PMP Agile and Hybrid Approaches 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A project manager is transitioning a traditionally managed team to agile. Stakeholders are uncomfortable with the lack of a detailed upfront plan. What is the BEST approach?
- Revert to waterfall to satisfy stakeholder concerns
- Create a detailed plan for the entire project before starting any sprints
- Provide a high-level roadmap and demonstrate value through early working increments (Correct answer)
- Eliminate all planning ceremonies to accelerate delivery
Correct answer: Provide a high-level roadmap and demonstrate value through early working increments
Providing a roadmap and delivering early working increments builds stakeholder confidence while embracing agile's adaptive planning.
Question 2: In Lean thinking, which concept focuses on eliminating activities that consume resources without delivering customer value?
- Kaizen
- Muda (Correct answer)
- Kanban
- Gemba
Correct answer: Muda
Muda is the Japanese term for waste — any activity that consumes resources but does not create value for the customer.
Question 3: A Scrum team discovers a critical defect in production during a sprint. The bug was not in the sprint backlog. How should the team handle it?
- Ignore it until the next sprint planning session
- The Product Owner adds it to the product backlog for future prioritization
- The Scrum Master fixes it independently without disrupting the team
- The team and Product Owner assess severity and may add it to the current sprint if critical (Correct answer)
Correct answer: The team and Product Owner assess severity and may add it to the current sprint if critical
Critical production defects may warrant adding work to the current sprint after the team and Product Owner assess impact on the sprint goal.
Question 4: What does WIP (Work In Progress) limit enforcement primarily help a Kanban team achieve?
- Increase the number of features completed per quarter
- Reduce context switching and improve flow efficiency (Correct answer)
- Eliminate the need for daily standups
- Assign individual ownership to every task
Correct answer: Reduce context switching and improve flow efficiency
WIP limits reduce multitasking and context switching, helping work flow more smoothly through the system.
Question 5: In agile, what is the purpose of a 'spike'?
- A sudden increase in team velocity after a team member joins
- A time-boxed research activity to reduce uncertainty about a technical approach (Correct answer)
- A penalty assigned when the team misses the sprint goal
- A high-priority user story that must be completed this sprint
Correct answer: A time-boxed research activity to reduce uncertainty about a technical approach
A spike is a time-boxed exploration or research task used to gain knowledge needed to reduce the risk or uncertainty of a story or technical decision.
Question 6: During a retrospective, a team member raises a recurring interpersonal conflict. The Scrum Master attempts to mediate but the conflict persists. What should the Scrum Master do NEXT?
- Report the conflict to senior management for disciplinary action
- Escalate to the HR department or a professional coach (Correct answer)
- Ignore it since retrospectives are for process improvements only
- Remove the team member causing conflict from the team
Correct answer: Escalate to the HR department or a professional coach
When interpersonal conflicts persist beyond the Scrum Master's facilitation ability, escalating to HR or engaging a professional coach is appropriate.
Question 7: A project uses a hybrid approach where requirements are fixed (waterfall) but delivery is iterative. This is BEST described as:
- Pure Scrum with a fixed scope constraint
- Iterative waterfall or a plan-driven hybrid model (Correct answer)
- Continuous delivery pipeline
- Kanban with a Definition of Done
Correct answer: Iterative waterfall or a plan-driven hybrid model
Fixing requirements upfront while delivering them in iterations is a classic iterative waterfall or plan-driven hybrid model.
PMP Agile and Hybrid Approaches 3
A project manager is transitioning a traditionally managed team to agile.
Stakeholders are uncomfortable with the lack of a detailed upfront plan.
What is the BEST approach?