DASSM Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) Exam Questions and Answers

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.

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 primary advantage of using design thinking, according to DA guidelines, is that it promotes customer empathy and appropriate solutions. Design thinking focuses on understanding the user's needs and creating solutions that are tailored to those needs. Options A, C, and D are not accurate descriptions of design thinking's primary benefit; rather, they reflect misconceptions or partial truths.

We can identify our challenges "by visualizing our workflow to identify what blocks it." Visualizing the workflow, such as through a Kanban board or value stream map, helps teams see where bottlenecks, delays, or inefficiencies occur. This visualization makes it easier to pinpoint problems and areas for improvement. While holding retrospectives (B), finding where frustrations arise (C), and trying good practices to identify failures (D) are all valuable techniques, visualizing workflow is a foundational Lean practice for identifying and addressing challenges in real time.

"Develop test strategy" is a process goal within the Construction phase of the Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) framework. The Construction phase is where the team actively builds the solution incrementally, and developing a test strategy is critical to ensure that the product meets quality standards and stakeholder expectations. Other options like "Explore scope" (Option A), "Prove architecture early" (Option C), and "Form team" (Option D) are associated with the Inception phase, while "Ensure production readiness" (Option E) relates to the Transition phase.

In Disciplined Agile, the daily huddle or daily stand-up is referred to as a "coordination meeting." The purpose of this meeting is to allow the team members to coordinate their work, identify any impediments, and align their activities to meet the team’s goals. This term emphasizes the focus on coordinating efforts rather than simply following a ritual. Unlike a "daily meeting" (A), "Scrum meeting" (C), or "Sprint review" (D), the coordination meeting is specifically about the daily alignment and coordination, not about reviewing or planning the work in detail.

The process goalCoordinate Activitiesis most likely to offer potential techniques for aligning and working more effectively with people in the marketing department. In Disciplined Agile, "Coordinate Activities" focuses on how teams can effectively collaborate both internally and externally with other departments or stakeholders. This goal includes strategies for synchronizing work, managing dependencies, and establishing communication channels, which are essential for ensuring alignment with the marketing department and facilitating cross-functional collaboration. Other options such as "Address Risk" or "Explore Scope" do not directly relate to inter-departmental coordination, while "Sales and Marketing" is not a specific process goal within the Disciplined Agile framework.

When introducing new features to a large, existing product, the product team should employ the Minimum Business Increment (MBI) technique. In the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, an MBI is a small, releasable component that delivers recognizable business value to a customer or user. Unlike a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), which is often used for new products or market exploration, an MBI is suitable for incrementally enhancing existing products by delivering value in manageable pieces. This approach allows teams to release new features more frequently and receive feedback more rapidly, helping them to prioritize future work based on actual customer and business needs. Continuous Integration (A) is a practice of merging code frequently to prevent integration issues, while Pull System (B) is related to Lean practices of managing work in progress. MVP (D) is generally used for launching new products rather than adding to an existing one.

A well-written user story in the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework describes the product requirements from the customer's perspective. In DA, a user story is a short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, typically a user or customer of the system. The primary purpose of a user story is to articulate how a piece of work will deliver a particular value back to the customer.

A user story should focus on what the customer needs and wants, rather than a fixed outcome (A), the needs of all users (B), or merely the expectations of the product owner (C). It shouldcapture the customer's perspective (D) to ensure the team understands who the end-user is, what they need, and why they need it. This customer-centric approach helps the team create value-driven features and maintain alignment with customer expectations.

Disciplined Agile emphasizes that user stories are part of a collaborative conversation with the stakeholders, which allows the team to explore and understand the customers' needs effectively. The DA framework encourages iterative development based on customer feedback, ensuring that each user story is aligned with delivering maximum customer value.

In Lean, the role of management is to create an environment where teams can thrive and deliver maximum value. This involves fostering a culture that encourages collaboration, continuous improvement, and innovation. Management is responsible for providing support, removing impediments, and ensuring that teams have the resources they need to be successful. The goal is to empower teams to make decisions, own their processes, and focus on delivering value to customers.

Options A, B, and D do not align with the principles of Lean management. Lean emphasizes minimizing waste (like unnecessary documentation) and does not focus on providing MVPs directly to the team (Option B). Ensuring decisions are not made regionally (Option D) is also not a core role of management in Lean.

References:

"Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation," James P. Womack & Daniel T. Jones.

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

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.

Disciplined Agile (DA) is best described as aprocess-decision toolkit. Unlike a prescriptive methodology or framework, DA provides a flexible toolkit that helps teams and organizations make informed decisions about their way of working based on their unique context. It offers guidance on various agile, lean, and traditional practices, and helps teams choose the most effective strategies for their situation. DA focuses on pragmatism and context-driven choice, encouraging teams to adopt and adapt practices that suit their specific needs rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach.

In Disciplined Agile, "Push" refers to a practice where work is assigned to individuals or teams, regardless of their capacity or readiness. This is in contrast to a "Pull" system, where team members pull work when they have the capacity to handle it. A push system can often lead to overloading team members, inefficiencies, and decreased productivity. In Agile practices, a pull-based approach is generally preferred to manage work-in-progress (WIP) and to ensure a sustainable pace for the team.

Options A, C, and D do not accurately represent the concept of "Push" in the context of Disciplined Agile.

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.

User stories are a key component in Agile practices, including the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework. They are typically described by the acronym INVEST, which stands for:

Independent: User stories should be self-contained, so they do not overlap with others.

Negotiable: User stories are not contracts; they should leave room for discussion and refinement.

Valuable: Each user story must deliver value to the end user or customer.

Estimable: A good user story can be estimated in terms of the effort required to complete it.

Small: User stories should be small enough to be completed within a single iteration.

Testable: A user story must be testable, meaning it should be possible to determine whether the user story has been completed successfully.

Based on the INVEST criteria, "Achievable" is not a recognized feature of a user story. While achieving a user story is an implicit goal, it is not explicitly mentioned in the standard definition or characteristics used in Agile frameworks such as Disciplined Agile. The features that are essential to a user story are "Negotiable," "Estimable," and "Testable," as they ensure the story is clearly defined, measurable, and valuable to the user.

References:

Disciplined Agile Delivery: A Practitioner's Guide to Agile Software Delivery in the Enterprise, Scott Ambler & Mark Lines.

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

The desire of senior management to evolve an organization to be more responsive to changes in the marketplace or environment is best captured by the concept ofBusiness Agility. Business agility refers to the ability of an organization to adapt quickly and effectively to market changes, customer demands, and emerging opportunities, all while maintaining a focus on delivering value. Disciplined Agile promotes business agility by providing a toolkit that helps organizations navigate their unique challenges and choose the best practices to enhance responsiveness and adaptability across all levels of the organization.

Transparency is a core practice in Disciplined Agile to ensure that all stakeholders, including team members and customers, have a clear understanding of the project's progress and any challenges faced. The reasons for practicing transparency include ensuring everyone knows what is happening (A), improving team morale (B), and meeting customer expectations (D). Delaying bad news to customers contradicts the principle of transparency. Hence, "C. It delays breaking bad news to customers" is not a reason that Disciplined Agile teams practice transparency.

The Minimum Business Increment (MBI) is a tool used in Disciplined Agile to sequence work in a way that delivers value quickly. An MBI represents the smallest piece of functionality that delivers business value to customers or stakeholders, and it is fully usable upon release. By focusing on MBIs, teams can prioritize work that maximizes the delivery of value, ensures faster feedback, and enables quicker realization of benefits.

Options A (Planning Poker) and C (Minimum Viable Product, MVP) are related to estimation and product development strategies, while Option C (WIP limits) focuses on managing workflow efficiency rather than directly sequencing work for quick value delivery.

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.

Governance in a Disciplined Agile (DA) project involves ensuring that the organization's standards, practices, and compliance requirements are being met while allowing teams to operate within a defined framework. It includes activities such as creating forums for sharing knowledge (A), making decisions about funding (B), administering rewards and recognition (C), ensuring compliance with a regulatory standard (E), and having a defined process for decision-making (F).

However, governance does not mean giving the team complete freedom to make decisions (D). In DA, while teams are encouraged to be self-organizing and empowered, they must still operate within the constraints of organizational governance policies and practices. Governance ensures there is a balance between team autonomy and alignment with organizational goals and standards. Therefore, "complete freedom to the team to make decisions" is not aligned with the DA approach to governance.

This aligns with the principles found in the PMI Disciplined Agile framework, which emphasizes both flexibility and control. In DA, governance is about guiding and monitoring the team’s activities to align with the organizational context, rather than granting unrestricted autonomy.

The least suitable way to adopt Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is touse any of the prescribed methods and follow to the letter. DAD emphasizes flexibility and the need to adapt practices to the specific context of the team or organization. Blindly following a method without considering the unique needs, challenges, and goals of the team contradicts the adaptive and context-sensitive nature of Disciplined Agile. Options B, C, and D (taking advice from "Choose Your WoW", starting with DAD, or working with an experienced coach) are all suitable ways to adopt DAD, as they involve guidance, adaptation, and learning.

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.

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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In Disciplined Agile, process goals are not meant to prescribe how to achieve a particular objective but rather to provide guidance and flexibility. They offer a range of potential options and strategies that a team can choose from to achieve their objectives, allowing the team to tailor its approach based on its specific context and needs. Thus, the correct answer is "False," as process goals are intended to guide rather than dictate a specific way of achieving objectives.

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The primary function of the "Business Operations" process blade in Disciplined Agile is to provide ongoing support and services to customers and ensure that products function smoothly post-deployment. This involves managing customer relationships, handling support requests, andmaintaining operational stability. Options such as "B. To monitor the competitive landscape" and "D. To ensure cash flow in the organization" do not align with the core function of Business Operations. "C. To monitor and guide teams to remove barriers" is more aligned with the roles of leadership and governance. Hence, "A. To provide services to customers and support your products" is the correct answer.

The Architecture Owner is a primary role on a Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) team. This role is responsible for guiding the team in making architectural decisions and ensuring the architectural integrity of the solution. The Architecture Owner works closely with the team to balance the need for emergent design and intentional architecture. The other options (Domain Expert, Specialist, and Integrator) are roles that can exist on an agile team but are not primary roles defined within the DAD framework.

The principle "Be awesome" in Disciplined Agile emphasizes creating an environment where people are motivated, work well together, and support each other in achieving common goals. When a team lead works hard to foster collaboration and unity within the team, they are applying the "Be awesome" principle by creating a positive, effective, and high-performing team dynamic. Options B (Choice is good), C (Context counts), D (Optimize around products/services), and E (Delight customers) do not specifically relate to the emphasis on fostering teamwork and an awesome team environment.

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Even when a project follows a Scrum or Agile lifecycle, it still needs the Inception, Construction, or Transition phases as described in Disciplined Agile (DA). These phases provide a structured approach to project delivery. The "Inception" phase involves initial planning and alignment, "Construction" focuses on iterative development, and "Transition" ensures the final product is ready for release. While Scrum and Agile frameworks focus on iterative and incremental development, DA uses these phases to ensure a comprehensive approach to project management.

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.

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.

Plan Do Study Act (PDSA) is a four-step iterative process used for continuous improvement. It helps teams to better understand the effectiveness of their actions and identify opportunities for improvement. The cycle involves planning an action (Plan), executing it (Do), studying the results (Study), and acting on what is learned (Act). While reflecting on whether the team is working on the correct things (B) or improving plans (C) are parts of continuous improvement, PDSAis primarily aimed at understanding and improving the results of actions. Option D (providing justification when something goes wrong) is not the purpose of PDSA.

The responsibility for choosing the team's lifecycle in Disciplined Agile (DA)depends on the context. DA promotes a context-driven approach where decisions are made based on the specific needs, objectives, and constraints of the team and the organization. In some cases, the team itself may choose the lifecycle that best fits its way of working. In other scenarios, the decision could be influenced by an Agile coach, team manager, or organizational guidelines. Therefore, it is not a one-size-fits-all answer, and the context determines who is best suited to make this decision.

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.

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.

The "Plan the Release" process goal in Disciplined Agile is most likely to offer potential techniques for providing a cost estimate for the project while recognizing that requirements will evolve over time. This goal involves determining the scope of the release, estimating the effort and cost, and planning for future iterations. It accounts for the fact that Agile teams work in environments of uncertainty and helps them create realistic plans that can adapt as requirements change. Options A (Project Management), C (Explore Scope), and D (Address Changing Stakeholder Needs) are relevant for Agile projects, but "Plan the Release" specifically focuses on creating estimates and planning in an Agile context.

The lean life-cycle in Disciplined Agile does not require timeboxed iterations. Instead, it emphasizes continuous flow, where work items are processed individually through the value stream without the strict confines of iteration cycles. This approach allows for a more flexible and responsive process, which aligns with lean principles of minimizing waste and optimizing flow. Thus, the statement is true as it reflects the flexibility inherent in the lean life-cycle approach.

The eight principles of Disciplined Agile are:

Delight Customers: Focus on providing exceptional value to customers.

Be Awesome: Foster an environment where team members feel motivated and supported.

Pragmatism: Make practical decisions based on context, rather than blindly following a methodology.

Context Counts: Recognize that every team and organization operates in a unique context.

Choice is Good: Encourage flexibility by providing multiple options to solve problems.

Optimize Flow: Improve efficiency and effectiveness by focusing on smooth workflow.

Enterprise Awareness: Ensure alignment with organizational goals and strategies.

Organize Around Products/Services: Form teams based on delivering complete products or services, rather than around specialized functions.

These principles promote a flexible, customer-centric, and context-sensitive approach to Agile delivery.

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.

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.

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.

When choosing your team's way of working (WoW), it is important to focus onall of the goal diagrams. In Disciplined Agile, the goal diagrams provide guidance on various aspects of agile project management, including inception, construction, transition, and ongoing work. By considering all of these diagrams, teams can select the most appropriate practices and strategies for their specific context. This comprehensive approach helps teams build a tailored way of working that optimizes their processes across all phases of development, from inception to ongoing support. Relying on only one set of diagrams would limit the team's ability to adapt and optimize effectively.

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.

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.

The correct answer isC. Accelerate value delivery. In the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, the process goal"Accelerate value delivery"typically requires significant tailoring to suit the specific needs, context, and constraints of the team and the organization.

What is "Accelerate Value Delivery"?

The process goal"Accelerate value delivery"focuses on optimizing the flow of work and reducing delays in delivering valuable outcomes to customers. This goal encompasses various practices and techniques such as reducing batch sizes, implementing continuous integration and delivery, enhancing team collaboration, removing bottlenecks, and improving overall efficiency in delivering products or services.

Achieving this goal requires careful consideration of the team's context, technology stack, existing workflows, and the organization's unique challenges and constraints. As a result, "Accelerate value delivery" is highly tailored to ensure that the selected practices are effective in a specific environment.

Why "Accelerate Value Delivery" Requires a Lot of Tailoring:

Tailoring is necessary because different teams and organizations have varying capabilities, maturity levels, cultural norms, and existing processes. For example, one team might need to focus on improving their DevOps practices, while another may need to address process inefficiencies or enhance cross-functional collaboration.

In Disciplined Agile, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to accelerating value delivery. Teams are encouraged to choose from a range of strategies and techniques that best suit their particular circumstances. This flexibility means that teams must continually assess and adapt their approaches to achieve optimal results, which requires significant customization and tailoring.

Why the Other Options Are Not Correct:

A. Form team:While forming a team may require some tailoring based on the project's needs and team composition, it is generally a more straightforward process with less variation in how it is executed compared to accelerating value delivery.

B. Prove architecture early:This process goal typically involves establishing the technical foundation of the solution early in the project. While it may require some adaptation based on the project's architecture, it does not involve the same level of ongoing tailoring as optimizing the flow of value delivery.

D. Improve quality:Although improving quality involves adopting practices that suit the team's context, it does not typically require as much tailoring as "Accelerate value delivery." Quality improvement is often about adhering to established standards and best practices, which can be more consistent across different teams and projects.

Therefore,C. Accelerate value deliveryis the correct answer because it inherently involves a high degree of customization to adapt the approach to the unique context and constraints of the team and organization, consistent with Disciplined Agile's emphasis on context-driven agility.

The main role of the team lead in Disciplined Agile is toensure that the team builds the product right. This involves guiding the team to follow the appropriate practices, ensuring high-quality standards, and removing any impediments that could affect the development process. The team lead facilitates the team’s work, helps them adhere to their chosen way of working, and ensures that the product meets the necessary quality standards and fulfills customer requirements. While other roles, such as product owner or architect, might focus more on defining the right product or coordinating efforts, the team lead's primary responsibility is to ensure proper execution and adherence to quality practices.

False: On an Agile team, the team members do not accept or reject their own work at the iteration demo. Instead, the Product Owner, along with stakeholders, is responsible for accepting or rejecting the work presented. The iteration demo (or sprint review) is an opportunity for the team to showcase their completed work to stakeholders and gather feedback. The decision to accept the work is based on whether it meets the Definition of Done, fulfills the acceptance criteria, and aligns with stakeholder expectations.

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 the context of Disciplined Agile (DA), an Epic is a large user story that represents a significant piece of work that usually requires substantial effort and may span multiple iterations or sprints to complete. Epics are often too large to be completed in a single iteration and are typically broken down into smaller, more manageable user stories. Option A (a collection of smaller user stories) is partially correct because epics are often decomposed into smaller user stories, but option B provides a more precise definition as it emphasizes the size and effort required for completion. Options C and D are not correct in the DA context; they describe different types of analysis tools or techniques.

Estimating in hours instead of pointsmay not help in improving predictabilitybecause time-based estimates can often be inaccurate and can vary widely based on individual productivity and context. Using story points allows teams to focus on relative size and complexity, making it easier to compare work items and plan iterations more predictably.

Options B (reducing technical debt), C (reducing feedback cycles), D (respecting WIP limits), and E (adopting a test-first approach) all contribute to improving predictability by promoting consistent, high-quality delivery.

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.

In Disciplined Agile, any step in the value stream that does not directly contribute to creating the product or delivering value to the customer is considered waste. This aligns with the Lean principle of identifying and eliminating waste to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, if a step is not necessary for creating the product, it is classified as waste.

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.

The "Program" life-cycle model is the most suitable for running large product development efforts requiring a team-of-teams approach. The Program life cycle in Disciplined Agile (DA) is specifically designed to handle complex projects that require multiple teams working together in a coordinated manner. It focuses on collaboration, synchronization, and scaling across teams to deliver a large-scale solution effectively. Other options like Exploratory (A), Kanban (C), Agile (D), Scrum (E), and Lean (F) do not specifically address the need for coordinating multiple teams on a large product development effort.

The Team Lead, in Disciplined Agile, is responsible for ensuring that the daily coordination meeting (often known as the daily stand-up) happens. While team members participate in the meeting and are responsible for their coordination, the Team Lead facilitates the process and ensures that it takes place consistently. This role helps maintain the cadence and discipline of the daily coordination meeting.

The primary advantage of breaking a project into phases is that it enables teams to focus on critical themes and ease of governance. Phases provide a structure to manage complex projects by focusing on specific objectives or deliverables at each stage, facilitating better planning, monitoring, and control. This approach also makes it easier to align with governance requirements and tomake course corrections based on learnings from earlier phases. Options A, B, and C do not capture the strategic and governance benefits provided by phased approaches.

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.

For an Agile or Lean project team, the aim of theConstruction phaseis to develop aconsumable solutionin a collaborative and incremental manner. This phase focuses on delivering working increments of the product that can be consumed by end users or stakeholders. The approach is highly iterative and involves continuous feedback, allowing the team to make frequent adjustments to align with customer needs and expectations. Options B, C, and D do not fully capture the essence of delivering a solution that is ready to be consumed and used by customers.

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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Guided continuous improvement is not limited to using a prescriptive framework or model. In Disciplined Agile (DA), guided continuous improvement can be achieved by using principles, guidelines, and practices that are adaptable to various contexts. It emphasizes learning and improving based on feedback, rather than following a strictly defined process.