CAD Agile Metrics and Reporting 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: What is the primary purpose of tracking 'escaped defects' as an agile metric?
- To penalize developers for poor coding
- To measure the quality of the team's testing practices (Correct answer)
- To calculate the team's velocity adjustment factor
- To determine sprint length for the next release
Correct answer: To measure the quality of the team's testing practices
Escaped defects (bugs found in production after release) indicate the effectiveness of the team's testing and quality assurance processes.
Question 2: In agile, 'work in progress (WIP) limits' are used to:
- Cap the number of story points allowed per developer
- Reduce multitasking and improve flow by constraining concurrent work (Correct answer)
- Set the maximum number of sprints per release
- Define how many retrospective action items the team can track
Correct answer: Reduce multitasking and improve flow by constraining concurrent work
WIP limits constrain the number of items in any workflow stage simultaneously, reducing context switching and exposing bottlenecks to improve overall flow.
Question 3: Which of the following BEST describes the purpose of a sprint review metric like 'accepted story points'?
- To rank team members by productivity
- To track the volume of work that meets the Definition of Done and is accepted by stakeholders (Correct answer)
- To measure how many stories were estimated vs. actually completed
- To record the number of stories deferred to the next sprint
Correct answer: To track the volume of work that meets the Definition of Done and is accepted by stakeholders
Accepted story points represent work that the Product Owner has confirmed meets acceptance criteria and the Definition of Done, reflecting real delivered value.
Question 4: A team consistently completes fewer story points than planned each sprint. The retrospective finds no blockers. What should the team examine FIRST?
- Whether the sprint duration is too long
- Whether their estimation technique is accurately sizing stories (Correct answer)
- Whether the Scrum Master is attending daily standups
- Whether the release roadmap needs to be publicly shared
Correct answer: Whether their estimation technique is accurately sizing stories
Persistent under-delivery without external blockers usually points to inaccurate estimation; recalibrating story point sizing aligns plans with actual team capacity.
Question 5: What does a widening band on a Cumulative Flow Diagram typically indicate?
- The team is accelerating delivery
- Work is accumulating in a workflow stage, signaling a bottleneck (Correct answer)
- The team added more features to the sprint
- Sprint velocity has increased
Correct answer: Work is accumulating in a workflow stage, signaling a bottleneck
A widening band in the CFD shows that items are entering a stage faster than they are leaving it, which signals a bottleneck that is increasing WIP.
Question 6: The 'Definition of Done' (DoD) affects agile metrics because:
- It determines which team members are eligible for bonuses
- It sets a consistent quality threshold that defines when work can be counted as complete (Correct answer)
- It specifies the maximum number of tasks per sprint
- It replaces the need for acceptance criteria on user stories
Correct answer: It sets a consistent quality threshold that defines when work can be counted as complete
The DoD provides a shared, objective standard so that velocity and acceptance metrics reflect truly finished, shippable work rather than partial efforts.
Question 7: Which agile reporting artifact is MOST useful for communicating progress to external stakeholders who need a high-level release forecast?
- Daily standup notes
- Release burndown or burnup chart (Correct answer)
- Individual task board cards
- Detailed sprint backlog spreadsheet
Correct answer: Release burndown or burnup chart
A release burndown or burnup chart provides a clear visual trend of progress toward the release goal, making it easy for stakeholders to assess forecast accuracy.
CAD Agile Metrics and Reporting 2
What is the primary purpose of tracking 'escaped defects' as an agile metric?