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PMI-ACP test questions and answers (2)

avril 11, 2018

Tags: PMI-ACP test

PMI-ACP test questions and answers (2)

Test PMI-ACP
Mock exam 2
40 questions

Test Name: PMI-ACP Lite Mock Exam 2
Total Questions: 40
Correct Answers Needed to Pass: 30 (75.00%)
Time Allowed: 60 Minutes

This is a cumulative PMI-ACP Mock Exam which can be used as a benchmark for your PMI-ACP aptitude. This practice test includes questions from all exam topic areas, including sections from Agile Tools and Techniques, and all three Agile Knowledge and Skills areas.

1. Roger as an experienced agile team leader is keen on having an empowered team. What does an empowered team mean?
A. A team that is risk-averse and focused solely on minimizing risk.
B. A team that solves problems through the use of customer feedback mechanisms.
C. A team that is capable of « powering » up to different iteration velocities to reach customer expectations.
D. A team that is self-organizing and takes ownership of the product it is developing.

2. Barry and Jill have just overturned the lowest and highest values, respectively, during a planning poker meeting when estimating a user story that Barry is to develop. What typically happens next in planning poker?
A. Because Barry is the developer, the team should use Barry’s estimate.
B. An average of the two values should be used as the estimated work effort to complete the user story.
C. Both Barry and Jill should be allowed to defend their decisions and the team should repeat the voting process until consensus is reached by the entire team.
D. Randomly pick one of the cards as the user story work effort estimate.

3. Why is knowing about CASs important for an agile practitioner?
A. Because understanding that software projects are themselves similar to CASs reminds practitioners about the importance of adapting to a changing environment.
B. Because understanding that software projects are themselves similar to CASs reminds practitioners about the importance of avoiding scope creep.
C. Because understanding that software projects are themselves similar to CASs reminds practitioners about the importance of fixing a changing environment.
D. Because understanding that software projects are themselves similar to CASs reminds practitioners about the importance of avoiding too many interacting, adaptive agents that can disrupt progress.

4. John, as project leader, mentors and coaches his team. He always makes sure to highlight important team achievements. What is John doing when he provides mentoring and coaching?
A. Refactoring the team
B. Guiding the team
C. Reforming the team
D. Motivating the team

5. Which of the following is the best definition of an agile leader?
A. Someone who delegates all tasks to the development team without any collaboration
B. Someone who empowers the development team to take ownership of the product and make important decisions in a collaborative environment.
C. Someone who retains control of key decisions and delegates all functions and tasks to team members.
D. Someone who empowers the development team to make inconsequential decisions to give it the feeling of self-organization.

6. Pick the response which is NOT a characteristic of the agile validation process.
A. Confirms the product meets specifications and requirements.
B. Confirms the product meets user needs.
C. Helps ensure quality.
D. Performed frequently.

7. Jessica is using the lean technique of 5Y for root cause analysis. What agile knowledge and skill area does 5Y fall under?
A. Problem-saturation strategies, tools, and techniques
B. Problem-reversing strategies, tools, and techniques
C. Problem-mitigation strategies, tools, and techniques
D. Problem-solving strategies, tools, and techniques

8. From the following, select a common agile framework/methodology.
A. Static systems development method (SSDM)
B. Dynamic product development method (DPDM)
C. Dynamic systems development method (DSDM)
D. Extreme systems development method (XSDM)

9. Which of the following helps an agile team promote simple and effective communication?
A. Through the use of lengthy memorandums.
B. Through collaborative release planning
C. Through the use of formal boardroom meetings.
D. Through the use of e-mail.

10. What term often used in agile estimation refers to the amount of user stories or story points completed in an iteration?
A. Frequency
B. Acceleration
C. Speed
D. Velocity

11. Hanson and his team are using a framework in their agile effort where the team follows a prescriptive five step process that is managed and tracked from the perspective of the product features. Which framework is Hanson’s team incorporating into its agile effort?
A. Defect driven development (3D)
B. Test driven development (TDD)
C. Acceptance test driven development (ATDD)
D. Feature driven development (FDD)

12. Of the following, which is NOT a phase of Highsmith’s agile project management?
A. Monitoring & Controlling
B. Adapting
C. Speculating
D. Closing

13. Not all agile efforts succeed the first time, what is a common cause of failure?
A. Accrued budget debt from failing to adhere to waterfall scheduling.
B. Accrued schedule debt from using a sustainable, 40 hour work week.
C. Accrued technical debt from putting off quality standards.
D. Accrued social debt from putting off team building events.

14. Which of the following best defines collaboration?
A. Achieving personal goals.
B. Achieving objectives independently.
C. Achieving objectives through cooperative team work.
D. Achieving growth targets.

15. Of the following, which is the best definition of prioritization?
A. The relative ordering of user stories with respect to value and risk.
B. The scalar ordering of user stories with respect to value and risk.
C. The fixed ordering of user stories with respect to value and risk
D. The vector ordering of user stories with respect value and risk.

16. Having a high emotional intelligence is important to promote effective communication in an agile team. What is one of the seven components of emotional intelligence as defined by Higgs & Dulewicz?
A. Chaordicness
B. Controlled recklessness
C. Interpersonal sensitivity
D. Sympathy

17. Calculate the return on investment of the following: Gain: $1,000; Cost: $10,000.
A. -70%
B. -90%
C. -90%
D. -80%

18. Xavier has just refactored his production code after testing it as part of the four step process of TDD. What step is Xavier performing?
A. 1st
B. 4th
C. 2nd
D. 3rd

20. Jane and her team are distilling information from a discussion with the business stakeholder into specific tests for a user story. What step is Jane on in the ATDD four step process?
A. 1st
B. 2nd
C. 4th
D. 3rd

21. Of the following, select the best adjective that describes an agile team’s project and quality standards.
A. Refined over time
B. Defined in the agile manifesto
C. CMMI-defined
D. Fixed from the get go

22. Sarah, as an agile leader, knows that she should practice with an adaptive leadership style. What are the two dimensions Highsmith uses to define adaptive leadership?
A. Adaptive agility and anticipatory agility
B. Being agile and doing agile
C. Being agile and practicing agile
D. Adaptive agility and prescriptive agility

23. Select from the following a key soft skill negotiation quality.
A. Adaptive compromise
B. Adaptive leadership
C. Adaptive reflection
D. Adaptive following

24. In agile estimating and planning, what is ‘retained’ revenue?
A. Revenue retained through the development of new product features or services that prevent existing customers from stopping use of the existing product.
B. Additional revenue realized through the sales of new product features or services to existing customers.
C. New revenue realized through the sales of products or services to new customers.
D. New revenue found in a hidden value stream.

25. What process, performed frequently, helps ensure high product quality?
A. Planning poker
B. Affinity planning
C. Milestone reviews
D. Verification and validation

26. Which scrum meeting is often timeboxed to four hours?
A. Release plan meeting
B. Daily stand-up meeting
C. Affinity planning meeting
D. Sprint planning meeting

27. Of the following, select the rationale for why an empowered team considered an important team attribute in agile?
A. Empowered teams adapt slowly to changing requirements and therefore can reduce scope-creep risk.
B. Empowered teams remain inflexible to changing customer requirements and focus on delivering to specification.
C. Empowered teams adapt to changing requirements and thus can focus on delivering value in a volatile marketplace
D. Empowered teams remove themselves from being responsible of product quality in order to reduce association with project failure.

28. Kathy, the head of a multi-national corporation, is considering hiring an agile team to develop a new database system. However, the agile team Kathy is working with tells her that estimating final cost can be difficult. Why is it more difficult to estimate cost on an agile project?
A. Because agile welcomes the changing scope that customers may request to stay relevant in the marketplace.
B. Because customers have little experience with the agile quality to cost and value triangle.
C. Because the cost of product development is not fixed.
D. Because agile works outside the purview of a fixed schedule.

29. Rebecca and her agile team are discussing the project and quality standards it will hold itself accountable against for a new effort. When it typically the best time to have this discussion?
A. After the first iteration
B. At the beginning of an effort
C. After refactoring
D. After the first accepted user story

31. Prototyping is a common project management technique to reduce risk. Select the response which is NOT a common form of prototyping in agile projects.
A. XAML
B. Paper
C. HTML
D. Wireframe

32. Becky, as project leader, intends on building a high-performance team. What is a practice or technique she can use to build a high performance team?
A. Isolating team members for focus
B. Criticizing team members openly
C. Promoting competition
D. Building trust

33. Select a common agile framework/methodology.
A. Agile codified process (ACP)
B. Agile framework process (AFP)
C. Agile lean process (ALP)
D. Agile unified process (AUP)

34. Jill and her team are scheduled to hold a reflective improvement workshop the next business day. Which agile project management methodology uses reflective improvement workshops as a key tool to apply its principles?
A. Extreme Programming
B. Agile Unified Process
C. Crystal
D. Feature Driven Development

35. In which framework are core roles categorized as the following three: product owner, scrum master, development team?
A. Extreme programming (XP)
B. Scrum
C. Lean software development
D. Agile unified process (AUP)

36. What type of team takes ownership of a product and requires minimal management supervision?
A. Power team
B. Empowered team
C. Magnitude team
D. Impact team

37. Peter is at a planning event where the relative development effort of user stories of a large product backlog is to be estimated. The team is to assign user stories to various soft drink sizes (small, medium, large, extra-large). What type of planning event is Peter most likely attending?
A. Planning game estimating
B. Agility estimating
C. Planning poker
D. Affinity estimating

38. Which of the following best defines negotiation?
A. Agreement found through customer choice.
B. Agreement found through discussion.
C. Agreement found through inspection.
D. Agreement found through reflection.

39. Jules is describing the SMART acronym used for task analysis in an agile seminar. What does the A stand for?
A. Aggregate
B. Altruistic
C. Achievable
D. Accurate

40. Help Julian select a key principle of lean software development.
A. Increasing inventory
B. Amplifying defect detection
C. Quality stream mapping
D. Eliminating waste

Answers

D – Empowered teams – ones that are self-organizing and know how to solve problems with minimal management involvement – are a cornerstone of the agile methodology. An agile team feels empowered when it collectively assumes responsibility for the delivery of the product (i.e., taking ownership). [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

C – Planning poker is based upon the wideband Delphi estimation technique. It is a consensus-based technique for estimating effort. Sometimes called scrum poker, it is a technique for a relative estimation of effort, typically in story points, to develop a user story. At a planning poker meeting, each estimator is given an identical deck of planning poker cards with a wide range of values. The Fibonacci sequence is often used for values for planning poker (i.e., 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5,8,etc.); another common sequence is (question mark, 0, 1/2, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, and 100). A planning poker meeting works as follows: 1) a moderator, not estimating, facilitates the meeting. 2) the product owner/manager provides a short overview of the user story and answers clarifying questions posed by the developers. Typically the product owner does not vote. 3) Each estimator selects an estimate of work effort by selecting a card, 4) Once everyone has selected a card, everyone overturns their card concurrently, 5) Estimators with high and low estimates are given a chance to defend positions. 6) The process repeats until there is consensus. The developer who owns the user story is typically given higher credence. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Agile estimation]

A – A complex adaptive system, or CAS, is a system composed of interacting, adaptive agents or components. The term is used in agile to remind practitioners that the development of a product is adaptive in that previous interactions, events, decisions influence future behavior. The term chaordic (a made up word blending chaotic and order) is sometimes used when describing CASs. Literature points to three key characteristics of chaordic projects: alignment and cooperation, emergence and self-organization, and learning and adaptation. [Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products – 2nd Edition. Jim Highsmith.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 3]

D – Having a motivated team is essential for any project, regardless of whether it is agile or not. Motivated teams work together better, have strong productivity, and exceed expectations. Some simple steps to increase motivation are 1) spending quality time together; where team members get to know one another on a personal level to build a sense of community, 2) providing feedback, mentoring and coaching; where team members are congratulated and thanked on jobs well done and also mentored or coached to improve in skill and capability, and 3) empowerment; where the team is empowered to make many key decisions which, along the way, builds trust and shows that leadership believes in the capabilities of the team. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

B – A common misconception in agile is that an agile team does not need a leader. In fact, all agile teams need a leader, but the way in which the leader leads is fundamentally different than the typical traditional project manager/project leader method. Some have theorized that this misconception stems from the desired ‘self-organizing’ quality of the agile team. And although the ‘self-organizing’ agile team is empowered to take ownership and responsibility of the product and make some decisions itself, it nevertheless requires a leader to help provide guidance, mentoring, coaching, problem solving, and decision making. Some key aspects required of an agile leader include: empowering team members to decide what standard agile practices and methods it will use; allowing the team to be self-organized and self-disciplined; empowering the team members to make decisions collaboratively with the customer; inspire the team to be innovative and explore new ideas and technology capabilities; be a champion of and articulate the product vision to team members so it will be motivated to accomplish the overall objective; remove any obstacles and solve any problems the team may face in its effort; communicate and endorse the values and principles of agile project management to stakeholders that may be unfamiliar with agile; ensure that all stakeholders, including business managers and developers, are collaborating effectively; and, be able to adapt the leadership style to the working environment to ensure that the agile values and principles are effectively upheld. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

A – Because each iteration typically produces a working product that is built and integrated and iterations are typically two to four weeks in length, there is frequent verification and validation to ensure product quality. Verification is the confirmation that a product performs as specified by a customer (e.g. as indicated by a user story) and validation is the confirmation that a product behaves as desired (i.e., meets the customer’s need). Sometimes a product may be built and integrated to specification – that is, it can be verified – but it does not meet the intent of the customer – that is, it cannot be validated. [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Product quality]

D – Literally thousands of decisions are made in the course of a project. Many of these decisions are made in response to problems that inevitably arise and confront the agile team. Therefore it is essential that an agile team is properly versed in problem-solving strategies, tools, and techniques. Some common problem-solving techniques include: ask it loud; revisit the problem; 5Y; sunk cost fallacy; devil’s advocate; be kind, rewind; asking probing questions; and reflective/active listening. [Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, Ken Schwaber.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

C – Common frameworks or methodologies used within agile include: scrum, extreme programming (XP), lean software development, crystal, feature driven development (FDD), dynamic systems development method (DSDM), agile unified process (AUP). [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]

B – Effective communication is a cornerstone of agile. Communication is the act of transferring information among various parties. Communications management is a knowledge and skill area of agile that highlights this importance. PMI has several definitions regarding communications management and agile builds on top of these to add its own perspective: 1) Communications Planning: Determining the information and communication needs of the projects stakeholders 2) Information Distribution: Making needed information available to project stakeholders in a timely manner, 3) Performance Reporting: Collecting and distributing performance information. This includes status reporting, progress measurement, and forecasting, and 4) Managing Stakeholders: Managing communications to satisfy the requirements and resolve issues with project stakeholders. From an agile perspective: communication among the team is built into the process and facilitated through collocation, information radiators, daily stand-up meetings, retrospectives etc.; Although it is hoped that the product owner, customer, and user can be heavily involved with the project and also use these communication techniques, a plan for conveying information to stakeholders may be needed if this is not the case. [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

10. What term often used in agile estimation refers to the amount of user stories or story points completed in an iteration?
A. Frequency
B. Acceleration
C. Speed
D. Velocity

D – Velocity is a measure of the number of user story points completed per iteration. An agile team can use its previous velocity recordings as a method of estimating how many user story points it may complete in the next iteration. David’s team’s velocity is 20. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Agile estimation]

D – Feature driven development (FDD) uses a prescriptive model where the software development process is planned, managed, and tracked from the perspective of individual software features. FDD uses short iterations of two weeks or less to develop a set amount of features. The five step FDD process is: 1. Develop overall model; 2. Create the features list; 3. Plan by feature; 4. Design by feature; 5 Build by feature. [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]

12. Of the following, which is NOT a phase of Highsmith’s agile project management?
A. Monitoring & Controlling
B. Adapting
C. Speculating
D. Closing

A – The agile project management phases, in sequence, are: Envisioning, speculating, exploring, adapting, closing. [Manifesto for Agile Software Development. Agile Alliance.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

C – The top 12 causes of agile failure (failure modes) according to Aaron Sanders: 1. A checkbook commitment doesn’t automatically cause organizational change or support. 2. Culture doesn’t support change. 3. Culture does not have retrospectives or performs them poorly. 4. Standards and quality are lost in a race to project closing. 5.Lack of collaboration in planning. 6.None or too many Product Owners. 7. Poor project leadership or scrum master that doesn’t place trust in the team and allow it to be self-organizing and self-disciplined. 8.No on-site agile promoter or coach. 9.Lack of a well built, high-performance team. 10. Accrued technical debt if strict testing standards are not upheld. 11.Culture maintains traditional performance appraisals where individuals are honored and the team aspect is lost. 12. A reversion to the traditional or ‘old-way’ of doing business occurs because change is hard. [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 3]

C – Collaboration is a key soft skill negotiation skill. It involves working in groups to create ideas, solve problems, and produce solutions. [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Soft skills negotiation]

A – An agile team must always face the prioritization of product features in its product backlog. From release planning to iteration planning, an agile team must prioritize the user stories/features of its product to ensure that high-quality and high-value features are developed first to help facilitate an optimized and early return on investment (ROI). An agile team typically prioritizes requirements or user stories/features in terms of relative value and risk; value is defined by the customer (i.e., customer-value prioritization). Two common methods to prioritize product features are: MoSCoW and Kano. The MoSCoW method categorizes features into ‘Must have,’ ‘Should have,’ ‘Could have,’ and ‘Would have’ features. The Kano method categorizes features into ‘Must haves (threshold),’ ‘Dissatisfiers,’ ‘Satisfiers,’ and ‘Delighters.’ Must haves are features that are requisite. Dissatisfiers are features that adversely impact perceived value and should be eliminated. ‘Satisfiers’ are features that increase perceived value linearly, where the more you add the more the customer is pleased, but are not required, and ‘Delighters’ are features that increase perceived value exponentially to please the customer. To prioritize features based on risk, a risk-to-value matrix can be used. A risk-to-value matrix has four quadrants, with the horizontal axis having low and high value, and the vertical axis having low and high risk. User stories are assigned to one of the four categories/quadrants: low-value, low-risk; low-value, high-risk; high-value, low-risk; high-value, high-risk. A cost-to-value matrix can also be made in this manner. All prioritization in agile is ‘relative,’ meaning that the priority of one user story is relative to other user stories and not prioritized on a fixed scale. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

C – Higgs & Dulewicz (1999) defines emotional intelligence using seven components: 1) Self-awareness, 2) Emotional resilience, 3) Motivation, 4) Interpersonal sensitivity, 5) Influence, 6) Intuitiveness, and 7) Conscientiousness. [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Soft skills negotiation]

17. Calculate the return on investment of the following: Gain: $1,000; Cost: $10,000.
A. -70%
B. -90%
C. -90%
D. -80%

B – Return on Investment (ROI): A metric used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare efficiency among a number of investments. To calculate ROI, the return of an investment (i.e., the gain minus the cost) is divided by the cost of the investment. The result is usually expressed as a percentage and sometimes a ratio. The product owner is often said to be responsible for the ROI. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Value based prioritization]
ROI = 1,000 – 10,000 / 10,000 = – 90 %

18. Xavier has just refactored his production code after testing it as part of the four step process of TDD. What step is Xavier performing?
A. 1st
B. 4th
C. 2nd
D. 3rd

B – The TDD process has four basic steps: Write a test, 2) Verify and validate the test, 3) Write product code and apply the test, 4) Refactor the product code. An example may be that a user has to enter an age value. A good test is to make sure the user data entry is a positive number and not a different type of input, like a letter (i.e., write the test). The programmer would verify that entering a letter instead of a number would cause the program to cause an exception (i.e., v&v the test). The programmer would then write product code that takes user entry for the age value (i.e., write the product code). The programmer would then run the product code and enter correct age values and incorrect age values (i.e., apply the test). If the product code is successful, the programmer would refactor the product code to improve its design. Using these four steps iteratively ensures that programmers think about how a software program might fail first and to build product code that is holistically being tested. This helps produce high quality code. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Product quality]

19. Jane and her team are discussing with the business stakeholder what the expected behavior is of a particular user story. What step is Jane on in the ATDD four step process?
A. 2nd
B. 3rd
C. 4th
D. 1st
D – Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) is similar to Test-driven development (TDD) in that it requires programmers to create tests first before any product code. The tests in ATDD are aimed at confirming features/behaviors that the intended software will have. The iterative cycle of ATDD with its four steps can be remembered as the four Ds: 1) Discuss, 2) Distill, 3) Develop, and 4) Demo. 1) Discuss: The agile team and customer or business stakeholder discuss a user story in detail. Talking about the expected behaviors the user story should have and what it should not. 2) The development team takes those items learned from the discussion and distills them into tests that will verify and validate those behaviors. The distillation process is where the entire team should have a good understanding of what « done » (or completed) means for a user story. That is, what the acceptance criteria are. 3) After distillation, the team develops the test code and product code to implement the product features. 4) Once the product features have been developed, the team demonstrates them to the customer or business stakeholders for feedback. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Product quality]

B – Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD) is similar to Test-driven development (TDD) in that it requires programmers to create tests first before any product code. The tests in ATDD are aimed at confirming features/behaviors that the intended software will have. The iterative cycle of ATDD with its four steps can be remembered as the four Ds: 1) Discuss, 2) Distill, 3) Develop, and 4) Demo. 1) Discuss: The agile team and customer or business stakeholder discuss a user story in detail. Talking about the expected behaviors the user story should have and what it should not. 2) The development team takes those items learned from the discussion and distills them into tests that will verify and validate those behaviors. The distillation process is where the entire team should have a good understanding of what « done » (or completed) means for a user story. That is, what the acceptance criteria are. 3) After distillation, the team develops the test code and product code to implement the product features. 4) Once the product features have been developed, the team demonstrates them to the customer or business stakeholders for feedback. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Product quality]

A – All agile efforts have project and quality standards that the team defines collaboratively at the beginning of an effort and refines collaboratively throughout the effort. Project and quality standards help an agile team with team cohesion and provide a structure, albeit one that can adapt as the project evolves, to promote a self-disciplined environment. There is no ‘one size fits all’ standards definition in agile; because every project is different, it has been shown that the team should define which project and quality standards it should hold itself against and strive to conform to those standards while also being open to adapting those standards throughout the project to optimize performance and delivered value. Project standards can range from where the daily stand-up meeting is located and how long each participant has to share his or her progress and challenges to highly specific software coding styles, methods for test-driven development, and what the team’s definition of ‘done-done’ means. [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

B – Highsmith defines adaptive leadership as two dimensional: Being agile and doing agile. Being agile includes focusing on cornerstones of agile project management, like incremental delivery, continuous integration, and adapting to changing requirements. Doing agile includes several activities that an agile leader must do: do less; speed-to-value, quality, and engage and inspire. [Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products – 2nd Edition. Jim Highsmith.] [Soft skills negotiation]

23. Select from the following a key soft skill negotiation quality.
A. Adaptive compromise
B. Adaptive leadership
C. Adaptive reflection
D. Adaptive following

B – Key soft skills negotiation qualities for the effective implementation and practice of agile are: emotional intelligence, collaboration, adaptive leadership, negotiation, conflict resolution, servant leadership. [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Soft skills negotiation]

A – Retained revenue is revenue retained through the development of new product features or services that prevent existing customers from stopping use of the existing product. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Agile estimation]

25. What process, performed frequently, helps ensure high product quality?
A. Planning poker
B. Affinity planning
C. Milestone reviews
D. Verification and validation

D – Because each iteration typically produces a working product that is built and integrated and iterations are typically two to four weeks in length, there is frequent verification and validation to ensure product quality. Verification is the confirmation that a product performs as specified by a customer (e.g. as indicated by a user story) and validation is the confirmation that a product behaves as desired (i.e., meets the customer’s need). Sometimes a product may be built and integrated to specification – that is, it can be verified – but it does not meet the intent of the customer – that is, it cannot be validated. [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Product quality]

26. Which scrum meeting is often timeboxed to four hours?
A. Release plan meeting
B. Daily stand-up meeting
C. Affinity planning meeting
D. Sprint planning meeting

D – In the agile framework scrum, sprint planning and sprint review meetings are often timeboxed at four hours. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting]

C – Empowered teams – ones that are self-organizing and know how to solve problems with minimal management involvement – are a cornerstone of the agile methodology. This is the antithesis to the classic viewpoint of the traditional project manager who is seen as someone that controls all decisions and delegates tasks to a team with little feedback. An agile team must include all members and stakeholders to make decisions, and make decisions expediently. Because it is essential that the user/customer be involved with development, it is encouraged that the user/customer is closely integrated with the agile team with collocation/on-site support being ideal. An agile team feels empowered when it collectively assumes responsibility for the delivery of the product (i.e., taking ownership). [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

A – Time, budget, and cost estimation is an important knowledge and skill area of agile. According to Highsmith, the nature of the agile method, whereby it welcomes changing scope, means that it lends itself well to fixed budgets and a fixed schedule because changing scope makes it difficult to estimate a total cost. Generally speaking, the budget and schedule constraints are known but before a project will commence there needs to be an agreed upon set of base product functionality defined in an initiation phase; fixing scope reduces an agile team’s innovative tendency to provide improved value. For companies that are familiar with fixed-price contracts, where requirements are agreed upon before contract closing, adopting agile can be a weary initial venture. Instead, other contract vehicle types are recommended for agile efforts. These include: a general service contract for the initiation phase and separate fixed-price contracts for iterations or user stories; time-and-material contracts; not-to-exceed with fixed-fee contracts; and, incentive contracts (e.g., fixed price with incentive; cost-reimbursable with award fee). [Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products – 2nd Edition. Jim Highsmith.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

B – All agile efforts have project and quality standards that the team defines collaboratively at the beginning of an effort and refines collaboratively throughout the effort. Project and quality standards help an agile team with team cohesion and provide a structure, albeit one that can adapt as the project evolves, to promote a self-disciplined environment. There is no ‘one size fits all’ standards definition in agile; because every project is different, it has been shown that the team should define which project and quality standards it should hold itself against and strive to conform to those standards while also being open to adapting those standards throughout the project to optimize performance and delivered value. Project standards can range from where the daily stand-up meeting is located and how long each participant has to share his or her progress and challenges to highly specific software coding styles, methods for test-driven development, and what the team’s definition of ‘done-done’ means. [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

30. In agile and other project management styles, team motivation is a critical factor for success. What is one method to improve team motivation?
A. Focusing only on business objectives.
B. Fostering a competitive environment.
C. Spending quality time together.
D. Highlighting a developer’s deficiencies public for the sake of team feedback.
C – Having a motivated team is essential for any project, regardless of whether it is agile or not. Motivated teams work together better, have strong productivity, and exceed expectations. Some simple steps to increase motivation are 1) spending quality time together; where team members get to know one another on a personal level to build a sense of community, 2) providing feedback, mentoring and coaching; where team members are congratulated and thanked on jobs well done and also mentored or coached to improve in skill and capability, and 3) empowerment; where the team is empowered to make many key decisions which, along the way, builds trust and shows that leadership believes in the capabilities of the team. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]
31. Prototyping is a common project management technique to reduce risk. Select the response which is NOT a common form of prototyping in agile projects.
A. XAML
B. Paper
C. HTML
D. Wireframe

A – In the agile design process, prototypes help the customer understand current design state. Three common types of prototypes are HTML, paper (i.e., sketches), and wireframes. A wireframe is a sketch of a user interface, identifying its content, layout, functionality, is usually black and white, and excludes detailed pictures or graphics. A wireframe can be created on paper, whiteboards, or using software. [Agile Estimating and Planning. Mike Cohn.] [Agile analysis and design]

D – Building a high-performance team is critical to any project’s success. A high performance team has the right team members, is empowered, has built trust, works at a sustainable pace, has consistently high velocity/productivity, takes regular time for reflection to review work, has a team lead that removes any obstacles and provides mentoring and coaching, is self-organized and self-disciplined, and is collocated. Several management techniques can be used to build or foster a high-performance team environment, some techniques include: removing obstacles that slow down a team’s performance, having high expectations of team performance, and coaching and mentoring the team to achieve its best performance. [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]

33. Select a common agile framework/methodology.
A. Agile codified process (ACP)
B. Agile framework process (AFP)
C. Agile lean process (ALP)
D. Agile unified process (AUP)

D – Common frameworks or methodologies used within agile include: scrum, extreme programming (XP), lean software development, crystal, feature driven development (FDD), dynamic systems development method (DSDM), agile unified process (AUP). [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]

C – Reflective improvement workshops are a cornerstone of the Crystal methodology. While all agile methodologies incorporate reflection into their standard practices, Crystal terms the practice ‘reflective improvement workshops.’ [Agile Software Development: The Cooperative Game – 2nd Edition. Alistair Cockburn.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting]

B – The core roles in scrum are the product owner, scrum master and development team. [Ken Schwaber. Agile Project Management with Scrum. Chapter 1.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]

36. What type of team takes ownership of a product and requires minimal management supervision?
A. Power team
B. Empowered team
C. Magnitude team
D. Impact team

B – Empowered teams – ones that are self-organizing and know how to solve problems with minimal management involvement – are a cornerstone of the agile methodology. An agile team feels empowered when it collectively assumes responsibility for the delivery of the product (i.e., taking ownership). [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 1]

D – Affinity estimating is a method to predict the work effort, typically in story points, of developing a user story. It is particularly useful for large product backlogs. Although several methods exist, the basic affinity estimating model involves sizing user stories on a scale from small to large. The scale can be a Fibonacci sequence or t-shirt sizes and is typically taped to a wall in a large conference room. Participants then attach their user stories to the wall as estimates. It is often done in silence and has several iterations until the user stories have been estimated. [The Art of Agile Development. James Shore.] [Agile estimation]

B – Negotiation is a key soft skill negotiation skill. It involves discussion or conversation to work towards a common understanding between two parties. [Coaching Agile Teams. Lyssa Adkins.] [Soft skills negotiation]

39. Jules is describing the SMART acronym used for task analysis in an agile seminar. What does the A stand for?
A. Aggregate
B. Altruistic
C. Achievable
D. Accurate

C – The acronym SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-boxed) helps the agile practitioner remember the characteristics of a well-defined task. S – Specific tasks are ones that clearly contribute to the development of a user story. It should not be vague. M – Measurable tasks are ones that the team and customer can verify. A – Achievable tasks are ones that developers may realistically implement and understand. R – Relevant tasks are ones that unequivocally add value to the user story. T – Timeboxed tasks are ones that can have an estimate assigned of the amount of effort or time needed for development. [Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, Ken Schwaber.] [Planning, monitoring, and adapting]

40. Help Julian select a key principle of lean software development.
A. Increasing inventory
B. Amplifying defect detection
C. Quality stream mapping
D. Eliminating waste

D – The principles of lean software development are: Eliminate waste; Amplify learning; Decide as late as possible; Deliver as fast as possible; Empower the team; Build integrity in; See the whole. [Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, James R. Trott.] [Knowledge and Skills: Level 2]

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