Retrospectives & Continuous Improvement 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 Retrospectives & Continuous Improvement flashcards as text
A team consistently leaves retrospectives without actionable items. What is the most likely root cause?
Answer: The team lacks psychological safety to surface real issues
Without psychological safety, team members avoid voicing genuine problems, resulting in superficial discussions and no meaningful actions.
The 'Start, Stop, Continue' retrospective technique is best described as:
Answer: A framework for categorizing team behaviors into actions, eliminations, and reinforcements
'Start, Stop, Continue' sorts team feedback into new behaviors to adopt, behaviors to eliminate, and behaviors to maintain.
During a retrospective, two team members dominate the conversation while others stay silent. What should the facilitator do first?
Answer: Use structured techniques like round-robin sharing to include all voices
Structured facilitation techniques ensure equal participation without singling out individuals or creating confrontation.
What does 'Prime Directive' in retrospectives, as coined by Norm Kerth, state?
Answer: Regardless of what is discovered, everyone did the best they could given what they knew at the time
Kerth's Prime Directive creates a blame-free environment by assuming all team members acted in good faith with the information available.
A team completes a retrospective but never follows up on action items in subsequent sprints. Which practice would best address this?
Answer: Assign action items as actual Sprint Backlog items with owners
Converting retrospective action items into sprint backlog items with clear owners makes them visible, trackable, and accountable.
Which of the following best describes a 'Sailboat' (or 'Speed Boat') retrospective?
Answer: A visual metaphor where wind represents helpers, anchors represent obstacles, and the island represents the goal
The Sailboat retrospective uses a nautical visual metaphor to help teams identify what accelerates progress and what holds them back.
An agile team notices the same improvement topics appearing across multiple retrospectives. What does this pattern most likely indicate?
Answer: Retrospective action items are not being implemented or are addressing symptoms rather than root causes
Recurring retrospective themes signal that previous action items were either not completed or failed to address the underlying root causes.