CDA Agile Architecture & Design 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In DA, what does 'intentional architecture' mean when applied to an agile team?
- Architecture decisions are made upfront and frozen before development begins
- Architecture evolves organically with no deliberate planning
- Deliberate architectural strategies are applied across teams to ensure consistency and avoid technical debt (Correct answer)
- Each team independently designs its own architecture without coordination
Correct answer: Deliberate architectural strategies are applied across teams to ensure consistency and avoid technical debt
Intentional architecture in DA refers to deliberate architectural strategies applied across teams to ensure consistency, reuse, and avoid accumulating technical debt.
Question 2: Which DA principle best supports making architecture decisions at the 'last responsible moment'?
- Optimize flow
- Be awesome
- Keep options open (Correct answer)
- Deliver value
Correct answer: Keep options open
The DA principle 'keep options open' directly supports deferring irreversible architecture decisions until the last responsible moment to preserve flexibility.
Question 3: A DA team practicing 'emergent design' should do which of the following?
- Produce a full design specification before writing any code
- Let the design evolve incrementally through iterative development and continuous refactoring (Correct answer)
- Assign a dedicated architect who approves all design changes
- Freeze the architecture after the first sprint
Correct answer: Let the design evolve incrementally through iterative development and continuous refactoring
Emergent design allows the system's design to evolve iteratively through development cycles, constant feedback, and refactoring rather than being fully specified upfront.
Question 4: In DA, the 'architecture owner' role is primarily responsible for:
- Writing all the code that implements architectural decisions
- Guiding the team's technical direction and managing architectural decisions collaboratively (Correct answer)
- Approving all pull requests before they are merged
- Creating detailed UML diagrams for every system component
Correct answer: Guiding the team's technical direction and managing architectural decisions collaboratively
The architecture owner guides the team's technical direction, helps make key architectural decisions, and ensures technical debt is managed—without being a command-and-control gatekeeper.
Question 5: When scaling agile architecture across multiple teams in DA, which coordination mechanism is most appropriate?
- Each team independently defines its own standards with no coordination
- A central architecture committee issues mandates all teams must follow
- Enterprise architecture guidelines provide guardrails while teams retain autonomy within them (Correct answer)
- Architecture decisions are handled solely by the product owner
Correct answer: Enterprise architecture guidelines provide guardrails while teams retain autonomy within them
DA recommends enterprise architecture guidelines that set guardrails and promote reuse while allowing teams sufficient autonomy to make local design decisions.
Question 6: Which of the following best describes a 'lightweight milestone' in DA architecture reviews?
- A formal gate requiring complete documentation before proceeding
- A brief checkpoint that evaluates whether the architecture is fit-for-purpose at a given point in development (Correct answer)
- A mandatory sign-off by senior management on all design decisions
- An end-of-project audit of all architectural choices
Correct answer: A brief checkpoint that evaluates whether the architecture is fit-for-purpose at a given point in development
Lightweight milestones in DA are brief, focused checkpoints used to verify that architecture remains fit-for-purpose without imposing heavyweight documentation overhead.
Question 7: In the DA toolkit, which practice helps teams identify and address structural issues in the codebase before they become severe technical debt?
- Big bang refactoring
- Continuous design improvement through ongoing refactoring (Correct answer)
- Freezing the codebase during stabilization sprints
- Deferring all refactoring to a dedicated hardening iteration
Correct answer: Continuous design improvement through ongoing refactoring
DA advocates continuous design improvement via ongoing, incremental refactoring as code evolves, preventing the accumulation of severe technical debt.
CDA Agile Architecture & Design 2
In DA, what does 'intentional architecture' mean when applied to an agile team?