Practice Test Geeks(CSM) Certified Software Manager Practice Test
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Data Analysis & Decision Making Flashcards

7 cards from real CSM practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.

Read the first 7 Data Analysis & Decision Making flashcards as text

  1. Which cognitive bias causes software managers to favor information that confirms their pre-existing belief that a project is on track, while discounting warning signs?

    Answer: Confirmation bias

    Confirmation bias leads decision-makers to seek, interpret, and remember information that supports their existing views.

  2. A software manager applies the 'five whys' technique to a production outage. What is the primary goal of this technique?

    Answer: To identify the root cause by iteratively asking why an event occurred

    The five whys technique drills down to the systemic root cause of a problem by repeatedly asking 'why' until no deeper cause exists.

  3. In a software development context, which metric directly measures the proportion of estimated work that was actually delivered in a sprint?

    Answer: Velocity accuracy (story points planned vs. completed)

    Comparing planned versus completed story points measures how accurately teams forecast and deliver within a sprint iteration.

  4. A manager is choosing between mutually exclusive software architecture options with different risk profiles. Which framework explicitly separates probability of occurrence from impact severity?

    Answer: Risk probability and impact matrix

    The risk probability and impact matrix maps each risk on two independent axes — likelihood of occurrence and severity of consequence.

  5. When analyzing software project data, the interquartile range (IQR) is preferred over the range for measuring variability because it:

    Answer: Is unaffected by extreme outlier values

    The IQR measures the spread of the middle 50% of data, making it robust to outliers that distort the simple range.

  6. A software team's code review data shows a strong positive correlation (r = 0.85) between review duration and defect detection rate. A manager concludes that longer reviews cause better defect detection. This conclusion is an example of:

    Answer: Confusing correlation with causation

    Correlation measures the strength of association but does not establish causation — a confounding variable could explain both longer reviews and higher defect rates.

  7. Which type of control chart is most appropriate for monitoring the proportion of defective software builds in a continuous integration pipeline?

    Answer: p-chart (proportion chart)

    The p-chart monitors the proportion (percentage) of nonconforming units in samples of varying or fixed size.