CAE CAE Risk Management & Impediment Resolution 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: How does Agile manage risk differently from traditional project management?
- Agile ignores risk until it becomes an issue
- Agile manages risk through continuous delivery of small increments that reveal risks early (Correct answer)
- Agile documents all risks in a register at project start and reviews quarterly
- Agile assigns a dedicated risk manager to each team
Correct answer: Agile manages risk through continuous delivery of small increments that reveal risks early
Agile reduces risk by delivering in small increments, surfacing assumptions early, and getting frequent feedback rather than front-loading a risk register.
Question 2: What is an 'impediment' in Agile terminology?
- A low-priority backlog item
- Any obstacle that slows or blocks the team's progress toward their sprint goal (Correct answer)
- A team member who is underperforming
- A dependency on another sprint
Correct answer: Any obstacle that slows or blocks the team's progress toward their sprint goal
An impediment is anything that prevents the team from working at full capacity toward their sprint goal, and removing it is a key Scrum Master responsibility.
Question 3: Who is primarily responsible for removing impediments that are outside the team's control in Scrum?
- The Product Owner
- The Development Team collectively
- The Scrum Master (Correct answer)
- The Stakeholder
Correct answer: The Scrum Master
The Scrum Master is responsible for removing impediments that the team cannot resolve themselves, escalating to the organization as needed.
Question 4: What is 'risk-adjusted backlog prioritization' in Agile?
- Prioritizing backlog items based solely on business value
- Factoring in both the value and the risk of backlog items to determine priority (Correct answer)
- Removing high-risk items from the backlog
- Letting the development team prioritize based on technical complexity
Correct answer: Factoring in both the value and the risk of backlog items to determine priority
Risk-adjusted prioritization considers both business value and risk exposure, so high-value, high-risk items can be addressed early to reduce uncertainty.
Question 5: What Agile practice best helps identify technical risks early in a project?
- Writing detailed requirements documents upfront
- Building a spike or proof-of-concept to explore uncertain technical areas (Correct answer)
- Delaying technical decisions until the last responsible moment only after planning
- Creating a comprehensive risk register at project inception
Correct answer: Building a spike or proof-of-concept to explore uncertain technical areas
A spike is a time-boxed research or prototyping effort specifically designed to reduce technical uncertainty and surface risks before they become problems.
Question 6: How should a team handle a recurring impediment that reappears every sprint?
- Accept it as a permanent constraint and work around it
- Escalate it to the Scrum Master and discuss root causes in the retrospective to find a systemic fix (Correct answer)
- Increase sprint velocity targets to compensate
- Remove the blocker from the team's awareness
Correct answer: Escalate it to the Scrum Master and discuss root causes in the retrospective to find a systemic fix
Recurring impediments signal systemic issues that should be analyzed in retrospectives and escalated for a permanent solution rather than tolerated.
CAE CAE Risk Management & Impediment Resolution 1
How does Agile manage risk differently from traditional project management?