PMI ACP - Leadership Domain

A waterfall project manager recognizes that agile team members are more productive, happier, and more committed than some traditional team members. The project manager speaks to an agile practitioner to identify what agile teams do differently.

How should the agile practitioner respond?

• Team members share business intelligence and metrics with each other.

• Team members are rewarded and participate in meetings where they are free to share ideas.

• Team members promote respect, collaboration, and communication.

• Team members have worked together for more than three years and know each other well.

Answer explanation

C. Team members promote respect, collaboration, and communication.

Respect, collaboration, and communication are core principles of agile teams, and they foster a productive and positive work environment.

Choosing the right approach depends on the specific needs and constraints of the project at hand.

Although sharing business intelligence and metrics is important, it does not encompass the broader cultural aspects that drive team productivity and commitment.

Although rewards and the freedom to share ideas are beneficial, they do not fully capture the foundational agile values of respect, collaboration, and communication.

Team longevity alone does not guarantee the positive dynamics observed in agile teams.

During a daily coordination meeting, an agile practitioner learns that one user story is incomplete because team members were unable to agree on an approach. What should the agile practitioner do?

• Meet with the manager to determine the best approach.

• Encourage the team to reach an agreement on the approach.

• Request that the team leader choose the best approach.

• Ask for an explanation of each approach and choose the best one.

Answer explanation

B. Encourage the team to reach an agreement on the approach.

The agile practitioner facilitates and helps the team to make informed decisions. The agile practitioner should see the value of teamwork and ensure that project team members work collaboratively. This is not only in the project delivery but also in ensuring that the team members share their ideas throughout the project. The agile framework depends on good team communication and collaborative reviews of work completed. Therefore, the agile practitioner must facilitate and encourage the team to discuss and reach an agreement on the best approach.

Meeting with the manager might undermine the team’s autonomy and decision-making process, which is essential for fostering team ownership and collaboration.

Requesting that the team leader choose the approach can bypass the team’s collective knowledge and insights. Agile emphasizes team collaboration and consensus-building, rather than relying on a single individual to make decisions.

Asking for an explanation of each approach and choosing the best one is not suitable for the role of the agile practitioner because it shifts the decision-making responsibility to the agile practitioner rather than involving the entire team.

A new member of the team has no previous agile experience and struggles to understand the value of participating in daily coordination meetings. How should the agile practitioner address this?

• Describe how coordination meetings reduce the amount of peer pressure.

• 1. Demonstrate how coordination meetings help the team identify impediments.

• Explain how coordination meetings remove the need to make team commitments.

• Show how coordination meetings eliminate the need for detailed follow-ups.

Answer explanation

B. Demonstrate how coordination meetings identify impediments.

The main reason for coordination meetings is to quickly highlight and discuss impediments, allowing the team to address these issues early and prevent delays. By highlighting how daily meetings help uncover and address obstacles that affect the team’s progress, the agile practitioner can clarify the purpose and benefits of these meetings.

Peer pressure is related to project environmental issues, not procedural approaches. The primary value of daily coordination meetings is to identify and address impediments, not to reduce peer pressure.

Explaining that meetings remove the need for commitments is misleading and does not accurately represent the purpose of the meetings.

Coordination meetings do not eliminate the need for follow-ups.

Executives have conflicting opinions on a project’s status. What should the agile practitioner do?

• Add a task to generate an executive summary.

• Send the executives a copy of the project burndown chart.

• Add a recurring status meeting to the review process.

• Post the project's status on the enterprise project dashboard.

Answer explanation

D. Post the project’s status on the enterprise project dashboard.

This option is the most viable, as the executives can look at the Executive Dashboard and read the same report that was loaded by the project team. An agile practitioner should discuss and arrive at a consensus on the format of the project status report. Then the project report must be periodically updated at a shared location. This would avoid multiple versions of the reports being shared within the company. The best option would be to post the project status on the enterprise dashboard.

Adding a task to generate an executive summary will not resolve the issue of conflicting opinions regarding the project status.

Sending the executives a burndown chart would not meet the requirement because a burndown chart shows progress against remaining work, but might not provide the full context needed to understand conflicting opinions about project status.

Adding a recurring status meeting could increase overhead and may not immediately resolve conflicting opinions if the underlying conflicts are not addressed effectively.

A team is tasked with creating a new product. The team reports that completing the iteration is difficult due to a new and unique requirement.

What should the agile practitioner do?

• Extend the current iteration as long as it takes to deliver

• Request a specialist to join the project team temporarily

• Copy a similar feature of another product and improve it later

• Split the story across several iterations until the feature is done

Answer explanation

B. Request a specialist to join the project team temporarily

Bringing in a specialist with specific knowledge can help the team overcome the unique challenge. A specialist can quickly address the issue, preventing further delays. Bringing in a temporary specialist helps the team address unique requirements that require specific expertise, ensuring that the project can proceed smoothly and successfully.

Although splitting the story might be an option in some situations, bringing in a specialist can provide a more direct and efficient solution to the problem. This may not help in the long run if the team still lacks the specialized technical skills needed.

Extending the current iteration can disrupt the team’s rhythm and negatively impact other planned work.

Copying a similar feature might not be feasible or desirable because the unique requirement likely necessitates a custom solution.

An assessment shows that an organization’s culture is unready for agile approaches. What should the agile practitioner do?

• Educate and train people in the organization and perform another assessment.

• Force pilot projects to use agile approaches.

• Start implementing stand ups, reviews, and retrospectives on non-agile projects.

• Continue using existing project approaches.

Answer explanation

A. Educate and train people in the organization and perform another assessment.

Educating, influencing, and training people in the organization prepares them for the transition to agile approaches, addressing cultural resistance, and building readiness for change. This ensures a smoother and more sustainable adoption of agile practices. Once training and education activities are complete, another assessment should be performed to measure the success of the training and measure the readiness of the organization.

Forcing agile approaches on projects without readiness can lead to resistance and failure.

Implementing agile practices on non-agile projects without proper understanding can cause confusion and inconsistency.

Continuing with existing approaches ignores the need for improvement and adaptation to agile.

A customer requires the implementation team to use a new user interface (UI) technology. The team leader notices that team productivity is reduced due to the use of this technology.

What should the agile practitioner do to improve productivity?

• Recommend using a technology with which the team is more proficient

• Provide comprehensive training sessions

• Suggest replacing the team members who cannot maintain productivity

• Add more specialists to the project team

Answer explanation

B. Provide comprehensive training sessions

The UI is new to the team and required by the customer, so they must learn to work with the UI. Providing training on the new system would help improve productivity. The agile practitioner should focus on skill development and continuous improvement.

While recommending a technology the team is more familiar with might improve productivity, it does not address the customer’s requirement to use the new UI technology.

Replacing team members is not an appropriate response. The UI is new, so there may not be replacement resources that have experience. It is best to support the team as they adjust to the new UI and promote skill development through training.

Adding specialists might provide short-term relief, but it does not address the root cause of the productivity issue. It could lead to dependency on external resources and does not improve the team’s ability to work effectively with the new technology in the long run.

A team has two developers, a subject matter expert (SME), and a senior developer.

What should the agile practitioner advise for story sizing?

• The SME has the most domain expertise and should size the stories.

• The senior developer has the most development experience and should size the stories.

• The SME and the senior developer should combine their expertise and size the stories.

• Everyone should collaborate and sizing should be done as a team.

Answer explanation

D. Everyone should collaborate and sizing should be done as a team.

In an agile environment, user story sizing is done by the team and not by a particular role or expert. The people who work on the stories will estimate the story size together. This collaborative approach ensures that all team members have a shared understanding of the work involved and can contribute their expertise to the estimation process.

Having the SME do the sizing is not a correct option because the sizing of the stories is a team effort and the whole development team should be involved.

For the same reason, the other two options are not correct because, in both options, the positions mentioned—the senior developer and the SME—are responsible for the user story sizing rather than involving the whole team.

This is not the approach that should be used in an agile environment.

A key member of an agile team was replaced with a less experienced member. One of the stakeholders is concerned that the project will not be delivered on time because of the new team member.

What should the agile practitioner do to ensure successful project delivery?

• Add this concern as a risk in the risk log and escalate it to the project management office (PMO).

• Meet with their functional manager to assess the situation and obtain guidance on how to proceed.

• Reverse the decision for replacement and bring the former key member back onto the team.

• Assess the impact of the replacement and make further resource adjustments where necessary.

Answer explanation

D. Assess the impact of the replacement and make further resource adjustments where necessary.

The agile practitioner should be prepared to make informed decisions based on an assessment of the impact of the replacement.

Assessing the impact of the replacement and making resource adjustments will help ensure that the project is delivered successfully despite the change in team members.

Additionally, the agile practitioner should work with the new team member to ensure they are properly onboarded and trained and provide support and guidance as needed.

The other answer choices are incorrect. 

Adding the concern to the risk log and escalating the concern to the PMO might be premature and the agile practitioner should first seek to understand the impact of the change.

Seeking the functional manager's guidance does not address the specific needs of the project. The functional manager could potentially be a valuable resource, but they may not have an in-depth understanding of the specific needs and components of the project.

Reversing the decision might not be possible, would be disruptive, and ignores the reasoning for replacing the team member. 

A new agile practitioner participates in a retrospective after a release that did not go well. Some team members shifted the blame for issues to other team members causing the team to become defensive.

What solution should the agile practitioner suggest to improve the team's chance of success?

• Creating clear and thorough project documentation

• Improving team members' individual performance

• Reducing changes in stakeholders' requirements

• Improving cooperation, communication, and coordination

Answer explanation

D. Improving communication, coordination, and cooperation.

These elements are fundamental to effective teamwork and agile practices. A lack of cooperation in a retrospective can cause defensiveness and blame-shifting which can cause a lack of engagement and resistance to feedback. Improving communication, coordination, and cooperation reinforces core agile values and will help resolve conflict and improve team cohesion.

While clear and thorough documentation is valuable, it alone does not address the immediate issues of cooperation, communication, and coordination that often lead to problems in team performance.

Focusing solely on individual performance may not address the root causes of issues that arise from poor team dynamics.

Reducing requirements from stakeholders is incorrect because the focus should be on improving how the team responds to and manages changes rather than trying to reduce them.