CDA Product Backlog & Requirements Management 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In DA, which role is primarily accountable for ensuring the product backlog reflects stakeholder needs and is ordered by value?
- Team Lead
- Product Owner (Correct answer)
- Architecture Owner
- Scrum Master
Correct answer: Product Owner
The Product Owner in DA is accountable for the product backlog, including its content, availability, and ordering by business value.
Question 2: When a DA team chooses to use a 'continuous flow' lifecycle, how are backlog items typically introduced into the workflow?
- Only during scheduled sprint planning
- As capacity allows, without fixed iterations (Correct answer)
- In batches decided by the Architecture Owner
- Once per quarter during PI Planning
Correct answer: As capacity allows, without fixed iterations
In a continuous flow lifecycle, work items flow into the system as capacity becomes available rather than being batched into fixed iterations.
Question 3: A DA team discovers that two backlog items have conflicting acceptance criteria. What is the recommended first step?
- Remove the lower-priority item immediately
- Escalate to the program-level backlog
- Engage stakeholders to clarify and resolve the conflict (Correct answer)
- Split both items into smaller stories
Correct answer: Engage stakeholders to clarify and resolve the conflict
DA emphasizes collaborating with stakeholders to resolve ambiguity and conflicts in requirements before making unilateral decisions.
Question 4: Which DA concept describes the practice of keeping backlog items at the appropriate level of detail — detailed for near-term work, vague for distant work?
- Progressive elaboration
- Rolling wave planning
- Just-in-time elaboration (Correct answer)
- Backlog grooming
Correct answer: Just-in-time elaboration
Just-in-time (JIT) elaboration means detailing requirements only when they are close to being worked on, avoiding premature over-specification.
Question 5: In DAD, what is the purpose of the 'Inception' phase as it relates to the product backlog?
- To finalize and freeze all requirements
- To establish an initial backlog and a shared understanding of the solution vision (Correct answer)
- To prioritize the backlog using MoSCoW
- To conduct a formal requirements traceability audit
Correct answer: To establish an initial backlog and a shared understanding of the solution vision
During Inception, teams create an initial, high-level backlog and align on the solution vision to guide subsequent Construction iterations.
Question 6: A stakeholder insists on adding a detailed technical constraint to every backlog item. What DA guidance applies?
- Technical constraints must always be documented in the Definition of Done
- Requirements and constraints should be captured at the appropriate level without over-engineering documentation (Correct answer)
- The Architecture Owner should own all technical constraints separately
- Technical constraints are out of scope for the product backlog
Correct answer: Requirements and constraints should be captured at the appropriate level without over-engineering documentation
DA advises capturing requirements and constraints pragmatically, at the level of detail that is appropriate and sufficient, without unnecessary documentation overhead.
Question 7: Which of the following best describes 'backlog item independence' as valued in DA?
- Each item can be deployed to production without affecting others
- Each item can be estimated, prioritized, and delivered without mandatory dependency on other items (Correct answer)
- Items in the backlog do not require stakeholder review
- Each developer owns exactly one backlog item at a time
Correct answer: Each item can be estimated, prioritized, and delivered without mandatory dependency on other items
Independence means backlog items can be sized, ordered, and delivered in any sequence without hard dependencies blocking flow.
CDA Product Backlog & Requirements Management 2
In DA, which role is primarily accountable for ensuring the product backlog reflects stakeholder needs and is ordered by value?