Mini SG - PMI ACP 1

An agile practitioner is attending a scrum meeting where the team is demonstrating some individual product components to the customer via video conference in anticipation of a major feature release coming up in two weeks. What scrum meeting is the team currently attending?

• Daily standup meeting

• Sprint review meeting

• Release review meeting

• Sprint retrospective meeting

Answer explanation

The team is demonstrating product components to the customer, which aligns with a Sprint Review meeting, not a Daily Standup. The Daily Standup focuses on team progress and obstacles, not customer demonstrations.

A software developer has a background in a manufacturing environment, where Kanban was utilized to analyze and reduce work in progress (WIP). Recently hired on an agile project team because of his skills and experience in process improvement, the developer is explaining Little's Law to a fellow project team member. What does the developer use to describe cycle time?

• Throughput / work in progress

• Number of items completed / throughput

• Work in progress / throughput

• Number of items completed / work in progress

Answer explanation

Cycle time is calculated using Little's Law as Work in Progress (WIP) divided by Throughput. This means the correct choice is Work in progress / throughput, which accurately reflects the relationship between these variables.

A company is considering removing an experienced scrum master from their current high-performing team to help other agile teams within the organization to leverage their scrum knowledge. What advice would an agile practitioner give to the company’s management?

• Remove the scrum master from the team to assist other teams and assign a department manager instead

• Do not remove the scrum master from the team and also allow the scrum master to assist other teams

• Remove the scrum master from the team to assist other teams and allow the product owner to double as the scrum master

• Do not remove the scrum master and let the other teams manage themselves as agile teams are self-organizing and self-directing

Answer explanation

Removing the scrum master could disrupt the high-performing team. Instead, allowing the scrum master to assist other teams while remaining with their current team ensures knowledge sharing without sacrificing team performance.

The Agile Manifesto's 4 values and 12 principles form the foundation of all agile methods. Although all of these values and principles are critical to the success of any agile project, one principle stands out as the top priority for all agile projects. Which of the following describes this top priority?

• Delivering working product frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months

• Welcoming changing requirements, even late in development

• Satisfying the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable product

• Building projects around motivated individuals

Answer explanation

The top priority in Agile is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable product. This principle emphasizes the importance of delivering value to the customer consistently throughout the project.

After working overtime for the last few iterations, agile team members decided that from now on they would maintain a 40 hour workweek. Why is it important to have a regular 40-hour workweek?

• To maximize the amount of work not done

• To minimize the amount of work in progress

• To deliver working software frequently

• To promote sustainable development

Answer explanation

Maintaining a regular 40-hour workweek promotes sustainable development by preventing burnout, ensuring team members can maintain productivity over time, and fostering a healthy work-life balance.

A product owner on a government-sponsored project is using both traditional and agile project management principles. One recurring issue he has been struggling with is how to convince the more traditional project management stakeholders to change how they react to changes in the project plan. Which of the following should the product owner recommend if he wants to lean more toward agile project management principles when dealing with changes to the project plan?

• Corrective action

• Adaptive action

• Preventive action

• Comparative action

Answer explanation

The product owner should recommend adaptive action, as it aligns with agile principles by embracing change and adjusting plans accordingly, rather than resisting changes like traditional methods often do.

A business sponsor for a web application upgrade project is in negotiations with a potential contractor. The sponsor has worked with the contractor in the past, and there is a great amount of trust between them. Past projects were based on stable requirements, but this contract has very volatile requirements subject to change on a weekly basis. What type of contract would be best for both parties to enter into in this situation?

• Fixed-price, fixed scope

• Fixed-price per story point

• Not-to-exceed with fixed-fee

• Fixed fee with economic adjustments

Answer explanation

A fixed-price per story point contract is ideal for volatile requirements, allowing flexibility in scope while maintaining cost predictability. This aligns with the trust established between the sponsor and contractor.

An aircraft manufacturer is executing two projects, each of which are run independently to create two sub-assemblies that together make up a new type of engine cover. Although the projects are run separately, they have many inter-dependencies. A senior manager has suggested that the number of joint product tests between the teams be reduced since these tests create a major bottleneck. What agile best practice would this approach violate?

• Project flexibility and agility maintenance

• Prototyping

• Continuous integration

• Continuous user engagement

Answer explanation

Reducing joint product tests violates the agile best practice of continuous integration, which emphasizes frequent integration and testing to identify issues early and ensure that inter-dependent components work together effectively.

An agile team created a Kanban board containing five columns. One of the software developers is determining the work in process (WIP) limit for each column to optimize the team’s performance. What should the agile team consider when determining an appropriate WIP limit for each column?

• The limit, if set incorrectly, can cause either people or work to be idle.

• The WIP limit should be removed for large projects.

• A higher limit is generally better than a lower one.

• Finishing early or starting late impacts how you set the limit.

Answer explanation

Setting the WIP limit incorrectly can lead to inefficiencies, causing either team members or tasks to be idle. This highlights the importance of finding a balance to maintain workflow and productivity.

Which of the following prioritization methods includes the use of delighters and exciters?

• Top-Ten Requirements

• Kano Model

• MoSCoW Rules

• Relative Weighting

Answer explanation

The Kano Model is a prioritization method that categorizes features into basic needs, performance needs, and delighters/exciters, making it the correct choice for this question.