Agile Metrics & Reporting Flashcards
7 cards from real APM practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Agile Metrics & Reporting flashcards as text
A product team is using OKRs alongside Agile metrics. What is the primary purpose of aligning sprint metrics with OKRs?
Answer: To ensure short-term sprint output connects to long-term strategic outcomes
Aligning sprint metrics with OKRs ensures that day-to-day Agile work is contributing to the broader strategic objectives of the organization.
What does a decreasing trend in 'mean time to restore' (MTTR) indicate for an Agile product team?
Answer: The team is improving its ability to recover from production incidents
Decreasing MTTR shows the team is getting faster at detecting and recovering from production failures, a key DORA performance indicator.
In Agile reporting, what is the distinction between 'lagging indicators' and 'leading indicators'?
Answer: Leading indicators predict future performance; lagging indicators confirm past results
Leading indicators (e.g., WIP levels) predict future outcomes, while lagging indicators (e.g., velocity) confirm what has already happened.
A team has high deployment frequency but also a high change failure rate. What does this combination suggest?
Answer: The team is deploying often but with insufficient quality controls
High deployment frequency paired with high change failure rate indicates the team is shipping often but lacks adequate testing or quality gates.
Which scenario BEST demonstrates 'goodhart's law' applied to Agile metrics?
Answer: A team inflates story points to appear more productive when velocity is tracked as a KPI
Goodhart's Law states that when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure — story point inflation to boost velocity is a classic example.
What is the key advantage of a 'rolling wave' approach to metrics reporting in large Agile programs?
Answer: It provides detailed near-term metrics while keeping longer-term projections at a higher level
Rolling wave reporting gives precise metrics for near-term work and progressively less detailed projections for future work, matching the certainty of information available.
A product manager notices that the team's happiness/morale index has dropped for two consecutive sprints. How should this metric be treated in an Agile context?
Answer: Treat it as a leading indicator that may predict upcoming drops in productivity and quality
Team morale is a leading indicator; declining happiness often precedes drops in velocity, quality, and retention, making it actionable early warning data.