Agile Business Analysis Agile Business Analysis 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Agile BA, what is the MAIN risk of having a 'groomed' backlog that is too large and extends many months into the future?
- It gives the development team too much work to do immediately
- It creates false certainty and waste, since distant items will likely change before they are built (Correct answer)
- It makes sprint planning sessions shorter than they should be
- It eliminates the need for retrospectives
Correct answer: It creates false certainty and waste, since distant items will likely change before they are built
Over-grooming distant backlog items wastes effort because requirements and priorities change, making detailed preparation for far-future work likely obsolete.
Question 2: Which Agile principle most directly supports the business analyst's role in reducing documentation overhead?
- Working software over comprehensive documentation (Correct answer)
- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
- Responding to change over following a plan
- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Correct answer: Working software over comprehensive documentation
The Agile Manifesto's principle of valuing working software over comprehensive documentation guides BAs to focus on just-enough, useful documentation.
Question 3: A business analyst is asked to define the 'Definition of Ready' for user stories. Which criterion is MOST important to include?
- The story has been assigned to a specific developer
- The story is small enough to complete within one sprint and has clear acceptance criteria (Correct answer)
- The story has been approved by the project manager
- The story is linked to a technical specification document
Correct answer: The story is small enough to complete within one sprint and has clear acceptance criteria
A story is ready when it is small enough to fit in a sprint and has acceptance criteria that the team agrees make it testable and complete.
Question 4: What is the BEST description of 'impact mapping' as used in Agile Business Analysis?
- A technique for mapping stakeholder influence versus interest
- A collaborative planning technique that links business goals to user behaviors and deliverables (Correct answer)
- A tool for identifying risks in the product backlog
- A diagram showing system data flows and process impacts
Correct answer: A collaborative planning technique that links business goals to user behaviors and deliverables
Impact mapping is a collaborative technique that connects the business goal to the actors who can influence it, the behaviors needed, and the deliverables that support those behaviors.
Question 5: During sprint review, a stakeholder says the delivered feature doesn't meet their expectation even though it matches the acceptance criteria. What should the business analyst investigate FIRST?
- Whether the development team implemented the code incorrectly
- Whether the acceptance criteria adequately captured the stakeholder's actual need (Correct answer)
- Whether the sprint was too short to deliver quality work
- Whether the product owner approved the wrong stories
Correct answer: Whether the acceptance criteria adequately captured the stakeholder's actual need
When delivered work meets criteria but misses expectations, the gap is usually in how well the acceptance criteria captured the true need.
Question 6: Which Agile ceremony provides the BEST opportunity for a business analyst to validate that delivered features meet business objectives?
- Daily standup
- Sprint retrospective
- Sprint review (Correct answer)
- Backlog refinement
Correct answer: Sprint review
The sprint review is designed for the team to demonstrate working software to stakeholders and validate that it meets business objectives.
Question 7: In Agile Business Analysis, 'tacit knowledge' refers to:
- Knowledge documented in formal requirement specifications
- Knowledge that stakeholders possess but find difficult to articulate or write down (Correct answer)
- Knowledge shared explicitly during sprint ceremonies
- Knowledge stored in the product backlog
Correct answer: Knowledge that stakeholders possess but find difficult to articulate or write down
Tacit knowledge is know-how that people carry from experience but rarely state explicitly, making elicitation techniques like observation essential for capturing it.
Agile Business Analysis Agile Business Analysis 5
In Agile BA, what is the MAIN risk of having a 'groomed' backlog that is too large and extends many months into the future?