DAC Agile Architecture & Technical Practices 1 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In Disciplined Agile, what does the 'architecture owner' role primarily ensure?
- Managing the project budget and resource allocation
- Guiding the technical vision and ensuring architectural decisions align with strategic goals (Correct answer)
- Writing all architectural documentation before development begins
- Approving every code change before it is integrated into the main branch
Correct answer: Guiding the technical vision and ensuring architectural decisions align with strategic goals
The architecture owner in DA guides the technical vision and ensures architectural decisions support strategic business goals without becoming a bottleneck.
Question 2: What is 'evolutionary design' as practiced in Disciplined Agile?
- Designing the entire system architecture upfront before any development begins
- Allowing the design to emerge and evolve incrementally as requirements become clearer (Correct answer)
- Delegating all design decisions to external enterprise architects
- Selecting a fixed design pattern from the DA toolkit and following it rigidly
Correct answer: Allowing the design to emerge and evolve incrementally as requirements become clearer
Evolutionary design allows system architecture to emerge iteratively, adapting as the team's understanding of requirements grows over time.
Question 3: Which technical practice helps identify integration problems early within a Disciplined Agile delivery lifecycle?
- Waterfall integration testing performed at the end of a phase
- Continuous Integration (CI) with automated builds and tests (Correct answer)
- Big Bang integration performed once all components are complete
- Manual regression testing executed only at release time
Correct answer: Continuous Integration (CI) with automated builds and tests
Continuous Integration (CI) enables teams to merge code frequently and detect integration issues early through automated builds and tests.
Question 4: What is the recommended Disciplined Agile approach to managing technical debt?
- Accept technical debt as inevitable and never attempt to address it
- Address technical debt systematically by balancing new features with ongoing debt reduction (Correct answer)
- Eliminate all technical debt before beginning any new feature development
- Document technical debt thoroughly but defer resolution indefinitely
Correct answer: Address technical debt systematically by balancing new features with ongoing debt reduction
DA recommends systematically managing technical debt by balancing feature delivery with incremental debt reduction to maintain long-term delivery capability.
Question 5: In Disciplined Agile, what does the concept of 'just enough' architecture mean?
- Producing the minimal documentation required to satisfy compliance requirements
- Creating only the architectural artifacts that provide real value to the team and stakeholders (Correct answer)
- Avoiding all architecture work until the absolute last possible moment
- Applying the same architecture pattern to every project regardless of context
Correct answer: Creating only the architectural artifacts that provide real value to the team and stakeholders
'Just enough' architecture means creating only design artifacts that deliver real value, avoiding over-engineering and wasteful documentation.
Question 6: What is the primary purpose of Test-Driven Development (TDD) in agile technical practices?
- To eliminate the need for a separate quality assurance team entirely
- To drive design decisions and verify requirements by writing tests before production code (Correct answer)
- To create comprehensive test documentation for external auditors
- To accelerate development by skipping the design phase
Correct answer: To drive design decisions and verify requirements by writing tests before production code
TDD drives design decisions by requiring developers to write failing tests first, ensuring produced code meets intended requirements before it is written.
Question 7: How does the Definition of Done (DoD) support technical excellence in Disciplined Agile?
- It defines project completion criteria agreed upon with the project sponsor
- It establishes quality standards that must be met before any work is considered complete (Correct answer)
- It lists all outstanding technical debt items to be resolved next sprint
- It describes the team's daily standup agenda and format
Correct answer: It establishes quality standards that must be met before any work is considered complete
The DoD establishes quality standards—including technical criteria like passing tests and clean code—that must be satisfied before work is accepted as complete.
DAC Agile Architecture & Technical Practices 1
In Disciplined Agile, what does the 'architecture owner' role primarily ensure?