CAD Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield CAD facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. Which practice does TDD most directly discourage? → Writing production code before any test exists
2. Which Agile principle encourages delivering working software frequently? → Continuous delivery
3. In Agile, what does 'INVEST' stand for as criteria for a well-formed user story? → Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, Testable
4. In contract testing for microservices, what does the 'consumer' define? → The expectations about the provider's responses that it relies on
5. Which metric best indicates the health of a team's continuous integration practice? → The lead time from commit to successful build and test completion
6. Which agile ceremony is specifically designed to improve team collaboration processes over time? → Sprint retrospective
7. What is the primary risk of 'big bang' integration, where all code is merged at the end of a sprint? → Integration issues accumulate and become difficult to diagnose
8. During sprint planning, the team discovers that a high-priority user story has unclear acceptance criteria. What is the most appropriate action? → Send the story back to the product owner for refinement before committing
9. A senior engineer tends to solve problems alone rather than involving the team. How should the Scrum Master address this? → Coach the engineer on the value of knowledge sharing and pair programming
10. Which metric best indicates an Agile team's sustainable development pace? → Consistent velocity across multiple sprints
11. What is the Scrum Master's primary responsibility when the team reports an external impediment they cannot resolve themselves? → Facilitate removal of the impediment by working with those outside the team
12. What is the primary purpose of a team working agreement in Agile collaborative development? → To establish norms and expectations for how the team will work together
13. In Agile, what distinguishes an 'empirical process' from a 'defined process'? → Empirical processes rely on inspection and adaptation based on actual experience
14. An Agile team wants to ensure knowledge is shared across all members. Which practice MOST directly achieves this? → Rotating responsibilities and pairing on unfamiliar areas
15. What is a 'spike' in Agile development? → A time-boxed research or prototyping task to reduce uncertainty
16. In Scrum-ban, which characteristic from Kanban is typically adopted into Scrum? → WIP limits on the sprint board
17. What is 'technical debt' in Agile development? → The future rework cost incurred by choosing quick, suboptimal solutions now
18. Which type of test validates interactions between multiple integrated components in an Agile project? → Integration test
19. In Agile, what is the primary reason for conducting a retrospective? → To inspect and adapt the team's process for continuous improvement
20. Which practice BEST supports the agile principle of building projects around motivated individuals? → Allowing teams to self-organize and choose how to accomplish their work
21. In Agile, what is the primary purpose of face-to-face communication within a development team? → To convey information with the highest efficiency and effectiveness
22. What is the benefit of pair programming in Agile teamwork? → Improves code quality and knowledge sharing
23. Which Agile principle emphasizes that business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project? → Principle 4
24. Which practice helps ensure that a deployment can be safely rolled back in a continuous delivery pipeline? → Using blue-green or canary deployment strategies
25. Which practice helps ensure that agile metrics are used for continuous improvement rather than blame? → Focusing metrics on the system and process, not individual team members
26. Which agile reporting artifact is MOST useful for communicating progress to external stakeholders who need a high-level release forecast? → Release burndown or burnup chart
27. Which Agile principle states teams should 'deliver working software frequently'? → Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months
28. What is 'promiscuous pairing' in Agile collaborative development? → Pairing with a different partner every few hours to maximize knowledge spread
29. What is the key advantage of Test-Driven Development (TDD)? → Write tests before implementing functionality
30. Why is feedback essential in Agile collaboration? → To ensure continuous improvement