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RMC Project Management, Inc.Extra Practice Exams:Agile and Hybrid QuestionsCopyright 2021 RMC Publications, Inc.TM All rights reserved.10953 Bren Road East Minnetonka, Minnesota 55343info@rmcls.com www.rmcls.com (952) 846-4484The copyright owner hereby grants permission to make copies of this handout for personal, noncommercial use only1 of 17
Extra Agile Practice Exam1. Two team members are arguing about the design of the security module in the new application theyare building. One has experience from a prior project and argues for a simple design; the other isconcerned about the business risk and wants a more sophisticated design. The second developerasks you to resolve the disagreement, implying that the other developer may not know how tocreate the more complex solution. As the project manager, how should you approach this conflict?A.B.C.D.Tell them they need to resolve their technical differences between themselves.Report the team members to human resources for disrespectful behavior toward each other.Explain their different communication styles to help them understand each other better.Have one of the team members transferred to another team, since they obviously don't getalong.2. What is planning like on an agile project?A. Plans are made upfront and progressively elaborated whenever there are change requests.B. The team might have to try out different approaches, so their plans have a high likelihood ofchanges.C. Planning is done in rolling waves of planning meetings in between iterations.D. As a rule, agile teams spend less time on planning than non-agile teams, unless more is requiredfor compliance or procurement purposes.3. Which approach would be a hybrid of agile and traditional methods?A. Using bar charts for tracking progress with a WBS for planning the workB. Holding daily stand-ups while using a pull system to move work through the processC. Estimating and planning in story points while using traditional vendor contracts based onproduct specificationsD. Co-locating the team while delivering the product in releases4. On an agile software development project, the project manager asks business stakeholders to createuser stories, which will be used in the development and testing of the new application. The mainpurpose of writing a user story is:A.B.C.D.To document features or functions required by stakeholdersTo create a record of issues encountered on the projectTo perform what-if analysisTo communicate progressCopyright 2021 RMC Publications, Inc.TM All rights reserved.10953 Bren Road East Minnetonka, Minnesota 55343info@rmcls.com www.rmcls.com (952) 846-4484The copyright owner hereby grants permission to make copies of this handout for personal, noncommercial use only2 of 17
5. A project sponsor directs their project manager to add a new feature to the product. How shouldthe project manager handle this scope change on a change-driven project?A. The project manager should add the new feature to the product backlog and make it the toppriority.B. On a change-driven project, changes are welcomed at any time, so this feature should beassigned to the team for development.C. Communicate the new feature request to the product owner to be considered in the nextbacklog session.D. Tell the sponsor to talk with the product owner about this feature, reminding them that theproduct owner has authority to prioritize features.6. As project manager, you are attending an iteration planning meeting when a dispute occurs. Theproduct owner's top priority in the backlog is a key feature that requires a new technology. Theteam says they don't understand that technology well enough yet to build that feature next. Theproduct owner responds tartly, asking when they are planning to get around to it. What should youdo?A.B.C.D.Remind the product owner that it is up to the team to determine what they can build next.Remind the team that it is up to the product owner to set the work priorities.Ask everyone to take a deep breath and calm down so the matter can be settled professionally.Gather information from both sides and make a fair decision about what will be best for theproject.7. A relatively new agile team is struggling to estimate the effort required to develop their stories. Theproject manager has suggested that they might want to try using planning poker. Why would theproject manager recommend planning poker as an estimating technique to this team?A.B.C.D.It makes estimates more accurate by engaging the widest number of stakeholders.It's an efficient way to estimate that will build the team's skill for sizing stories.It makes estimates more comprehensive by taking all risks into account.It is the fastest way to estimate because it does not require any conversations.8. Your project involves making changes to a customer-facing website to increase revenue andenhance the customer experience, based on customer feedback. The changes are being deliveredover multiple releases. How can you measure the business value delivered during the project?A. After each release, review revenue numbers and customer satisfaction ratings, comparing themto predefined targets.B. Once all the releases are completed, compare post-project revenue to pre-project revenue.C. Divide the expected additional revenue by the number of releases, and check whether eachrelease delivers its share of the improvement.D. After each release, conduct a customer satisfaction survey and track the results over time.Copyright 2021 RMC Publications, Inc.TM All rights reserved.10953 Bren Road East Minnetonka, Minnesota 55343info@rmcls.com www.rmcls.com (952) 846-4484The copyright owner hereby grants permission to make copies of this handout for personal, noncommercial use only3 of 17
9. The team members assigned to your new agile project are working from two locations. One groupconsists of corporate employees in the headquarters office; the other group is offshore and hasbeen contracted for six months. On this team, there is a 10-hour time zone difference and differentnative languages (although the team members are expected to communicate with each other inEnglish). How can you best coordinate the work?A. Schedule a regular daily standup at a mutually convenient time using a conference call number.B. Ask the people in each location to hold a regular daily standup for their group.C. Invite the coach of the offshore group to attend the daily standup at headquarters via videoconference.D. Leave it up to the team members to determine how to best communicate with each other.10. Two teams located on different continents are working on different aspects of productdevelopment. The communications plan stipulates that the teams will hold a joint "daily standup"conference call. How can the project manager best monitor the effectiveness of theircommunication and coordination?A.B.C.D.Periodically ask team members if the product components are fitting together as planned.Listen in on the daily standups once a week to monitor the conversations.Meet with the two team coaches every week to check on their progress.Trust that the plan is working and rely on the team coaches to notify you of any problems.11. For several months, the development team for your project has been holding reviews at the end ofeach iteration. As the project manager, you are pleased with their progress. However, you hear thatthe project sponsor has told another stakeholder that "nothing is getting done using that agileapproach." What should you do?A.B.C.D.Ask the product owner to report the project performance to the sponsor.Invite the sponsor to attend the team's next iteration review.Educate the sponsor about Agile's incremental approach.Ask the team to start showing working software that has business value rather than prototypes.12. Your project is developing a new mobile app targeted at business customers. The team hasdeveloped a working prototype that you and the product owner are delighted with. However, whenyou show it to the sponsor, the sponsor complains that the app doesn't look as professional as thecompetition. How should you respond?A. This sample just tests the product concept, features, and technology, it's not the final releaseversion.B. This is just the minimum viable product; it will be improved in the next release.C. The product owner has confirmed that this prototype includes all the features that are required.D. If you want a more polished app, we will need to add a design specialist to the team.Copyright 2021 RMC Publications, Inc.TM All rights reserved.10953 Bren Road East Minnetonka, Minnesota 55343info@rmcls.com www.rmcls.com (952) 846-4484The copyright owner hereby grants permission to make copies of this handout for personal, noncommercial use only4 of 17
13. While managing a project, the team tells you that they need feedback from some key subject matterexperts who aren't assigned to the project. What should you do?A. Ask the sponsor to assign more full-time subject matter experts to the project.B. Remind the team that they can get all the feedback they need from the product owner, insteadof going outside the project.C. Invite those subject matter experts to participate in the team's product demo meetings andprovide their feedback.D. Ask the team to proceed, since they have all the expertise needed to complete the project.14. An organization is moving toward a change-driven development, consisting of teams led by an agilecoach. This approach is new to the organization, and the project manager's role with these newteams hasn't been clearly defined. One project manager decides to attend her team’s user storywriting workshops. Why does she think these sessions are a good use of her limited time?A. She wants to build strong relationships with the team and make sure there is a sharedunderstanding of the product features.B. She wants to build strong relationships with the business stakeholders, while the agile coachmanages the development team.C. She wants to make sure the requirements will deliver the planned scope and be released ontime, by the project deadline.D. She plans to document the requirements in a traceability matrix to make sure all the work tiesback to the project objectives.15. Negotiations with a customer are challenging because the customer does not understand agilecontracting. The scope of the product being developed for the customer will be determined by thefeatures prioritized in each release planning session. How can the project manager finalize thecontract?A.B.C.D.Politely explain the agile approach to the customer.Require the customer attend agile training before negotiations continue.Change the team approach to predictive for this customer.Negotiate as if the project was a predictive type of project.Copyright 2021 RMC Publications, Inc.TM All rights reserved.10953 Bren Road East Minnetonka, Minnesota 55343info@rmcls.com www.rmcls.com (952) 846-4484The copyright owner hereby grants permission to make copies of this handout for personal, noncommercial use only5 of 17
Answers to Extra Agile Practice Exam1. Answer AExplanation This is a technical difference of opinion about the design of the solution that needs tobe resolved between the team members. It's important for them to learn how to consider differentopinions and work through these types of disagreements themselves. The project manager might beable to help the team members do this by offering a framework (such as a meeting) in which theycould discuss their differences and decide what to do, but that option isn't offered here. The otherthree answers assume that the underlying problem is behavioral, interpersonal, or psychological,which is incorrect. This scenario reflects the process "Manage Team."2. Answer BExplanation Agile's adaptive planning approach relies on trial and demonstration to uncover thetrue requirements, which then require replanning. The team's initial plans are made upfront andthen continuously refined, not just in response to change requests. There is generally one planningmeeting at the start of each iteration, not "rolling waves of planning meetings" between iterations.And agile teams actually tend to spend more time planning and replanning than traditional teams.3. Answer CExplanation The only one of these options that describes an agile-traditional hybrid is "estimatingand planning in story points while using traditional vendor contracts based on productspecifications." Using Gantt charts along with a WBS doesn't include any agile elements. Daily standups and a pull system are both agile/lean practices. Colocation can be used by either approach.4. Answer AExplanation A user story is a way of stating a requirement, often using the following format: As a role , I want functionality/goal , so that business benefit/motivation . User stories may bedeveloped in facilitation sessions or as part of other requirements-gathering methods.5. Answer CExplanation In a change-driven approach, all new requirements (including scope changes) areadded to the backlog and prioritized against all the other items in the backlog (i.e., the work thathasn't been done yet). This prioritization is done by the product owner or value team, not theproject manager. Just because the sponsor has requested the feature, doesn't mean it shouldautomatically be sent to the team for work or be assigned top priority in the backlog. The productowner will evaluate the feature's expected business value against its cost and urgency compared toother backlog items, just like any other feature.While changes are always welcome, they need to go through that prioritization process and are notimmediately pushed forward to development. The project manager doesn't need to tell the sponsorwho is setting the project priorities since the sponsor should already understand the productowner's role (also it might sound rude). If necessary, a better approach would be to suggest that theCopyright 2021 RMC Publications, Inc.TM All rights reserved.10953 Bren Road East Minnetonka, Minnesota 55343info@rmcls.com www.rmcls.com (952) 846-4484The copyright owner hereby grants permission to make copies of this handout for personal, noncommercial use only6 of 17
sponsor meet with the product owner to explain the business need for this request before it isprioritized.6. Answer AExplanation Two of these answers are correct, but only one of them addresses the dispute at hand.While it is up to the product owner to set the work priorities, only the team members can determinewhat they can build next. If they are still learning about the new technology, it would becounterproductive (and a waste of time) to force them to start work that they don't understand yet.In agile, this type of dispute isn't decided by the project manager. Notice that in the correct answer,the project manager isn't telling the team and the product owner what to do; they are simplyestablishing who has the final say in the dispute. This is an example of the project manager acting asa coordinator or facilitator for the stakeholders, rather than managing them directly. While theproduct owner isn't responding professionally, agile meetings don't prioritize remaining calm andpolite; energetic disagreement might be needed to come to the best decision.7. Answer BExplanation This new agile team needs to build their skills at sizing and estimating stories, so thebest reason to suggest they try planning poker would be to give them an efficient way to developthose skills. It can lead to highly accurate estimates over time, but not because it engages a widernumber of stakeholders. Instead, it allows a team to efficiently estimate a large number of storiesquickly and then get rapid feedback after each iteration to check their results and improve theirestimating skills. While planning poker does take into consideration everything the team membersknow about a story, including risk, these estimates don't take into account all risks. There may berisks that the team isn't aware of. Planning poker does involve some conversation and dialogueabout each story's complexity and the variance between divergent estimates.8. Answer AExplanation The scenario says that the business goals are enhanced customer experience andincreased revenue, so these are the measures of success. The best option is to review these metricsagainst predefined targets after each iteration (these targets can be documented in the qualitymanagement plan). Once the business needs have been achieved, the organization might evendecide to stop the project early. Assessing the results after all the releases are done will notmeasure the value being delivered incrementally throughout the project. Dividing the expectedrevenue by the number of releases will be misleading, since each release will include differentfeatures. For example, one release might be totally focused on customer satisfaction and notgenerate any additional revenue. Conducting customer satisfaction surveys after each release willnot measure the expected revenue increases.9. Answer AExplanation In this situation it would be difficult for the groups to determine how to communicatesince they don't know each other and are divided by their time zone and language differences.Coordinating the work through the coach doesn't reflect agile's collaborative approach orempowered teams. So the best approach would be to find a time each day for everyone on theCopyright 2021 RMC Publications, Inc.TM All rights reserved.10953 Bren Road East Minnetonka, Minnesota 55343info@rmcls.com www.rmcls.com (952) 846-4484The copyright owner hereby grants permission to make copies of this handout for personal, noncommercial use only7 of 17
project to share their progress and impediments. Both groups should also be coached about culturalawareness.10. Answer CExplanation All of these answers are potential ways that a project manager could monitorcommunication and coordination. The best answer is regular meetings with the team coaches(which should also be in the communication plan). Assuming that everything is ok until you get acomplaint is not proactive. One standup meeting per week might not give a clear picture of workcoordination. Periodically talking with team members could miss a problem.11. Answer CExplanation Most likely, this sponsor simply doesn't understand what to expect from an agileproject. It's not too late to educate the sponsor about the incremental approach to development.While you could certainly invite the sponsor to the iteration reviews, that wouldn't ensure that thesponsor understands what is taking place. The project manager is responsible for reporting status tostakeholders, not the product owner. Agile teams demo working software; although prototypesmight be created at the start of a project, this team has been working for several months, and thereis no indication that their work isn't being accepted.12. Answer AExplanation It seems as though this sponsor doesn't understand (or didn't hear) the term"prototype." The project manager may need to help educate the sponsor on the agile use ofprototypes to guide future incremental development. A prototype is a working model of the productused to obtain feedback and approve the basic approach. A more polished version of the app will becompleted for release. The "minimum viable product" is the smallest usable set of features, notsloppy or incomplete work that will be "fixed" later. While an agile product owner does have theauthority to confirm value, the sponsor could override the product owner if they wanted to. Theproject manager needs to make sure the team has the skills needed to build the solution before theproject starts, rather than using that as a negotiating tactic (as implied here).13. Answer CExplanation Notice that although the scenario doesn't reveal whether this is a plan-driven orchange-driven project, the answer options focus on agile practices and terminol
RMC Project Management, Inc. Extra Practice Exams: Agile and Hybrid Questions . . One has experience from a prior project and argues for a simple design; the other is concerned about the business risk and wants a more sophisticated design. The second developer
