Planning. 1st ed.
Massachusetts: Pearson Education. Page 133] [Adaptive Planning]
Which of the following Agile techniques is a process decision framework that enables
simplified process decisions around incremental and iterative solution delivery?
A. Design of Experiments
B. Design for Six Sigma
C. Disciplined Agile
D. Balanced Scorecard - Correct Answer C - Disciplined Agile is a process decision
framework that enables simplified process decisions around incremental and iterative
solution delivery. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 151] [Value-driven Delivery]
Some organizations choose to implement projects primarily through vendors. The major
issue with this approach is the loss of project knowledge once vendors complete their
obligations and leave the engagement. Which of the following can help mitigate this
issue?
A. Conducting retrospectives and following up on possible improvement areas when the
vendor is still engaged.
B. The risk is inherent in contracting and can only be mitigated through conducting make
or buy analysis.
C. Including a three-year product support requirement in the contract.
D. Mandating the vendors to document daily progress and submitting the documentation
with the final deliverable. - Correct Answer A - Agile techniques such as retrospectives
and follow up on possible improvement areas when the vendor is still engaged can help
mitigate loss of product knowledge. Make or buy analysis helps in the contracting
decisions and this doesn't mitigate the risk of loss of product knowledge. The rest of the
choices are not collaborative techniques. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 83]
[Problem Detection and Resolution]
,Which of the following types of features do NOT necessarily call for early development in
an Agile project?
A. Features that need the least cost and time to develop.
B. Features that have high business value.
C. Features that help in eliminating significant risk from the project.
D. Features that allow the team to gain significant knowledge about the product. - Correct
Answer A - Apart from prioritizing features based on their business value, early
termination of a significant risk can often justify developing a feature early. Similarly, if
developing a particular feature early will allow the team to gain significant knowledge
about the project or their effort to develop it, they should consider developing that feature
early. Cost and time requirements alone are not used to prioritize features. [Cohn, M.,
2006. Agile Estimating and Planning. 1st ed. Massachusetts: Pearson Education. Page
249] [Value-driven Delivery]
Which of the following is the correct approach for a servant-leader in regards to
management and control processes?
A. Shift focus on management processes and tools from individuals and interactions.
B. Abolish management processes and focus on team interactions.
C. Analyze and streamline management processes.
D. Select management processes that focus on exhaustive documentation. - Correct
Answer C - The first value of the Agile Manifesto is individuals and interactions over
processes and tools. However, that does not mean management and control processes
need to be abolished all together. The servant-leader is responsible for taking a hard look
at processes that are impeding a team's agility and work to streamline them. Selecting
management processes that focus on exhaustive documentation will impede the team's
agility. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 35] [Agile Principles and Mindset]
The feature buffering process helps in mitigating the risk of schedule slippages on
projects applying the Dynamic Systems Development Method. According to the MoSCoW
rules, what is the recommended size of the feature buffer in comparison to the project
duration?
A. 0.5
B. 0.4
C. 0.6
, D. 0.3 - Correct Answer D - DSDM projects create a feature buffer equivalent to 30% of
the duration of the project. [Cohn, M., 2006. Agile Estimating and Planning. 1st ed.
Massachusetts: Pearson Education. Page 187] [Value-driven Delivery]
You have recently been hired in a company to lead the central PMO of the organization.
You have recently found out that project teams usually generate a big number of
improvement ideas during retrospectives but fail to implement these during the iterations.
Which of the following recommendations can help the teams in the current situation?
A. Capture all improvement ideas as lessons learned and only implement them on a new
project.
B. Capturing improvement ideas during an on-going project is not recommended.
C. Capture all improvement ideas into some log and assign the servant-leader to track
progress during daily stand-ups.
D. Capture no more than three items to improve at each retrospective. - Correct Answer D
- When there is slow or no improvement in the teamwork process, it is recommended to
capture no more than three items to improve at each retrospective. Ask the servant-leader
to help the team learn how to integrate those items, however daily stand-ups are not
status reporting meetings. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 59] [Continuous
Improvement]
You are leading an Agile project. Some of the team members are complaining that a
couple of functional managers are constantly interrupting the project work and pulling out
resources to compete routine business work. What should you do?
A. Authorize the team to ignore any external requests.
B. Note down the issue and discuss during the next retrospective.
C. Escalate the issue to the product owner.
D. Approach the functional managers and negotiate alternatives. - Correct Answer D -
Delaying the resolution until next retrospective is not recommended. The best thing to do
is to collaborate with the functional managers and negotiate other workable solutions.
Escalating to the product owner or barring the team to entertain the functional managers
are not the solutions to this problem. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 33]
[Stakeholder Engagement]
During an iteration demonstration, the product owner and the developer are having a
conflict: a completed feature is not being accepted by the product owner. How could this
problem have been avoided?
A. Establishing a quality control process.
Rationales.
What's the maximum allowed build cycle on XP projects?
A. 120 minutes
B. 10 minutes
C. 30 minutes
D. 60 minutes - Correct Answer B - On XP projects, builds should be run many times a
day, initiated by a schedule or in response to some asynchronous event such as checking
source code into the repository. XP requires investing in continuous improvement and
code optimization to maintain a ten-minute build cycle; any longer than ten minutes and
the build won't be used as often and won't provide as much feedback. [Agile Practice
Guide, 1st edition, Page 102] [Value-driven Delivery]
Which of the following tools can help Agile teams in measuring earned value?
A. Product backlog burnup chart
B. Cost baseline
C. S-Curve
D. Box plot - Correct Answer A - Cost baseline and S-Curves are used in traditional
approaches to earned value management. Agile teams can use a product backlog burnup
chart to measure earned value. Box plot is a statistical tool. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st
edition, Page 68] [Team Performance]
Which of the following Crystal methods would you consider if the project has a low
criticality rating and has a small Agile team assigned?
A. Crystal Red
B. Crystal Yellow
C. Crystal Orange
D. Crystal Clear - Correct Answer D - Crystal Clear is the simplest method in the Crystal
Family of methods. This method is advisable for projects with a low criticality rating and
smaller Agile teams. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 106] [Value-driven Delivery]
Which of the following conditions is of topmost priority for a feature-driven project?
,A. Delivering the highest value features by the agreed deadline.
B. Delivering maximum features by the agreed deadline.
C. Delivering the agreed set of features as soon as possible.
D. Delivering the agreed set of features by the agreed deadline. - Correct Answer C -
Many project are either date-driven or feature-driven. A date-driven project is one that
must be released by a certain date but for which the feature set is negotiable. A feature-
driven is one where the release date is as soon as possible but the completion of a set of
features is more important. [Cohn, M., 2006. Agile Estimating and Planning. 1st ed.
Massachusetts: Pearson Education. Page 133] [Adaptive Planning]
Which of the following Agile techniques is a process decision framework that enables
simplified process decisions around incremental and iterative solution delivery?
A. Design of Experiments
B. Design for Six Sigma
C. Disciplined Agile
D. Balanced Scorecard - Correct Answer C - Disciplined Agile is a process decision
framework that enables simplified process decisions around incremental and iterative
solution delivery. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 151] [Value-driven Delivery]
Some organizations choose to implement projects primarily through vendors. The major
issue with this approach is the loss of project knowledge once vendors complete their
obligations and leave the engagement. Which of the following can help mitigate this
issue?
A. Conducting retrospectives and following up on possible improvement areas when the
vendor is still engaged.
B. The risk is inherent in contracting and can only be mitigated through conducting make
or buy analysis.
C. Including a three-year product support requirement in the contract.
D. Mandating the vendors to document daily progress and submitting the documentation
with the final deliverable. - Correct Answer A - Agile techniques such as retrospectives
and follow up on possible improvement areas when the vendor is still engaged can help
mitigate loss of product knowledge. Make or buy analysis helps in the contracting
decisions and this doesn't mitigate the risk of loss of product knowledge. The rest of the
choices are not collaborative techniques. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 83]
[Problem Detection and Resolution]
,Which of the following types of features do NOT necessarily call for early development in
an Agile project?
A. Features that need the least cost and time to develop.
B. Features that have high business value.
C. Features that help in eliminating significant risk from the project.
D. Features that allow the team to gain significant knowledge about the product. - Correct
Answer A - Apart from prioritizing features based on their business value, early
termination of a significant risk can often justify developing a feature early. Similarly, if
developing a particular feature early will allow the team to gain significant knowledge
about the project or their effort to develop it, they should consider developing that feature
early. Cost and time requirements alone are not used to prioritize features. [Cohn, M.,
2006. Agile Estimating and Planning. 1st ed. Massachusetts: Pearson Education. Page
249] [Value-driven Delivery]
Which of the following is the correct approach for a servant-leader in regards to
management and control processes?
A. Shift focus on management processes and tools from individuals and interactions.
B. Abolish management processes and focus on team interactions.
C. Analyze and streamline management processes.
D. Select management processes that focus on exhaustive documentation. - Correct
Answer C - The first value of the Agile Manifesto is individuals and interactions over
processes and tools. However, that does not mean management and control processes
need to be abolished all together. The servant-leader is responsible for taking a hard look
at processes that are impeding a team's agility and work to streamline them. Selecting
management processes that focus on exhaustive documentation will impede the team's
agility. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 35] [Agile Principles and Mindset]
The feature buffering process helps in mitigating the risk of schedule slippages on
projects applying the Dynamic Systems Development Method. According to the MoSCoW
rules, what is the recommended size of the feature buffer in comparison to the project
duration?
A. 0.5
B. 0.4
C. 0.6
, D. 0.3 - Correct Answer D - DSDM projects create a feature buffer equivalent to 30% of
the duration of the project. [Cohn, M., 2006. Agile Estimating and Planning. 1st ed.
Massachusetts: Pearson Education. Page 187] [Value-driven Delivery]
You have recently been hired in a company to lead the central PMO of the organization.
You have recently found out that project teams usually generate a big number of
improvement ideas during retrospectives but fail to implement these during the iterations.
Which of the following recommendations can help the teams in the current situation?
A. Capture all improvement ideas as lessons learned and only implement them on a new
project.
B. Capturing improvement ideas during an on-going project is not recommended.
C. Capture all improvement ideas into some log and assign the servant-leader to track
progress during daily stand-ups.
D. Capture no more than three items to improve at each retrospective. - Correct Answer D
- When there is slow or no improvement in the teamwork process, it is recommended to
capture no more than three items to improve at each retrospective. Ask the servant-leader
to help the team learn how to integrate those items, however daily stand-ups are not
status reporting meetings. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 59] [Continuous
Improvement]
You are leading an Agile project. Some of the team members are complaining that a
couple of functional managers are constantly interrupting the project work and pulling out
resources to compete routine business work. What should you do?
A. Authorize the team to ignore any external requests.
B. Note down the issue and discuss during the next retrospective.
C. Escalate the issue to the product owner.
D. Approach the functional managers and negotiate alternatives. - Correct Answer D -
Delaying the resolution until next retrospective is not recommended. The best thing to do
is to collaborate with the functional managers and negotiate other workable solutions.
Escalating to the product owner or barring the team to entertain the functional managers
are not the solutions to this problem. [Agile Practice Guide, 1st edition, Page 33]
[Stakeholder Engagement]
During an iteration demonstration, the product owner and the developer are having a
conflict: a completed feature is not being accepted by the product owner. How could this
problem have been avoided?
A. Establishing a quality control process.
