CDA Sprint Planning & Iteration Management 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A DA team consistently finishes sprints with 2-3 stories incomplete. According to DA guidance, what is the FIRST corrective action?
- Extend the sprint length
- Reduce sprint commitment by analyzing velocity trends (Correct answer)
- Add more developers to the team
- Ask the product owner to reduce story sizes
Correct answer: Reduce sprint commitment by analyzing velocity trends
DA recommends analyzing historical velocity data to right-size sprint commitments before changing sprint length or team composition.
Question 2: What does the DA toolkit suggest regarding 'Definition of Done' evolution during a project?
- It is set once during inception and never changes
- It should be progressively strengthened as the team matures and technical debt is addressed (Correct answer)
- It is defined by the enterprise architecture team
- It resets to baseline at the start of each release cycle
Correct answer: It should be progressively strengthened as the team matures and technical debt is addressed
DA recommends that the Definition of Done evolves and becomes more rigorous over time as the team improves and addresses technical debt.
Question 3: During sprint planning, a team debates whether to accept a story with unclear acceptance criteria. What does DA guidance recommend?
- Accept the story and clarify criteria during the sprint
- Reject the story until acceptance criteria are collaboratively defined and agreed upon (Correct answer)
- Ask the architect to write the acceptance criteria
- Move the story to the icebox for future consideration
Correct answer: Reject the story until acceptance criteria are collaboratively defined and agreed upon
DA emphasizes that stories should have clear, agreed acceptance criteria before being committed to a sprint to avoid ambiguity and rework.
Question 4: In Disciplined Agile, what is the key distinction between a sprint goal and a sprint backlog?
- The sprint goal is optional; the sprint backlog is mandatory
- The sprint goal is an outcome statement providing focus; the sprint backlog is the tactical list of work to achieve it (Correct answer)
- The sprint backlog is created by the architect; the sprint goal by the team
- They are synonymous terms used interchangeably in DA
Correct answer: The sprint goal is an outcome statement providing focus; the sprint backlog is the tactical list of work to achieve it
The sprint goal articulates the desired outcome and provides focus, while the sprint backlog is the set of specific tasks and stories selected to achieve that outcome.
Question 5: A DA team practicing Lean wants to minimize waste in iteration planning. Which planning anti-pattern does DA most warn against?
- Holding a planning meeting longer than two hours
- Over-detailing tasks and estimates before work begins, creating analysis paralysis (Correct answer)
- Inviting stakeholders to the planning session
- Using story points instead of hours
Correct answer: Over-detailing tasks and estimates before work begins, creating analysis paralysis
DA/Lean principles warn against over-engineering the planning process itself, as excessive upfront analysis is waste when plans change during execution.
Question 6: Which practice does DA recommend to handle 'unplanned work' that emerges during a sprint?
- Automatically cancel the affected user story
- Track it transparently in the sprint backlog and negotiate scope with the product owner if capacity is impacted (Correct answer)
- Escalate to the program manager before doing any unplanned work
- Complete unplanned work after hours so sprint velocity is not affected
Correct answer: Track it transparently in the sprint backlog and negotiate scope with the product owner if capacity is impacted
DA recommends transparent tracking of unplanned work and collaborative scope negotiation with the product owner to maintain sprint integrity.
Question 7: What is the DA recommendation regarding the use of 'task boards' during an iteration?
- Task boards should be virtual only to support distributed teams
- Task boards (physical or digital) are a valuable tool for visualizing flow and identifying bottlenecks, but their format is context-dependent (Correct answer)
- Task boards are only appropriate for Scrum, not Kanban-based DA teams
- DA mandates a specific four-column task board format for all teams
Correct answer: Task boards (physical or digital) are a valuable tool for visualizing flow and identifying bottlenecks, but their format is context-dependent
DA is tool-agnostic regarding task board format, recommending them as valuable visualization tools while allowing teams to adapt columns and structure to their context.
CDA Sprint Planning & Iteration Management 3
A DA team consistently finishes sprints with 2-3 stories incomplete.
According to DA guidance, what is the FIRST corrective action?