Chapter 8

Question 1

1.Who determines the process to prioritize value in an Agile project?

1. The customer
2. The Scrum Master
3. The product owner
4. The entire team

Answer 1

The entire team

The entire team includes the product owner, the development team, and the Agile project manager as well as other stakeholders—even the customer or sponsor. Inevitably, the product owner owns the backlog and needs to prioritize value. Nonetheless, they don’t do that in a vacuum: There is much discussion and interaction when deciding how to determine what is valuable.

Question 2

2.Misunderstandings of value, product, and customer needs can best be described as which one of the following?

1. The gulf of constraints
2. The gulf of Agile
3. The gulf of misunderstanding
4. The gulf value stream

Answer 2

2 The gulf of misunderstanding

The gulf of misunderstanding can occur when value has not been clarified or either the customer or the team misunderstands what will be created on the project. To avoid this misunderstanding, the team will use a variety of techniques to reach consensus on what they are building and why.

Question 3

3.You are coaching your Agile team in different ways to prioritize value. Which one of the following would not be a way to prioritize?

1. Dot voting
2. Value stream analysis
3. MoSCoW
4. Monopoly Money

Answer 3

3. Dot voting

Giving the team and other stakeholders colored dots and allowing them to vote on their choices of features and functions allows for discussion and consensus to be reached.

Question 4

4.During a prioritization exercise with your Agile team, you give each of the stakeholders 100 points. How will they determine priority with those points?

1. They will put 100 points on the main feature they want.
2. They will break the 100 points into 25-point increments for their top four values.
3. They will put the points they want next to the options that they like, and they may place any number of points on any number of the options.

Answer 4

4. They will put the points they want next to the options that they like, and they may place any number of points on any number of the options.

The 100-point method is designed to allow for prioritization in a facilitated way. This allows everyone to determine what they feel is most important and score it accordingly.

Question 5

5.Your customer is describing items they want on the next release of their corporate software program. During discussions of valuable features, they ask if the software can include a new and innovative feature they read their competition may be creating. Your team performs Kano Analysis and determines this feature request falls under the category of:

1. Satisfier
2. Exciters
3. Dissatisfiers
4. Indifferent

Answer 5

5. Exciters

What this is describing is something new and innovative that hasn’t been done before. That describes an exciter that the customer wants included in the next release.

Question 6

Agile contracts differ from Waterfall projects in which of the following ways?

1. They are longer term to accommodate iterations.
2. They can use a fix and switch contract to allow for changes in scope.
3. They can be adapted at any time.
4. The can be updated for scope changes that have been approved through change control systems.

Answer 6

6. 2.They can use a fix and switch contract to allow for changes in scope.

Using a more flexible type of contract on Agile projects allows for updates or change in scope without any penalty or legal breach of contract.

Question 7

7.Your sponsor has asked you for a review of the scope, time, and cost performance so they can present the information to the shareholders. You have determined that the cost variance is –$3,000 and the schedule variance is $1,000. How is this project progressing?

1. The project is over budget and behind schedule.
2. The project is under budget and ahead of schedule.
3. The project is over budget and ahead of schedule.
4. There isn’t enough information to determine project progress.

Answer 7

7. 3.The project is over budget and ahead of schedule.

This project is over budget because the cost variance is determined by comparing the earned value to the actual cost. Less work was done and you paid more for it. For the schedule variance, more work was done than planned, so the project is ahead of schedule.

Question 8

8.Your organization is using a mix of Waterfall and Agile techniques on its project and is very focused on reaching the return on investment level that it has determined the project should meet. Your sponsor is asking for the cost performance index information. What technique can you use to provide that information?

1. Earned value technique
2. Benefit cost measurements
3. Monopoly Money
4. Return on investment calculations

Answer 8

8. 1.Earned value technique

The earned value technique will allow for a comparative approach between the scope of work planned to be accomplished and what it has cost to accomplish that in order to obtain the cost performance index, or CPI.

Question 9

9.The planned value on your current project at this point in the schedule is $10,000, and the earned value is $9,600. What is the schedule variance?

1. $400.00
2. 0.96
3. –($400.00)
4. 1.04

Answer 9

9. 3.–($400.00)

In this case, the question is asking for the schedule variance. The formula for that is earned value − planned value. Because less work was accomplished than planned, this project is behind schedule by $400.00, so the answer would be a negative value. The other answers are either positive numbers or indexes obtained by using the formulas incorrectly.

Question 10

10.Your customer has been adamant about a certain feature being a part of the finished increment. You have explained time and again that the feature they are looking for will interfere with the rest of the result and cause it not to work as well. What could be the reason for this confusion?

1. The gulf of misunderstanding has occurred.
2. Kano analysis wasn’t performed.
3. The customer is confusing exciters with satisfiers.
4. The team isn’t understanding the requirements.

Answer 10

10. 1.The gulf of misunderstanding has occurred.

In this question, all answers could be, in some ways, correct. The best answer here is that the customer isn’t understanding your technical jargon and/or why what they want will not be in the final increment. This is due to the gulf of misunderstanding. If Kano analysis had been performed, there would be a better understanding rather than misunderstanding.

Question 11

You are being tasked by your organization to create a statement of work that will be utilized in the procurement process. The legal department explains to you that they want to make sure that all terms and conditions are negotiated and agreed to up front. Then, when scope needs to be changed, there is more flexibility in the process. To what type of agreement is the legal department referring?

1. Fixed-price contract
2. Cost-reimbursable contract
3. Time and materials contract
4. Master service level agreement

Answer 11

11. 4.Master service level agreement

A service level agreement allows for terms and conditions to be determined in the beginning so that future changes in scope won’t result in renegotiations throughout the project.

Question 12

12.Bill is the sponsor on your project and is especially nervous about the budget and meeting the expected ROI. He asks you on a regular basis what things are costing and if you are spending money in the right areas. You suggest to Bill that he come to the team area and explain where he would spend the money if it were his decision and he had the entire project budget to work with. What are you suggesting Bill do?

1. Use Monopoly Money to create his budget.
2. Use Monopoly Money to show what he values and where he would spend the money.
3. He is going to dot vote with the team to determine priority.
4. Bill will be performing a Kano analysis on the budget.

Answer 12

12. 2.Use Monopoly Money to show what he values and where he would spend the money.

Monopoly Money is a great way to see how a sponsor or customer would spend their money if given the entire budget to disperse.

Question 13

13.Your customer is working very closely with your team on prioritization of value for their product. There are certain items that must be in the final product no matter what and others that won’t be included unless different information is presented at a later date. Which of the following prioritization techniques does it look like they used?

1. Dot voting
2. Kano analysis
3. MoSCoW
4. Monopoly Money

Answer 13

13. MoSCoW

In this case, the must-haves versus the won’t-haves points to prioritization using the MoSCoW approach.

Question 14

14.You are delivering a performance report to your sponsor on the project and have put together an earned value report. Your cost performance index is 1.25. What does that information tell your sponsor?

1. The project is over budget.
2. The project is under budget.
3. The project is getting one dollar’s worth of work done and spending $1.25 on that work.
4. The project is getting 1.25 dollars’ worth of work done and spending one dollar on that work.

Answer 14

14. The project is getting 1.25 dollars’ worth of work done and spending one dollar on that work.

The cost performance index is a rating of efficiency on the project. Any result over a 1.0 shows that the project is under budget and essentially getting more work accomplished for less money.

Question 15

Your organization has entered into a contract that can best be described as good for the organization, and the budget requirements are known or stable. What kind of contract did your organization enter into?

1. The fix and switch
2. A service level agreement
3. Fixed price
4. Time and materials

Answer 15

15. 3.Fixed price

A fixed-price contract is good for organizations that are trying to control costs and have a good understanding of the scope of work. There is less flexibility for scope changes, but cost risk is lower

Question 16

16.Your project sponsor is asking for performance information on how your team is working in a new Agile environment, and you explain to them that your team is performing well together, that they have a good grasp on estimation techniques, and that their velocity has stabilized. These are all examples of what type of performance measurement?

1. Key performance indicators
2. Performance reporting
3. Earned value reports
4. Burn down charts

Answer 16

16. 1.Key performance indicators

Key performance indicators will vary depending on what the return on investment looks like in an organization. Typically, KPIs relate to project and team performance.

Question 17

17.Brenda is sitting down with you for some one-on-one coaching because she is having trouble setting goals that she can meet. You are working through the goals that she has set and notice that they seem rather vague, and it’s hard to determine what the end result should be. What would you recommend to Brenda?

1. That she makes her goals more specific
2. That she should be working with her team on goals and goal planning
3. That Brenda needs some training on goal setting
4. That she needs to work a little harder at achieving her goals

Answer 17

17. 1.That she makes her goals more specific

Setting SMART goals is a large piece of improving all aspects of goal setting.

Question 18

18.The mnemonic acronym SMART applies to which of the following project areas?

1. Schedule improvement
2. Cost improvement
3. Goal setting improvement
4. Team performance improvement

Answer 18

18. 3.Goal setting improvement

The SMART mnemonic acronym stands for specific, measurable, attainable/assignable, realistic, and time-based.

Question 19

19.Jamal is the Agile project manager in charge of a new development project to create an app that can track how many times employees go to websites that are non–work related. Jamal is reporting to the sponsor that they have gone a bit over budget in the last iteration. Which of the following figures would show an over budget project?

1. 1.6
2. 1.1
3. 1.0
4. .80

Answer 19

19. 80%

This response shows a cost performance index under 1.0; that is, the budget is only at 80 percent efficiency when Jamal expected 100 percent.

Question 20

Carol is writing down a goal she wants to meet. She starts with a very specific road map of what the result should be. She knows that she can get it done and has tracking mechanisms documented. Carol knows the goal is realistic as well. Which of the following is missing from her goal setting approach?

1. Specific
2. Measurable
3. Attainable
4. Time-based

Answer 20

20. 4.Time-based

There isn’t anything that points to a specific time frame for Carol to attain her goal.

Question 21

21.If you were going to calculate the schedule performance index for your sponsor, which of the following variables would you need to do that?

1. Earned value and actual cost
2. Planned value and earned value
3. Planned value and actual cost
4. None of the above

Answer 21

21. 2.Planned value and earned value

You would need to obtain the planned value, or what you thought you would accomplish at this point in the schedule, and divide it into the earned value, which is how much was accomplished. The formula is EV / PV.

Question 22

22.According to Kano analysis, what do exciters typically become once substantial time has passed?

1. They become demotivators.
2. They become satisfiers.
3. The become dissatisfiers.
4. They remain exciters.

Answer 22

22. 2.They become satisfiers.

Over time and use, exciters become less exciting and fade into the satisfier area.

Question 23

23.When you’re reviewing constraints on an Agile project, which of the following are considered not as flexible as others?

1. Scope and quality
2. Time and quality
3. Cost and scope
4. Cost and time

Answer 23

23. 4.Cost and time

In an Agile project, it is typical that the cost and time would be more rigid and the scope of work would be more flexible. The opposite is true in a Waterfall type of project.

Question 24

24.When determining return on investment (ROI) at the beginning of a project, most organizations use which of the following techniques to help build a business case?

1. Earned value
2. Net present value
3. Monopoly Money
4. Cost performance index

Answer 24

24. 2.Net present value

Net present value is used to help organizations make decisions based on the payback period, internal rate of return, and present values. The higher the net present value, the higher the expected return on investment.

Question 25

25.Your team is holding a facilitated event in which the entire team will be given red and green stickers. The team will place red stickers on features that they don’t want or like and green stickers on what they do want and like. This type of team event for decision making could be called which of the following?

1. A dotmocracy
2. A key performance indicator
3. A decision-making meeting
4. Backlog refinement

Answer 25

25. 1. A dotmocracy

Dot voting, or creating a dotmocracy, allows the team to express their opinions and vote on the options that they think are valuable. This allows for transparent communication and consensus to be reached.