PMI DASSM Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) Exam Exam Practice Test

Disciplined Agile (DA) emphasizes the use ofautomated measuresto enable data-driven decision-making in projects. This is aligned with the Disciplined Agile Manifesto and principles, which focus on pragmatism, the use of relevant metrics, and fostering continuous improvement within teams.

In Disciplined Agile, metrics are viewed as tools that provide objective insights into project health and progress. The use of automated measures helps to minimize human error and bias, and enhances the reliability of the data being collected. Automated metrics can include lead time, cycle time, throughput, defect rates, and other quantitative data points that can be generated from automated tools (such as Jira, Azure DevOps, etc.). These metrics allow teams to make informed decisions swiftly and adjust their practices and processes based on actual data.

The DA mindset also promotes outcome-oriented metrics rather than activity-oriented ones. This means teams focus on the end results and the value being delivered, rather than just measuring tasks completed or the amount of work done. By favoring automated and objective measures, DA ensures that teams base their decisions on accurate and timely information rather than subjective opinions or potentially misleading scalar measures.

This is also supported by the DA principle that encourages “Optimize Flow Across the Entire Value Stream” – which relies on data-driven decision-making to effectively manage and optimize processes. Overall, automated measures align with DA's goal of achieving agile goals in a pragmatic, context-sensitive manner.

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) defines a delivery life cycle consisting of three phases: Inception, Construction, and Transition. Inception focuses on initial project planning, stakeholder alignment, and getting the team ready to work. Construction is the phase where the team builds the solution in iterations, delivering incremental value. Transition involves preparing the solutionfor release, including final testing, deployment, and user training. The other options (A, B, C) do not accurately reflect the terminology and phases used in the DAD life cycle.

It is false to say that Disciplined Agile (DA) roles cover all possible roles in an organization. DA defines a set of primary roles (such as Team Lead, Product Owner, and Architecture Owner) and supporting roles for agile delivery teams. However, it does not prescribe all roles that might exist in an organization, such as executive leadership or specialized departments outside the agile delivery context.

A major challenge that agile teams face withProcurement processesis that these processes are oftennot agile enough. Traditional procurement practices can be bureaucratic, slow, and rigid,making it difficult for Agile teams to respond quickly to changes, integrate new vendors, or adjust to new requirements. Agile teams need flexible procurement processes that allow for iterative and incremental development, quick onboarding of vendors, and adaptive contracting mechanisms.

Options B (vendor compliance), C (preference for in-house teams), and D (no contracting) are not typically the primary challenges Agile teams face with procurement.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

Reducing work-in-progress (WIP)is intended to increase focus, reduce lead time, and create a greater incentive to prioritize. It helps teams deliver value more quickly and efficiently by concentrating on fewer items at a time, minimizing context-switching, and reducing the chances of burnout.Option A isnota benefit of reducing WIP, as reducing WIP discourages multi-tasking between many high-priority items. In fact, reducing WIP aims to prevent multi-tasking, which is often counterproductive.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

Disciplined Agile (DA) provides a robust foundation for business agility by offering a flexible and comprehensive toolkit that allows organizations to tailor their Agile practices to their specific context. Two key ways DA achieves this are:

Provides guidance to streamline processes in a context-sensitive manner:DA emphasizes tailoring Agile practices to the organization's unique context, recognizing that one size does not fit all. It provides guidance on how to optimize processes based on specific needs and constraints.

Describes the trade-offs associated with a range of options:DA offers a variety of strategies and practices for teams to choose from and provides insights into the trade-offs of each choice. This enables teams to make informed decisions that best suit their goals and organizational context.

Options A, C, and E do not directly describe how DA provides a foundation for business agility. While DA encourages adherence to standards and fostering team joy, its core contribution lies in its flexibility and practical guidance.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

According to the Disciplined Agile (DA) manifesto, valuing transparency over false predictability means that it is better to be open and honest about uncertainties and unknowns rather than pretending to have precise control or predictability over future outcomes. This approach builds trust and enables more adaptive and responsive planning. Option A (pointless trying to be predictable) is an oversimplification, Option C (stakeholders don’t need to know about the goals) is incorrect, and Option D, while partially true, does not fully capture the intention of the manifesto statement.

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In Disciplined Agile, limiting work-in-progress (WIP) is crucial to optimizing flow within a team. By reducing the number of tasks being worked on at any given time, teams are better able to focus on completing a smaller set of high-priority items, which reduces context switching and increases efficiency. This focus leads to faster delivery of high-quality work. Options like "A. Pursue multiple goals at a time" and "C. Preventing priority changes" are contrary to the benefits of limiting WIP, and "D. Respect the timebox" is less relevant in the context of optimizing flow. Thus, "B. Create focus" is the correct answer.

In the context of roles in Disciplined Agile (DA), it is true that a person may take on more than one role within a team. DA promotes flexibility and adaptability in team roles, allowing team members to wear multiple hats depending on their skills and the team's needs. Option A (highly specialized team members) contradicts DA’s principle of cross-functional teams. Option C incorrectly assigns the facilitator role to the Product Owner, and Option D does not accurately describe the Team Lead's responsibilities in DA.

For a long-term project with potential for significant budgeting and tracking overhead, the Scrum Master should set up a long-standing team. According to the Disciplined Agile framework, long-standing teams are stable teams that remain intact across multiple projects or over a long duration. These teams are cross-functional, meaning they have all the necessary skills to deliver value and are more likely to develop high levels of collaboration and productivity over time. While cross-functional teams (B) are a necessary characteristic, "long-standing team" (A) is the best answer for a long-term project with significant overhead, as it implies continuity and sustained team dynamics. A project team (C) is typically formed for a short-term, specific project and disbanded afterward. A shared services team (D) provides specialized skills and services to various teams and is not typically suited for the dedicated effort required by long-term projects.

The Disciplined Agile (DA) principle of being pragmatic is characterized by focusing on being as effective as possible and continuously improving. DA encourages teams to choose the best tools, practices, and strategies that suit their specific context, rather than rigidly adhering to a particular methodology or framework. This principle emphasizes a pragmatic, situational approach, where the goal is to achieve optimal results while continuously refining and improving processes. Options A, B, and C relate to aspects of flexibility and adaptation, but they do not fully capture the broader commitment to effectiveness and continuous improvement that defines pragmatism in DA.

Disciplined Agile provides a solid foundation for business agility by (A) creating awesome teams that foster joy and (D) describing the trade-offs associated with a range of options. Creating awesome teams involves building a positive and productive team environment where team members are engaged, motivated, and empowered. Describing trade-offs allows teams to make informed decisions by understanding the implications of different practices and approaches. While "enforcing adherence to organizational standards" (C) and "defining a framework for agility at scale" (B) are part of Disciplined Agile, they are not specifically highlighted as primary ways DA fosters business agility.

DevOps in the Disciplined Agile framework refers to a set of practices and tools aimed at creating a seamless integration of development and operations to enable continuous delivery and integration. Option (B), "Creating a smooth flow of work from development to operations," correctly captures the essence of DevOps. This practice involves automating workflows, improving collaboration between development and operations teams, and ensuring that software changes can be deployed to production reliably and frequently.

Options A, C, and D do not fully encompass the concept of DevOps in the Disciplined Agile context. While automating testing (A) and involving operational teams in development (C) are parts of DevOps, they are not the complete definition. Using development team members to solve operational problems (D) is not the primary focus of DevOps; instead, the aim is to create a collaborative environment where both development and operations teams work together effectively.

Thus, the correct answer is (B) as it represents the overarching goal of DevOps in a DA context, which is to facilitate a smooth, efficient flow from development to operations, enabling rapid and reliable software delivery.

In a program team within the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, each sub-team does not need to have the same Way of Working (WoW). DA promotes flexibility and recognizes that different teams may choose different WoWs that best fit their specific context, goals, and constraints. This approach allows each sub-team to optimize its process for maximum effectiveness, even if that means adopting different methodologies or practices.

A disadvantage of having afeature team(as opposed to component teams) is thetemptation to build everything from scratch. Feature teams are cross-functional teams that handle all aspects of delivering a customer-centric feature from end to end. This can sometimes lead to duplication of effort or reinventing existing components instead of reusing them, especially if the team lacks visibility or understanding of existing solutions.

Options A, B, and C are actually advantages of feature teams: they deliver complete features, reduce hand-offs, and require cross-functional skills.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

Disciplined Agile (DA) is described as a process-decision toolkit that provides tailored guidance to help teams and organizations optimize their way of working in a context-sensitive manner. Unlike a rigid methodology, DA offers flexibility by allowing teams to choose from a variety of agile, lean, and traditional practices that best fit their situation. DA emphasizes that there is no "one-size-fits-all" approach; rather, it empowers teams to make informed decisions based on their specific needs and circumstances. Option A focuses on project alignment, which is only one aspect of DA. Options C and D do not accurately reflect the comprehensive, adaptive nature of DA as a toolkit designed for broad applicability.

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The Exploratory Life Cycle is adopted when there is a need to bring a new product or service to market, and the customer requirements are uncertain. This life cycle is characterized by a high degree of exploration and experimentation, where the team continuously learns and adapts based on customer feedback and market conditions. Options A and B are incorrect because they refer to evolving an existing product or service rather than bringing a new one to market. Option E is also incorrect because it assumes the requirements are well understood, which would not necessitate an exploratory approach.

For an Agile or Lean project team, the aim of the Inception phase is to "perform sufficient work to initiate the endeavor and obtain agreement as to the overall vision with their stakeholders."The Inception phase involves developing a shared understanding of the project's vision, objectives, and scope, ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned and have agreed on the goals. While options A, B, and C involve planning, modeling, or building, the primary goal of the Inception phase is to set a clear direction and establish alignment among stakeholders.

DevOpsis a key competency in Disciplined Agile, aiming to create a smooth flow of work from development through to operations. This involves practices such as continuous integration, continuous delivery, and automated deployment, which help to reduce cycle time, improve feedback loops, and ensure the product is always in a deployable state. The focus is on integrating development and operations to deliver value to customers more rapidly and reliably.

Options B (using developers for operations), C (automating testing), and D (involving operational teams in development) are components of DevOps practices, but the primary goal is to establish a seamless workflow.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

False: Fulfilling the requirements does not necessarily mean that the customer is delighted. In Disciplined Agile and other Agile frameworks, delighting customers goes beyond merely meeting the stated requirements. It involves exceeding customer expectations, delivering unexpected value, and providing a positive user experience. A product or service may fulfill the technical or functional requirements but fail to delight if it does not provide an exceptional user experience, is not easy to use, or does not address the underlying needs or desires of the customer comprehensively. The goal is to deliver true value, which often means going beyond the baseline requirements.

The Disciplined Agile framework emphasizes that long-standing product teams are generally more effective than ad-hoc or project-based teams. This is because stable, cross-functional teams develop stronger relationships, improve collaboration, and build a deeper understanding of the product and customer needs over time. Long-standing teams can leverage their accumulated knowledge and experience, resulting in higher productivity and better quality outcomes. This aligns with the DA's principles of fostering team continuity and encouraging long-term team formation to improve agility and efficiency within organizations. The DA approach supports a team-based way of working rather than frequent team reorganization, which can disrupt team dynamics and reduce effectiveness.

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The correct answer isB. Agile Documentation. In the context of the Disciplined Agile (DA) toolkit, Agile Documentation is the process blade most likely to address the need to provide employees and customers with more information about an organization's products and services.

Agile Documentationis a process blade within the DA toolkit that focuses on creating and maintaining documentation that adds value to the team and the organization. The goal is to ensure that the documentation is just sufficient, meaning that it is only created when it is needed and at the appropriate level of detail. The Agile Documentation blade helps teams and organizations develop and share information effectively, which is crucial for helping both employees and customers understand and take advantage of what the organization offers.

Why Agile Documentation is the Correct Answer:

Provides Relevant Information:Agile Documentation emphasizes producing the right amount of documentation to meet the needs of stakeholders. This could include product manuals, user guides, FAQs, and other resources that help customers and employees better understand the products and services.

Maintains Up-to-Date Information:Agile Documentation encourages keeping the documentation current and relevant, ensuring that the provided information reflects the latest state of the organization's offerings.

Supports Communication and Understanding:By making information available in a clear and concise manner, Agile Documentation helps bridge knowledge gaps between the organization and its customers or employees, enhancing their ability to leverage the products and services.

The other options are less applicable:

C. Support:While the Support blade might handle customer inquiries and provide assistance, it does not focus on proactively providing information about products and services.

D. Reuse Engineering:This is related to managing reusable assets (e.g., code, components) but not about documentation or providing information.

E. Enterprise Architecture:This focuses on the strategic alignment of IT and business goals, not on providing information to end-users or employees about products and services.

Therefore,B. Agile Documentationis the most appropriate choice for addressing the need to provide employees and customers with more information about the organization's products and services, according to the Disciplined Agile framework.

When tailoring an agile strategy within the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, the two process goals that require the most effort are"Align with Enterprise Direction"and"Explore Scope."These goals are critical because they provide a foundational understanding and alignment with both the organization's strategic objectives and the specific scope of the project or product being developed.

Align with Enterprise Direction:

Effort Required: Tailoring an agile strategy requires significant effort to ensure alignment with the overall enterprise direction, including strategic goals, corporate culture, compliance requirements, and governance policies. This involves understanding and integrating the broader organizational objectives into the team’s way of working (WoW).

Why It Is Important: Ensuring alignment with the enterprise direction is vital for maintaining consistency across different teams and departments and for achieving long-term organizational goals. It helps in leveraging shared resources, standards, and practices, reducing risks, and fostering collaboration.

Disciplined Agile Context: In the DA toolkit, "Align with Enterprise Direction" ensures that teams are not working in silos but are contributing to the broader organizational strategy and that their actions support the enterprise’s vision and values.

Explore Scope:

Effort Required: Exploring the scope involves understanding the breadth and depth of the problem space, gathering requirements, and defining what needs to be built. This can be a complex and time-consuming effort because it requires collaboration with multiple stakeholders, eliciting requirements, and managing changes.

Why It Is Important: This process goal helps ensure that the team understands the scope of the work to be done and aligns its efforts accordingly. It involves prioritizing features, defining acceptance criteria, and creating a shared understanding among all stakeholders.

Disciplined Agile Context: "Explore Scope" in the DA framework is critical because it lays the foundation for what the team will work on. It helps manage stakeholder expectations, prioritize work, and align deliverables with customer needs and organizational objectives.

Contrasting Incorrect Options:

A. Improve Quality: While improving quality is essential in any agile strategy, it typically involves applying established practices such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI), and automated testing, which may not require as much initial effort compared to aligning with enterprise direction or exploring scope.

D. Address Changing Stakeholder Needs: Addressing changing stakeholder needs is part of the agile process, but the effort involved depends on how frequently and significantly those needs change. This goal is more of an ongoing activity rather than an initial effort required for tailoring an agile strategy.

In the context of the construction phase of a project, "Prove Architecture Early" is a relevant process goal. During this phase, it is critical to validate the chosen architecture to ensure that it will support the desired functionality and meet quality requirements. This goal focuses on reducing technical risks by building architectural spikes or prototypes to validate key architectural decisions. This helps the team confirm that the architecture is sound before investing heavily in development. Other options like "Explore Scope," "Develop Test Strategy," and "Form Team" are activities relevant to earlier phases (such as inception).

The coordination meeting (often known as the Daily Stand-up or Scrum meeting in Agile practices) is crucial for keeping the team synchronized. It provides a regular opportunity for team members to share their progress, discuss any obstacles they face, and plan their activities for the day. This meeting ensures that everyone is aligned with the team's goals, helping to maintain momentum and quickly address any issues that might impede progress.

Options A, B, and C do not fully capture the core purpose of a coordination meeting. While A (providing a demo) might occur in a sprint review, it is not the focus of a daily coordination meeting. Option B (stakeholder observation) is not the primary intent, and Option C (reassessing the backlog) is typically part of a planning meeting, not the coordination meeting.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The Marketing process blade in Disciplined Agile is responsible for crafting an appealing roadmap of the organization's offerings in close conjunction with Product Management. Product Management helps define the product vision, strategy, and features, while Marketing ensures that these offerings are effectively communicated to the target audience. Options A (Portfolio management), C (Finance), D (Business Operations), and E (Control) do not primarily focus on this collaboration.

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Yes: In a complex adaptive system, understanding the individual parts does not automatically convey a perfect understanding of the whole system's behavior. Complex adaptive systems, such as those found in Agile development environments, are characterized by intricate interdependencies and dynamic interactions among components. The behavior of the system as a whole emerges from these interactions, and cannot be fully predicted or understood solely by analyzing the individual parts. This is why Disciplined Agile encourages looking at the bigger picture and understanding how different elements influence each other within the larger organizational context.

If the frequency of changes to requirements is very high (almost daily), the Continuous Delivery Agile lifecycle model makes the most sense. This model is designed to handle frequent changes by integrating and delivering work continuously, ensuring that new requirements are incorporated quickly and effectively. Options A (Scrum) and D (Agile) provide iterative approaches, but they may not handle daily changes as efficiently as a continuous delivery model. Option B (Lean) focuses on optimizing flow and reducing waste but does not specifically address handling frequent requirement changes.

In Disciplined Agile (DA), the "Specialist" is considered a supporting role. Specialists possess expertise in specific areas (e.g., security, database management) and are brought in as needed to support the primary delivery team. The supporting roles are not part of the core team but contribute specialized skills and knowledge when required.

Options A (Stakeholder), B (Team Lead), and D (Architecture Owner) are not supporting roles. Stakeholders represent end-users or business interests, while Team Leads and Architecture Owners are considered primary roles within a DA team.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The three categories of process blades in Disciplined Agile (DA) are:

Disciplined DevOps:Focuses on integrating development and operations to streamline workflows, reduce bottlenecks, and ensure continuous delivery and deployment.

Disciplined Agile IT:Encompasses practices that support IT functions, such as Enterprise Architecture, Data Management, IT Governance, and IT Operations.

Disciplined Project Management Office (PMO):Provides strategic alignment, governance, and guidance to ensure that projects and initiatives align with organizational goals and deliver value.

Disciplined Agile Delivery (C) is a process blade itself, not a category, and Disciplined Kanban (D) is not a recognized process blade in DA.

While "Delight customers" is an important goal in agile and Disciplined Agile (DA) practices, it is not listed as one of the key principles to keep in mind when choosing and evolving a team’s Way of Working (WoW). The key principles are "Pragmatism" (A), "Choice is good" (C), and "Context counts" (D). These principles emphasize practical decision-making, recognizing that different situations require different approaches (choice is good), and tailoring the WoW to the specific context.

True: A value stream does indeed begin and end with a customer. In Disciplined Agile, a value stream represents the sequence of activities an organization undertakes to deliver a product or service that is of value to a customer. It starts with a customer need or demand and ends with the delivery of value to that customer. The focus on value streams helps organizations optimize the flow of value, reduce waste, and enhance customer satisfaction by aligning all activities around delivering what the customer truly needs.

Using Lean thinking, we should be managingthe value stream. Lean thinking focuses on optimizing the entire flow of value from the initial customer request to the delivery of the final product or service. Managing the value stream involves identifying and eliminating waste, reducing delays, and ensuring smooth flow across all steps in the process to deliver maximum value to the customer. Lean emphasizes managing the process flow rather than micromanaging individual steps or people, allowing for continuous improvement and more efficient operations.

In the Disciplined Agile (DA) approach, the role of a team lead, such as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach, includes supporting team members and helping them overcome obstacles. Option B reflects this mindset: having a conversation with the team member to understand the root causes of their struggle and collaboratively seeking solutions. This approach aligns with agile principles of servant leadership, empathy, and collaboration. It encourages open communication, trust-building, and personal development, which are core to maintaining a high-performing and motivated team.

Providing time management training (Option A), holding a one-on-one meeting focused on failures (Option C), or redistributing work without addressing underlying issues (Option D) are less aligned with the values of Disciplined Agile, as they do not directly address the specific impediments faced by the team member or promote a supportive and growth-oriented team culture.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI

The primary purpose of creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is toestablish the validity of a hypothesisby testing a prototype with real customers. In Disciplined Agile, an MVP is a minimal version of a product designed to test assumptions and learn about market needs with the least amount of effort and resources. By putting a prototype in front of customers, teams can validate or invalidate their hypotheses, gather user feedback, and make informed decisions on future development. This aligns with the lean and agile principle of delivering value quickly and efficiently while minimizing waste. Other options, like committing to continuous improvement or creating a marketable product, are secondary to the core purpose of hypothesis validation through MVPs.

Lean governance practices, as described in the PMI Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, focus on enabling teams to deliver value in a lean, efficient manner. This involves creating business value regularly (Option A), empowering the team (Option C), providing appropriate Return on Investment (RoI) (Option D), and presenting accurate and timely information (Option E). However, "Directing the team with clear tasks" (Option B) contradicts the lean governance principles, which emphasize empowering teams to make decisions and self-organize rather than being directed. Therefore, directing the team with clear tasks is not a lean governance practice.

The "Architecture Owner" in Disciplined Agile is responsible for addressing and mitigating key technical risks within a project. This role ensures that the architecture of the solution aligns with the strategic and tactical goals of the organization, guides the team in making architecture-related decisions, and helps in managing technical debt.

Options B (removing impediments) and C (working cross-functionally to deliver the solution) are responsibilities of the Team Lead or Scrum Master. Option D (determining priorities for the solution) is typically the role of the Product Owner.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

Making design choices early in a project isnota desirable practice in design thinking. Design thinking encourages a flexible, iterative approach to problem-solving, where solutions are refined through experimentation and feedback from real users. By delaying design choices until more information is available and validated, teams can better align their solutions with user needs and constraints. The other options—being aware of constraints, empathy for customers,and situational appropriateness—are core principles in design thinking that help teams create more user-centered and effective solutions.

One of the significant changes in finance processes within Agile teams is that teams are typically given a definite budget to manage. In an Agile environment, teams are empowered to make decisions and manage their finances within the constraints of their allocated budget. This approach ensures better control over expenditures and accountability. Option A (less oversight), C (structured around functions), and D (not needing to monitor cash flows) do not accurately describe changes in financial management in agile teams.

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The Disciplined Agile principles that best address the need to consider the bigger picture areEnterprise AwarenessandContext Counts.

Enterprise Awarenessensures that teams understand how their work fits within the broader organizational context, including alignment with corporate objectives, policies, and other teams. This principle encourages teams to think beyond their immediate tasks and consider the overall goals and constraints of the organization.

Context Countsemphasizes that the approach to work should be tailored to the specific situation and environment. It promotes the idea that different contexts require different strategies, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Both principles encourage a holistic view that considers the larger organizational and environmental factors influencing team decisions.

The process goal of "Explore Scope" in the Disciplined Agile framework focuses on understanding the purpose, domain, and intended usage of a product. This involves clarifying what needs to be delivered, gathering requirements, and determining the boundaries of what is in and out of scope for the product development. When a team is exploring the product's purpose, domain, and usage, they are actively engaging in the process of defining and refining the scope of the work to be done, making Option C the correct answer. Options A, B, and D relate to other aspects of agile project management, but do not specifically address the exploration of scope.

The final step in the "Choose your WoW" (Way of Working) process isGuided Continuous Improvement. This step emphasizes the need for teams to continually assess and refine their way of working based on outcomes, feedback, and learning. The focus is on applying a structured approach to improvement, where teams iteratively experiment with new practices and techniques and adapt based on what works best in their context.

Options B (Make some choices), C (Connect the dots), and D (Select the best-fit life-cycle) are earlier steps in the process, which involve defining the team's initial way of working.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

According to Disciplined Agile and broader agile principles, complex adaptive systems, such as software development environments, cannot be fully understood by analyzing individual parts in isolation. The nature of complex adaptive systems is that they involve multiple interacting components, and their behaviors emerge from these interactions. Therefore, understanding the whole system requires examining the relationships, feedback loops, and patterns that arise within the entire context, not just the individual parts. This concept is grounded in systems thinking, a key component in agile methodologies, which encourages viewing the system holistically.

The decision to keep a single Scrum team of 12 members, despite the increase in size, reflects the Disciplined Agile principle ofbeing pragmatic. This principle involves making context-sensitive decisions that balance competing priorities. In this case, although Scrum recommends smaller team sizes (ideally 10 or fewer), the team prioritized cohesiveness and delivery over strict adherence to the guideline. By being pragmatic, they chose an approach that best suits their current context and promotes better collaboration and productivity, even if it meant working with a slightly larger team. This decision also demonstrates a balance between adhering to best practices and adapting to the unique needs and dynamics of the team.

The Control process blade in Disciplined Agile (DA) is responsible for ensuring regulatory compliance. This includes establishing controls, standards, and governance practices to ensure that the organization's activities meet legal, regulatory, and policy requirements. The Control blade works closely with other process blades such as Finance, Procurement, and IT to maintain compliance across all areas of the organization.

The Kaizen feedback loop, which is an important concept in Lean and Agile practices, can be summarized as "Plan, Do, Study, Act" (PDSA). This cycle is fundamental to continuous improvement (Kaizen) and is used to iteratively improve processes and products. "Plan" involves identifying a goal or a change to implement; "Do" means implementing the change; "Study" refers to analyzing the results and understanding the impact of the change; and "Act" is about making necessary adjustments or standardizing the change if it is successful. Options A, B, and C do not accurately reflect the PDSA cycle as recognized in Disciplined Agile and Lean methodologies.

Avalue streamin Disciplined Agile and Lean thinking is defined as the sequence of steps that an organization undertakes to deliver a product or service to customers. This encompasses all activities, from identifying customer needs to delivering the final product or service, and includes both value-adding and non-value-adding activities. The goal of managing a value stream is to optimize the flow of value to the customer by identifying and eliminating waste, improving efficiency, and enhancing overall effectiveness.

In Disciplined Agile, teams avoid spending a considerable amount of time at the beginning to lock down the architecture and design of the product. Instead, DA promotes an iterative and incremental approach, where architecture and design evolve as the team gains more understanding of the project requirements and constraints. This adaptive approach reduces the risks associated with upfront design and supports flexibility and responsiveness to change. Therefore, the correct answer is "False" because DA does not advocate for a long, upfront architecture and design phase.

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The primary role of the Product Owner in Disciplined Agile is to ensure that the team builds the right product. This includes defining and prioritizing the product backlog, making decisions on behalf of stakeholders, and ensuring that the team understands the product vision and customer needs. Options A (coordinate the product), B (organize the product team), and C (inspect the product) are aspects of the Product Owner's responsibilities, but they do not capture the overarching goal of delivering the right product to meet customer needs.

When changing legacy code, the recommended approach in Disciplined Agile is to "Add a test first, then change it." This practice is aligned with Test-Driven Development (TDD) and ensures that any modifications made to the legacy code do not introduce new defects. By writing tests before making changes, you establish a safety net that confirms the existing functionality remains intact, and the new changes work as expected. Rewriting the code (B), delegating the task (C), or changing the code before adding tests (D) can increase risk and are not recommended practices.

The Continuous Delivery Lean life cycle is suitable when there is an experienced team working on a product or service where the requirements change frequently, potentially daily. This life cycle supports frequent deployments and quick feedback loops, making it ideal for environments where requirements are dynamic and evolve rapidly. Options A, D, and E do not align with the conditions that necessitate a Continuous Delivery Lean approach, as they involve either less experienced teams or slower-evolving requirements.

False: In a complex adaptive system, it is generally better to havepatterns of good practicesrather than one best practice. This is because complex systems are characterized by dynamic and unpredictable behavior, where a single best practice may not be applicable or effective in all situations. Instead, using a variety of good practices allows teams to adapt to changing conditions and choose the most appropriate approach for their specific context. Disciplined Agile promotes a flexible, context-driven approach to process decisions rather than a rigid adherence to one best practice.

"Ensure production readiness" is one of the process goals in the transition stage of the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework. During the transition phase, the team focuses on finalizing the product and preparing it for release, which includes activities like final testing, user training, and deployment planning to ensure the solution is ready for production use. Options A (Produce a potentially consumable solution) and B (Develop common vision) are more aligned with earlier phases, such as Inception or Construction. Option D (Address risk) is a goal throughout the lifecycle but is not specific to the transition phase.

Attributes of a leader in Disciplined Agile include taking risks, inspiring trust, and focusing on goals. Leaders in an agile environment should be willing to take calculated risks to innovate and improve, build trust within their teams and with stakeholders, and maintain a focus on achieving goals and delivering value. Options B (Goes with the flow) and D (Assigns tasks) are less aligned with agile leadership, which emphasizes empowerment over task assignment and adaptability rather than passively following along.

During the Inception stage of a Disciplined Agile project, the team typically focuses on defining the project's vision, goals, and scope, as well as identifying high-level architecture and a test strategy. The deployment strategy, which details how the product will be released to the users, is generally determined later in the project when more is known about the product's architecture and functionality. Therefore, "B. Deployment strategy" is the correct answer, as it may not be decided during the Inception stage.

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In theContinuous Delivery Leanlife-cycle model, a Disciplined Agile team needs to have high levels of skill and organization because this model involves continuous delivery of small, incremental changes. Teams must manage a smooth flow of work, maintain high quality through automation, integrate changes frequently, and respond rapidly to customer feedback. This requires sophisticated technical practices, strong cross-functional collaboration, and disciplined work management to ensure a continuous stream of value delivery.

Options A (Program), C (Scrum), D (SAFe), E (Continuous Delivery Agile), and F (Exploratory) also require specific skills but do not generally demand the same level of continuous and lean-oriented discipline as Continuous Delivery Lean.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The process blade most likely to offer potential techniques for setting up mechanisms for teams to share their learnings with other teams isContinuous Improvement. In Disciplined Agile, the Continuous Improvement blade encompasses activities and practices that foster a culture of learning, adaptation, and improvement. This includes mechanisms for sharing lessons learned, best practices, and knowledge across teams to enhance organizational agility and effectiveness. Techniques under this blade may involve communities of practice, internal knowledge-sharing sessions, retrospectives, and other collaborative activities that support learning and improvement at scale.