ICP Professional Ethics & Standards 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In ICAgile's view, what is the foundation of psychological safety within an Agile team?
- Having a strong Scrum Master enforce ground rules
- Trust built through consistent honest and respectful behavior over time (Correct answer)
- Management mandating no blame in post-mortems
- Anonymous feedback tools during retrospectives
Correct answer: Trust built through consistent honest and respectful behavior over time
Psychological safety is earned through repeated demonstrations of honesty and respect, not imposed by rules or tools.
Question 2: A stakeholder asks for a feature the development team knows violates user privacy laws. The team should:
- Build it and let legal review it post-release
- Refuse the feature and raise the legal concern immediately (Correct answer)
- Build a partial version to satisfy both parties
- Escalate only if the product owner insists
Correct answer: Refuse the feature and raise the legal concern immediately
Legal and ethical obligations supersede stakeholder requests; the team must proactively raise compliance concerns.
Question 3: What does 'courage' mean in the context of Scrum values and professional ethics?
- Volunteering for the hardest technical tasks
- Willingness to surface difficult truths and challenge the status quo constructively (Correct answer)
- Competing aggressively with other teams
- Committing to unrealistic deadlines to show confidence
Correct answer: Willingness to surface difficult truths and challenge the status quo constructively
Scrum's courage value is about ethical bravery—speaking uncomfortable truths to improve outcomes.
Question 4: Which action most violates the Agile principle of transparency during a sprint review?
- Showing partially completed work with clear status labels
- Hiding known defects to present a polished demo (Correct answer)
- Admitting the team missed its sprint goal
- Inviting external stakeholders to attend
Correct answer: Hiding known defects to present a polished demo
Concealing defects during a review is a direct breach of transparency, one of Scrum's three pillars.
Question 5: An Agile practitioner notices their organization's process produces biased outcomes for certain user groups. The ethical obligation is to:
- Document the concern but wait for management direction
- Raise the issue and advocate for inclusive design practices (Correct answer)
- Assume product management has already addressed it
- Treat it as outside the Agile practitioner's scope
Correct answer: Raise the issue and advocate for inclusive design practices
Agile practitioners have an ethical duty to advocate for all users, including raising systemic bias as an impediment.
Question 6: When a conflict of interest arises for an Agile coach working with a client, the most ethical first step is to:
- Proceed unless the client explicitly objects
- Disclose the conflict to all relevant parties immediately (Correct answer)
- Resolve the conflict privately before starting work
- Withdraw from the engagement without explanation
Correct answer: Disclose the conflict to all relevant parties immediately
Disclosure is the foundational ethical step for conflicts of interest, enabling informed decisions by all parties.
Question 7: Which Agile practice most directly reinforces an ongoing ethical commitment to product quality?
- Sprint planning
- Definition of Done (Correct answer)
- Daily stand-up
- Backlog refinement
Correct answer: Definition of Done
The Definition of Done sets the minimum quality standard the team commits to uphold ethically in every increment.
ICP Professional Ethics & Standards 3
In ICAgile's view, what is the foundation of psychological safety within an Agile team?