DAC Coaching & Facilitation Skills 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A DA coach is working with a leadership team that wants to impose a single agile framework on all teams. What is the most DA-aligned response?
- Support the decision since leadership authority should be respected
- Help leadership understand that teams should choose their way of working based on context (Correct answer)
- Recommend the team adopt SAFe since it is the most popular framework
- Advise leadership to hire an external consultant for the decision
Correct answer: Help leadership understand that teams should choose their way of working based on context
DA's 'Choice is Good' principle advocates for context-sensitive ways of working rather than one-size-fits-all frameworks, and a DAC should help leadership understand this.
Question 2: Which listening level is a DA coach MOST focused on during a coaching conversation?
- Level 1 — Internal listening (focused on own thoughts)
- Level 2 — Focused listening (fully present to the coachee)
- Level 3 — Global listening (aware of energy, tone, and environment) (Correct answer)
- Level 4 — Critical listening (evaluating arguments for flaws)
Correct answer: Level 3 — Global listening (aware of energy, tone, and environment)
Level 3 global listening, as described in co-active coaching, involves awareness of the coachee's energy, emotions, and what is unsaid — essential for deep coaching.
Question 3: A team's retrospective keeps producing the same action items with no follow-through. As a DAC, what would you do FIRST?
- Cancel retrospectives until the team improves
- Facilitate a meta-retrospective about the retrospective process itself (Correct answer)
- Assign action items to the Scrum Master to enforce
- Increase retrospective frequency to weekly
Correct answer: Facilitate a meta-retrospective about the retrospective process itself
A meta-retrospective examines why the improvement process is broken and helps the team diagnose the root cause of recurring inaction.
Question 4: In a facilitated workshop, a participant makes a statement that contains an incorrect assumption. What should a skilled facilitator do?
- Ignore it to avoid embarrassing the participant
- Correct the participant directly in front of the group
- Ask an open question that invites the group to examine the assumption (Correct answer)
- Move on and address it privately after the session
Correct answer: Ask an open question that invites the group to examine the assumption
Asking the group an open question that surfaces the assumption lets participants collectively examine and correct it without singling out or embarrassing anyone.
Question 5: What is the primary purpose of a 'working agreement' that a DA coach helps a team create?
- To replace the team's employment contracts
- To document the team's commitments to how they will collaborate and interact (Correct answer)
- To define the team's sprint goals for the quarter
- To provide a performance benchmark for management review
Correct answer: To document the team's commitments to how they will collaborate and interact
Working agreements are team-generated commitments about collaboration norms, communication standards, and expected behaviors that improve team effectiveness.
Question 6: A DAC observes that a team's velocity is declining but the team's morale and innovation appear high. What is the BEST coaching response?
- Focus immediately on restoring velocity as the primary metric
- Help the team and stakeholders understand the broader context before drawing conclusions (Correct answer)
- Replace the product owner to improve prioritization
- Implement overtime to compensate for the velocity drop
Correct answer: Help the team and stakeholders understand the broader context before drawing conclusions
A skilled DA coach looks at the full picture and helps stakeholders avoid metric-driven decisions that ignore other valuable signals like morale and innovation.
Question 7: Which DA principle most directly informs how a DAC approaches helping a team select their way of working?
- Be Awesome
- Pragmatism
- Context Counts (Correct answer)
- Enterprise Awareness
Correct answer: Context Counts
'Context Counts' is a core DA principle stating that the right approach depends on the team's situation, constraints, and goals rather than universal rules.
DAC Coaching & Facilitation Skills 3
A DA coach is working with a leadership team that wants to impose a single agile framework on all teams.
What is the most DA-aligned response?