PMI-ACP: PMI Agile Certified Practitioner

Question #: 151
Topic #: 1
The product owner wants to build security firewalls into the product.
How can the team members support this?

A. Add new security features to the backlog and prioritize
B. Execute a spike to research security features for the project
C. Ask questions to determine where and how the product owner wants to use product
D. Ask questions to determine if the product owner can define the desired level of security

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 152
Topic #: 1
An agile practitioner becomes a Scrum Master on an established Scrum team.
After introductions, what should the agile practitioner do?

A. Coach team members to improve functional specialties and increase overall velocity
B. Identify where team processes misalign with accepted Scrum practices
C. Facilitate the identification of problems or issues and help the team resolve them
D. Review the backlog to ensure that it is prioritized, refined, and properly tasked

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 153
Topic #: 1
A key stakeholder cannot attend the project vision statement development workshop. The stakeholder has emailed their requirements to the agile team lead, and believes that the vision statement is not critical.
How should the agile team lead respond?

A. Emphasize to the stakeholder that a common, detailed vision will better ensure team understanding of the project
B. Personally meet with the stakeholder to understand their requirements, and then share the vision with the team
C. Work with the team to create a vision from the stakeholder’s supplied requirements
D. Explain to the team that creating a vision is not critical in agile projects, as requirements may change over time

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 154
Topic #: 1
During a daily stand up meeting, a developer expresses concerns that the selected technology limits the number of concurrent users.
What should the agile team do?

A. Ask the team to conduct research to find a viable solution
B. Select a better technology for team implementation
C. Obtain customer input on their technology requirements
D. Consult the product owner about their non-functional requirements

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 155
Topic #: 1
A project manager is concerned that the team has misaligned expectations with some stakeholders, and that user stories were written only for generic user’s perspective. This may lead the team to miss stories for non-generic users.
What agile tools can help the team address these issues?

A. Information radiators and wireframes
B. Information radiators and story maps
C. Process flows and personas
D. Personas and extreme characters

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 156
Topic #: 1
Based on the chart, what is the current status of the iteration when comparing story points planned versus completed?

A. The iteration is in jeopardy
B. The team has removed scope
C. The iteration is ahead of schedule
D. The team’s velocity is constant

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 157
Topic #: 1
The amount of information captured in the project’s defects is varying within the development team. Team members are becoming frustrated with the defect quality inconsistencies and the frequent clarification required.
What should be done to address the issue?

A. Stop the current iteration to discuss defect quality issues and explore solutions
B. Discuss and explore solutions in the next planning meeting and take corrective actions as required
C. Generate insights at the next retrospective and adjust processes as decided by the team
D. Assign corrective actions to the backlog for the team to identify the mandatory defect information

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 158
Topic #: 1
An agile team delivered a feature in the last iteration. The product owner, who missed the planning and review meetings, was dissatisfied with feature. The team conducted a retrospective and reviewed the user stories related it.
What should the agile team do next?

A. Ensure that the product owner reviews the acceptance criteria for delivered user stories
B. Augment the quality assurance and continuous integration processes for delivery
C. Approach the relevant developers and testers regarding quality issues, in upcoming iterations
D. Ask the product owner to define the entire scope of delivery two to three iterations in advance

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 159
Topic #: 1
A scrum master assumes a project that is essential to organizational growth. The project is expected to be in production for three years.
What should the scrum master do first?

A. Work with the customers to build the product backlog and identify their initial requirements
B. Meet with the stakeholders and enterprise architects to understand the project’s vision
C. Plan and execute a sprint 0 to establish the project’s foundational needs
D. Create a backlog, and execute a sprint 1 to quickly deliver value to the customers

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 160
Topic #: 1
A development team, new to scrum, questions the need to collect metrics on team performance. While team members understand velocity and burn down, they feel that once velocity becomes settled it is needless to keep track.
What should the agile coach tell the team?

A. Continuing to track velocity allows functional managers to assess whether or not the team is performing at the desired rate
B. The trends will show how the team performs against other scrum teams in the organization
C. Tracking velocity will provide a baseline for the team to see how their continuous improvement efforts are working
D. Tracking velocity will document and communicate team health to the stakeholders

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 161
Topic #: 1
A team is creating a highly marketed, time-sensitive product. The agile coach is concerned that anything other than exceptional quality will result in bad publicity for the company.
What should the agile coach ensure that developers do?

A. Establish pair programming partners, and regularly perform peer reviews
B. Perform demos at the end of each iteration
C. Send coding to the quality assurance (QA) team upon completion
D. Demonstrate each feature to the client as soon as coding is complete

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 162
Topic #: 1
During mid-sprint changes, an agile facilitator meets with the executive and development teams. During the meeting, executive team members resolve conflicts, and on their own initiative, review the iteration charts to discuss changes to the iteration’s functional goal.
What practice is the agile facilitator implementing?

A. Building openness and transparency on the project’s health and status
B. Facilitating conflict resolution among executive team members
C. Using active stakeholder involvement to build features in an increment and iterative approach
D. Seeking continuous feedback from executive team members

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 163
Topic #: 1
What can a team use to prioritize stories?

A. MoSCoW method
B. Planning poker technique
C. Weighted average calculation
D. INVEST scale

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 164
Topic #: 1
Business stakeholders of an agile project frequently skip the review meetings.
What should the agile practitioner do?

A. Ask the product owner to inform all stakeholders about the project’s progress
B. Send meeting notes to all stakeholders after each review meeting
C. Include the results of the review meetings in the information radiators
D. Convince the stakeholders of the benefits of attending the review meetings

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 165
Topic #: 1
After three iterations, it is identified that a project’s underlying security structure architecture is unstable. While there is a technical solution, all work to date is flawed. This will impact several future business service offerings.
What should the product owner do to resolve this?

A. Ask the development team to address the issue since it is in their domain
B. Review the project’s risk matrix, and follow the steps outlined in the risk mitigation plan
C. Meet with the team and stakeholders to address rework and rewrite stories as needed
D. Cancel the current sprint, and meet with stakeholders to reassess the project’s validity

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 166
Topic #: 1
A scrum team has eight developers, but only two are database engineers. During the last few retrospectives, the team identified that most sprint stories are dependent upon database engineers. This has created a bottleneck in completing stories.
What should be proposed to the team?

A. Have other team developers attend training to learn database skills
B. Monitor the retrospectives of two additional sprints before taking action
C. Plan fewer stories for the sprint to reduce the database engineer’s workload
D. Ask the scrum master to work the product owner to remove backlog stories that have database dependency

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 167
Topic #: 1
An agile project has three more iterations before the release. There is lot of report functionality to be created and defects to be cleared. During a daily scrum, a team member suggests a timebox spike to find a more efficient way to deliver reports.
What should the project leader do?

A. Encourage the team to self-organize and determine how to best complete their existing work and this spike
B. Encourage the team to complete their just existing work since the team velocity indicates they are already struggling to meet the release goal
C. Direct the team to defer the spike until the next release and add the action on the backlog for prioritization
D. Direct the team to work on the spike immediately given the importance of reporting functionality to complete the iteration

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 168
Topic #: 1
While attending a conference, an agile practitioner learns of a new user interface (UI) framework that could benefit the team.
What should the agile practitioner do next?

A. Identify a team member to do a proof of concept using this framework
B. Email the team directing them to immediately begin using this new framework
C. Obtain feedback from team members on the new framework, and then suggest that the product owner create a backlog item to do a spike on it
D. Discuss this option at the next retrospective

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 169
Topic #: 1
The agile practitioner has determined that two different team members are working on addressing the same major issue on the project.
How should the agile practitioner address this?

A. Implement a burnup chart and add the issue resolution as a task to the product backlog for the customer to prioritize
B. Add the issue to the kanban board and assign the it to the team member who has made the most progress on resolving it
C. Conduct a root-cause analysis on the issue and identify related risks and risk response owners at the next retrospective
D. Document all project issues in a common space and ask the team members to decide on task allocation principles

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 170
Topic #: 1
An executive requests information regarding a sprint status.
What action should the product owner take?

A. Invite the executive to the stand up
B. Direct the executive to the information radiator
C. Personally meet with the executive
D. Email the requested information to the executive

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 171
Topic #: 1
Agile team A struggles to deliver committed stories due to technical dependencies with team B, which continuously fails to meet its delivery commitments.
What should the agile team lead do?

A. Create a new team to deliver the dependencies, and bring team B under performance management
B. Conduct a vision-sharing session with the teams to communicate the project’s overall goals
C. Swap team members from both teams so that deliveries are better supported
D. Discuss negotiating the delivery timelines with team A

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 172
Topic #: 1
An agile team discovers a new risk and identifies that its impact may be severe.
What should an agile practitioner recommend?

A. Add a goal to the current iteration to fully mitigate or control the risk
B. Balance risk reduction and value adding activities in the next iteration
C. Continue with the current plan to maintain team velocity
D. Update the risk register and seek direction from a risk specialist

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 173
Topic #: 1
The team underestimated the complexity of a story, resulting in new decomposition of the work to be delivered in the current sprint and items to be returned to the backlog.
What should the Scrum Master do next?

A. Ask the project manager to work with the product owner to help generate clearer stories in the future
B. Develop guidelines to prevent future occurrences
C. During the retrospective, discuss the issue and create an action plan to avoid it in the future
D. Allow the team to devise a corrective action without external intervention

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 174
Topic #: 1
A scrum team has conducted regular retrospectives to discuss immediate concerns and the implementation of improvement actions. Despite this, after a few iterations, the same concerns resurface.
What should the team have done to improve retrospective outcomes?

A. Invited subject matter experts (SMEs)
B. Conducted problem detections to determine root causes
C. Measured and reported the outcome of improvement actions to the team
D. Kept track of all current issues in a log, and then reviewed their progress at the end of every iteration

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 175
Topic #: 1
During backlog refinement meeting, the new developer on the team asks the product owner to discuss a new performance threshold requirement and how it impacts the stories in the backlog.
What should the team do?

A. Add this threshold requirement request as acceptance criteria in all impacted stories
B. Create a spike story to analyze the impact of the threshold requirement on current stories
C. Conduct design planning session to review the performance threshold requirement
D. Identify the tasks for the new performance threshold requirement

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 176
Topic #: 1
What is the first thing an agile development team should do when planning an iteration?

A. Assign the tasks to one team member
B. Separate the stories into tasks
C. Estimate the stories’ tasks
D. Help establish the next sprint’s goal

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 177
Topic #: 1
During a retrospective, team members suggest process improvement ideas. The agile team lead knows that, while many of these ideas are different from standard practices, a few of them are good.
What should the agile team lead do?

A. Require the team to try only those ideas that will ensure success
B. Allow the team to try ideas, but remind them that results will be reviewed by high-ranking executives
C. Associate idea successes and failures with the team’s incentive plan to ensure accountability
D. Encourage the team to try the ideas, even if failure may be the outcome

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 178
Topic #: 1
During the implementation of a story, a scrum team notifies the scrum master of a technical challenge that is causing a delay.
What should the scrum master advise the team do?

A. Implement the story since the team is running behind schedule
B. Create a spike to finalize the story’s technical approach
C. Transfer the story to a scrum team experienced in solving similar problem
D. Ask the product owner to reduce the story’s priority and wait until more technical details are available

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 179
Topic #: 1
The project team is ahead of schedule and beginning to gold-plate the feature included in the current sprint.
What should the agile project manager do?

A. Since the team has extra time, notify the product owner and secure approval for the extra work on this feature
B. Encourage the team to document the improvement and prioritize it for the upcoming iteration, instead of building it now
C. Instruct the Scrum Master to have the team use the extra time to complete the extra feature work in the current iteration
D. Notify the product owner and have the product owner verify the backlog priority, then encourage team to continue working on the backlog

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 180
Topic #: 1
An agile team and a traditional development team are working together on a project. Each team exceeds expectations regarding deliverables; however, issues arise when the deliverables are integrated.
What should the agile practitioner do?

A. Foster stronger communication by hosting cross-organizational meetings between the two teams
B. Suggest merging the teams to avoid misunderstandings
C. Create stories from full technical specifications to avoid ambiguity
D. Co-locate the teams to encourage osmotic communication

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 181
Topic #: 1
The executive leadership wants to understand ways to better deliver on time and on budget.
What can the project team do to assist in achieving the organizational goal?

A. Maintain and review a lessons learned repository to improve delivery of future projects
B. Ask each team member to post corrective action to the backlog
C. Engage the project management office (PMO) to take responsibility identifying lessons learned on projects
D. Perform a root cause analysis to identify alternative approaches for performing the next project

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 182
Topic #: 1
A new agile team ember notices that the team’s current process involves excessive documentation.
What should the new team member do?

A. Teach the team the appropriate agile principle, obtain consensus, and drive adoption
B. Allow another team member to prepare those documents that do not appear to bring value
C. Notify the project manager about other documentation techniques, and identify which documents bring value and which do not
D. Follow the existing process to avoid conflicts

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 183
Topic #: 1
A team working with a new technology faces a significant amount of uncertainty about its ability to deliver stories due to technical issues.
What should the team do?

A. Capture risks and make them visible, and use a burndown chart to focus on reducing risks early in the project
B. Ask the scrum master to extend the sprint’s duration to allow more time to work through technical issues
C. Place the impacted stories on the story board, and use daily stand ups to make the product owner aware of the technical issues
D. Seek guidance from the development manager

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 184
Topic #: 1
Unable to meet a sprint’s committed velocity, an agile team approaches the agile coach to define the next sprint’s velocity.
What should the agile coach advise?

A. Split each story into multiple stories to meet the desired velocity
B. Set the velocity to the delivered story points of the last sprint
C. Use different estimation methods for stories and defects to meet the desired velocity
D. Re-estimate by assigning more story points to smaller stories to increase the velocity

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 185
Topic #: 1
After seeing the planned features for an upcoming release, a customer notes that a vitally important and complex one is missing. The team estimates that this feature significantly exceeds its average velocity.
How can this issue be resolved?

A. Break down the feature into smaller parts, and commit to complementing the minimum value product
B. Complete the iteration to which they have already committed, and include the feature in the next release
C. Change the planned features to include only the vitally important one
D. Extend the iteration to complete the feature

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 186
Topic #: 1
During an iteration planning meeting, the team suggests changes to add product vale that will require extra work and impact the schedule.
What should the agile project leader do?

A. Re-estimate the project
B. Finish the product as it was initially planned
C. Try to include as many changes as possible
D. Ask the product owner for approval to proceed

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 187
Topic #: 1
Why should an agile coach model agile principles and behaviours, become self-aware, and be present?

A. To better listen, serve and help the team grow their strengths individually and as a team
B. To convince people what they need to do
C. To help better disguise the command and control approach
D. To understand team dynamics and develop a high performing team

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 188
Topic #: 1
There is a database feature requiring three members of a seven person team. A meeting is scheduled at the beginning of the sprint to go over technical needs to complete the story.
Who should the Scrum Master invite to the meeting?

A. The core team and the customer
B. The product owner and key stakeholders
C. The customer and the sponsor
D. The core team and the product owner

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 189
Topic #: 1
As user stories are developed, what should be done to record and update acceptance criteria?

A. Add more user stories
B. Use sprint retrospectives
C. Update current user stories
D. Update new tasks in the project plan

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 190
Topic #: 1
Midway through a two-week sprint, an agile team realizes that the features cannot be delivered within the sprint. The team determines that another week will be required to complete all committed features.
What should the team do?

A. Plan for overtime, and include the effort as part of the estimation
B. Increase team velocity to deliver more story points
C. Identify the reason for over-commitment to the sprint and create an action plan for the following sprint
D. Add resources to assist with sprint execution

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 191
Topic #: 1
On what should an agile team work to achieve predictable flow?

A. Small user stories
B. Simple acceptance criteria
C. Lean features
D. Lean backlogs

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 192
Topic #: 1
An agile team has been given a complex project with a basic set of requirements which need further elaboration and review.
How should the team iteratively build out the backlog of requirements with the stakeholders?

A. Conduct a requirement gathering workshop
B. Deliver the basic requirements iteratively
C. Have the product owner fill out the requirements backlog
D. Have the stakeholders fill out the backlog before starting the project

Selected Answer: A

Question #: 193
Topic #: 1
A scrum master is part of a project team using technologies overseen by the IT department. The IT director oversees several company initiatives and is unfamiliar with the details of each one.
As an active project stakeholder, to which meeting should the IT director be invited?

A. Planning
B. Daily scrum
C. Sprint demo
D. Retrospective

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 194
Topic #: 1
A globally distributed project team is using email and phone calls as the only way to share information. Delays in resolving issues often occur due to misinterpreted communications, leading to a lower team velocity.
What steps should the project leader take to improve knowledge sharing?

A. Meet individually with each team member to identify the issues and relay information to the remaining members through status reports
B. Establish a live video feed between the dispersed teams to enable spontaneous engagement and collaboration on issues
C. Request that the customer co-locate the team to overcome the communication issues, as this is the only method to ensure agility
D. Inform the customer of the challenges and lower velocity of the project to accommodate for the slower delivery pace

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 195
Topic #: 1
How can a scrum team obtain more feedback from a minimally responsive outside stakeholder?

A. Keep sprints short
B. Invite the stakeholder to the daily stand ups
C. Ask the stakeholder for estimates for each user story
D. Schedule more demos during each sprint

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 196
Topic #: 1
An agile team has only one database administrator with the necessary knowledge of database-related tasks. The project manager identifies the risk that if this person leaves, team velocity will significantly decrease.
What should the agile coach do?

A. Start the hiring process for a new, equally skilled database administrator as a replacement
B. Move this database administrator to another team so that team members learn databaserelated tasks
C. Add another database administrator to balance the workload and aid with knowledge retention
D. Obtain agreement from the team that, on upcoming sprints, the database administrator will act only in an advisory capacity

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 197
Topic #: 1
An agile team is working well together, but productivity has been flat.
What can the project leader do to help them improve performance?

A. Review the burndown chart to identify ways to increase efficiency
B. Chair a weekly team retrospective focusing on identifying areas for continuous improvement
C. Ask a senior manager to initiate a root-cause analysis
D. Identify team key performance indicators (KPIs) and create positive incentives when targets are achieved

Selected Answer: B

Question #: 198
Topic #: 1
A new CIO advocates an agile framework for new IT projects, but the team has reservations.
How should the CIO ensure that the team will be aligned with this?

A. Obtain executive team buy-in by conducting a meeting to present the advantages of agile principles and processes
B. Issue a memo of understanding that agile principle should be implemented for all new projects
C. Introduce agile principles and processes, then make the change an experiment to obtain buy-in
D. Require all staff and management to attend agile training and adhere to its principles

Selected Answer: C

Question #: 199
Topic #: 1
An agile team is unable to complete all its planned sprint user stories, which results in a decrease of its planned sprint velocity.
What should the team do?

A. Re-estimate the sprint’s completed stories to increase and adjust the sprint’s velocity
B. Increase the duration of the next sprint to accommodate the incomplete user stories and maintain velocity
C. Work with the product owner to create a spike with another agile team
D. Re-estimate the incomplete stories for the next sprint because its relative size has changed

Selected Answer: D

Question #: 200
Topic #: 1
An agile project leader is delivering a team kick-off session. The first exercise is a `Life Timeline` `” a story-telling exercise where each team member tells their life story, explains how they experienced the highs and lows of their journey, and identifies their fears and hopes.
What is the project leader trying to create?

A. A safe space for team members to learn to trust one another, leading to collaborative relationships
B. A safe space to team members to learn to be vulnerable, leading to high performance relationships
C. A safe space for team members to learn to share, leading to collaborative relationship
D. A safe space for team members to learn about each other’s weaknesses and strengths

Selected Answer: A