CDA CDA Disciplined Agile Toolkit & Guided Continuous Improvement 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which DA lifecycle is best suited for a team building a new product with high uncertainty?
- Continuous Delivery: Agile
- Exploratory (Lean Startup) (Correct answer)
- Program lifecycle
- Continuous Delivery: Lean
Correct answer: Exploratory (Lean Startup)
The Exploratory lifecycle, based on Lean Startup principles, is designed for high-uncertainty new product development situations.
Question 2: What is the 'Inception phase' in Disciplined Agile primarily used for?
- Planning the entire project in exhaustive detail upfront
- Aligning the team on scope, architecture, and initial approach (Correct answer)
- Delivering the first working increment directly to production
- Conducting the team's inaugural retrospective ceremony
Correct answer: Aligning the team on scope, architecture, and initial approach
The Inception phase establishes shared understanding of scope, approach, and initial architecture before full delivery begins.
Question 3: In GCI, what does a 'potential improvement' board track?
- Individual employee performance and review scores
- Candidate improvements the team may adopt in future iterations (Correct answer)
- Business KPIs and organizational OKRs
- Defect counts and severity per release
Correct answer: Candidate improvements the team may adopt in future iterations
A potential improvement board captures ideas the team considers adopting as it continuously refines its way of working.
Question 4: Which DA principle reminds teams to consider how their decisions impact the broader organization?
- Optimize flow across the value stream
- Be awesome in all you do
- Context counts for every decision
- Enterprise awareness (Correct answer)
Correct answer: Enterprise awareness
DA's 'Enterprise Awareness' principle reminds teams to consider the organizational impact of their local decisions and practices.
Question 5: What is the purpose of a 'Minimum Business Increment' (MBI) in Disciplined Agile?
- The smallest code change that can be safely deployed
- The smallest release that delivers measurable business value (Correct answer)
- The minimum number of user stories required per sprint
- The baseline velocity a team must maintain to remain funded
Correct answer: The smallest release that delivers measurable business value
An MBI is the smallest unit of release that provides meaningful, measurable value to business stakeholders.
Question 6: How does DA suggest teams handle conflicting stakeholder priorities?
- The team votes on which stakeholder's needs take precedence
- The product owner decides unilaterally without stakeholder input
- Stakeholders collaborate to negotiate and align on priorities (Correct answer)
- Priorities are frozen at project start and never revisited
Correct answer: Stakeholders collaborate to negotiate and align on priorities
DA encourages collaborative stakeholder engagement to negotiate and align on priorities rather than delegating decisions to a single person.
CDA CDA Disciplined Agile Toolkit & Guided Continuous Improvement 2
Which DA lifecycle is best suited for a team building a new product with high uncertainty?