DAC Enterprise Agile Transformation 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In a Disciplined Agile transformation, what is the PRIMARY role of executive sponsors during the 'Explore' phase?
- Write user stories for the transformation backlog
- Provide air cover and remove systemic impediments (Correct answer)
- Attend all team-level retrospectives
- Define the sprint velocity targets for each team
Correct answer: Provide air cover and remove systemic impediments
Executive sponsors in the Explore phase provide political air cover and remove organizational impediments that teams cannot resolve themselves.
Question 2: Which DA concept describes tailoring the organizational operating model to the specific context of the enterprise rather than adopting a fixed framework?
- Optimizing flow
- Choose your WoW (Correct answer)
- Disciplined DevOps
- Lean governance
Correct answer: Choose your WoW
DA's 'Choose your WoW' (Way of Working) principle emphasizes tailoring practices to organizational context rather than prescribing a single framework.
Question 3: An enterprise is experiencing 'initiative overload' where too many transformation efforts compete for the same people. What DA-aligned strategy best addresses this?
- Launch a PMO to coordinate all initiatives simultaneously
- Apply WIP limits at the portfolio level to sequence initiatives (Correct answer)
- Hire additional staff to staff all initiatives in parallel
- Delegate initiative ownership to middle managers
Correct answer: Apply WIP limits at the portfolio level to sequence initiatives
Applying WIP limits at the portfolio level is a lean principle that reduces context-switching and increases throughput of transformation initiatives.
Question 4: When scaling agile across the enterprise, DA recommends which approach to organizational structure to support team autonomy?
- Maintain strict functional silos with formal handoff gates
- Form long-lived, cross-functional product teams aligned to value streams (Correct answer)
- Organize all agile teams under a single central Scrum Master
- Create temporary project teams that disband after each release
Correct answer: Form long-lived, cross-functional product teams aligned to value streams
DA advocates for long-lived, cross-functional teams aligned to value streams to minimize handoffs and maximize end-to-end ownership.
Question 5: A DAC practitioner is helping a large bank transform. The legal department refuses to change its review processes. What is the BEST first step?
- Exclude legal from the agile transformation entirely
- Engage legal leaders to understand their constraints and co-design compliant agile practices (Correct answer)
- Override legal concerns through executive mandate
- Create a parallel non-compliant process for agile teams
Correct answer: Engage legal leaders to understand their constraints and co-design compliant agile practices
Co-designing agile practices with compliance stakeholders ensures regulatory requirements are met while enabling agility, a core DA principle.
Question 6: In DA's transformation roadmap, 'Pivot' refers to which activity?
- Abandoning the agile transformation if early results are poor
- Adjusting the transformation strategy based on empirical feedback (Correct answer)
- Switching from Scrum to Kanban at the team level
- Reassigning the transformation coach to a different business unit
Correct answer: Adjusting the transformation strategy based on empirical feedback
In DA, Pivot means adjusting the transformation approach based on what the organization is actually experiencing and learning.
Question 7: Which metric is MOST aligned with DA's goal of measuring enterprise agile transformation success?
- Number of teams trained in Scrum ceremonies
- Percentage of employees with agile certifications
- Business outcomes delivered and customer satisfaction improvements (Correct answer)
- Lines of code produced per sprint
Correct answer: Business outcomes delivered and customer satisfaction improvements
DA focuses on business outcomes and customer satisfaction as the true measures of transformation success, not activity metrics.
DAC Enterprise Agile Transformation 2
In a Disciplined Agile transformation, what is the PRIMARY role of executive sponsors during the 'Explore' phase?