APM Kanban & Lean Principles 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Kanban, what does the concept of 'classes of service' primarily help teams manage?
- Team velocity across sprints
- Different priority levels and SLAs for work items (Correct answer)
- The number of swim lanes on a board
- Developer skill classifications
Correct answer: Different priority levels and SLAs for work items
Classes of service categorize work items by risk and urgency to assign appropriate policies and SLAs for each type.
Question 2: Which Lean principle directly addresses removing steps that consume resources without adding customer value?
- Kaizen
- Eliminate waste (Muda) (Correct answer)
- Jidoka
- Heijunka
Correct answer: Eliminate waste (Muda)
Muda (waste elimination) is the Lean principle focused on removing any activity that consumes resources but does not add value from the customer's perspective.
Question 3: A Kanban team notices their cycle time is high but throughput is low. What is the most likely root cause?
- Too many team members are idle
- Work items are blocked or queues have large amounts of WIP (Correct answer)
- The Definition of Done is too strict
- Sprint planning sessions are too short
Correct answer: Work items are blocked or queues have large amounts of WIP
High cycle time combined with low throughput typically indicates work is sitting in queues or blocked, meaning WIP limits may be too high or blockers are unresolved.
Question 4: What is the primary purpose of a 'replenishment meeting' in a Kanban system?
- To retrospect on the previous sprint
- To decide which items from the backlog to pull into the active workflow (Correct answer)
- To assign tasks to team members
- To update stakeholders on project status
Correct answer: To decide which items from the backlog to pull into the active workflow
A replenishment meeting is used to select and prioritize items from the options pool to be pulled into the Kanban system when capacity becomes available.
Question 5: In Lean, 'Heijunka' refers to which production concept?
- Continuous improvement through small changes
- Error-proofing to prevent defects
- Leveling and smoothing the production workload (Correct answer)
- Pulling work based on customer demand
Correct answer: Leveling and smoothing the production workload
Heijunka is the Lean practice of leveling production volume and mix over time to reduce unevenness (Mura) and overburden (Muri).
Question 6: Which metric best helps a Kanban team predict when future work items will be completed?
- Velocity
- Story points remaining
- Cycle time percentiles and throughput (Correct answer)
- Burn-down rate
Correct answer: Cycle time percentiles and throughput
Cycle time percentiles and throughput data enable probabilistic forecasting of when items will be delivered, without relying on estimation.
Question 7: The Lean concept of 'pull system' in a Kanban context means that:
- Managers push urgent tasks to available team members
- Work is started only when downstream capacity is available (Correct answer)
- The backlog is sorted by customer pull requests
- Developers pull code from a shared repository
Correct answer: Work is started only when downstream capacity is available
A pull system means new work enters the system only when there is available capacity downstream, preventing overproduction and excess WIP.
APM Kanban & Lean Principles 2
In Kanban, what does the concept of 'classes of service' primarily help teams manage?