Kanban & Lean Principles 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 Kanban & Lean Principles flashcards as text
A product manager wants to implement a 'Kanban cadence' for delivery planning. Which meeting is specifically focused on reviewing and improving the delivery process?
Answer: Service delivery review
The service delivery review (also called delivery review) evaluates the Kanban system's performance, fitness for purpose, and service delivery metrics to identify improvement opportunities.
Which Lean principle is embodied when a team delays a final architectural decision until the last responsible moment?
Answer: Decide as late as possible
'Decide as late as possible' is a Lean Software Development principle that preserves flexibility by deferring irreversible decisions until more information is available.
In Kanban, an 'upstream' Kanban system differs from a 'downstream' system in that it primarily manages:
Answer: Discovery, ideation, and options before commitment
An upstream Kanban system (often called a Discovery Kanban) manages the flow of ideas and options before they are committed to the delivery workflow.
Which metric would a Kanban practitioner use to measure how reliably a team meets promised delivery dates?
Answer: Predictability (or SLE compliance)
Predictability, often measured as Service Level Expectation (SLE) compliance, tracks the percentage of items delivered within the agreed cycle time target.
The Lean concept of 'value stream mapping' helps product teams primarily by:
Answer: Visualizing all steps and delays in delivering value from request to delivery
Value stream mapping identifies all steps — both value-adding and non-value-adding — in delivering a product or service, exposing waste and delays.
A team practicing Kanban wants to improve flow efficiency. Which action directly targets this goal?
Answer: Reducing the number of blocked items and idle wait time
Flow efficiency improves by reducing the time work spends waiting (blocked, in queue) relative to active processing time.
In Lean product development, 'technical debt' is best treated as which type of waste?
Answer: Inventory (partially done work)
Technical debt is analogous to inventory waste — it represents unfinished or deferred work that sits in the system, accruing 'interest' in the form of future rework and complexity.