CDA Retrospectives & Process Tailoring 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In the DA mindset, process tailoring is best described as:
- Adopting a single prescribed framework and following it strictly
- Choosing and evolving practices that work best for your specific context (Correct answer)
- Copying the process used by the most successful team in the organization
- Minimizing the number of practices to reduce overhead
Correct answer: Choosing and evolving practices that work best for your specific context
DA's guided continuous improvement philosophy means teams choose and adapt practices to fit their unique situation.
Question 2: Which of the following is a key input when tailoring a team's WoW in DA?
- The most popular agile framework in the industry
- The team's specific context factors such as team size, domain, and culture (Correct answer)
- The preferences of the executive sponsor only
- The WoW of the most senior team member
Correct answer: The team's specific context factors such as team size, domain, and culture
DA's 'context counts' principle means tailoring decisions must reflect the team's actual situation and constraints.
Question 3: What is a 'process blade' in the DA toolkit?
- A specific agile ceremony like a sprint review
- A focused area of practice within the DA toolkit addressing a specific process concern (Correct answer)
- A tool for cutting unnecessary steps from the process
- A role responsible for process improvement
Correct answer: A focused area of practice within the DA toolkit addressing a specific process concern
DA process blades are modular areas of practice (e.g., Testing, DevOps) that teams can draw from when tailoring their WoW.
Question 4: During a retrospective, the team identifies that their definition of done is unclear. The BEST DA response is to:
- Immediately adopt Scrum's definition of done verbatim
- Collaboratively refine and clarify the definition of done as a team (Correct answer)
- Escalate the issue to management to resolve
- Remove the definition of done to reduce bureaucracy
Correct answer: Collaboratively refine and clarify the definition of done as a team
DA encourages teams to collaboratively own and refine their WoW, including agreements like the definition of done.
Question 5: What distinguishes a 'team retrospective' from an 'inspect and adapt' workshop in scaled DA?
- They are identical practices with different names
- Team retrospectives focus on a single team's WoW; inspect and adapt workshops address cross-team or program-level issues (Correct answer)
- Inspect and adapt workshops are only for leadership
- Team retrospectives happen less frequently than inspect and adapt workshops
Correct answer: Team retrospectives focus on a single team's WoW; inspect and adapt workshops address cross-team or program-level issues
In scaled DA contexts, inspect and adapt events address coordination and improvement at a broader level beyond a single team.
Question 6: A team consistently skips retrospectives due to time pressure. From a DA perspective, this MOST likely results in:
- Faster delivery with no negative side effects
- Accumulated technical and process debt that slows future delivery (Correct answer)
- Improved focus on valuable features
- A stronger team culture
Correct answer: Accumulated technical and process debt that slows future delivery
Skipping retrospectives prevents teams from addressing process issues, leading to compounding inefficiencies and debt.
Question 7: Which DA lifecycle is MOST likely to incorporate retrospectives at the end of each iteration?
- Continuous Delivery Agile
- Lean
- Agile (Scrum-based) (Correct answer)
- Exploratory
Correct answer: Agile (Scrum-based)
The Agile lifecycle in DA (based on Scrum) includes iteration-end retrospectives as a core ceremony.
CDA Retrospectives & Process Tailoring 3
In the DA mindset, process tailoring is best described as: