PMI PBA Certification PMI-PBA Certification General 4 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In an adaptive (agile) project, how are requirements typically represented and managed?
- Locked specification documents approved before each sprint
- Product backlog items (user stories) that are progressively elaborated (Correct answer)
- Formal use case packages reviewed at each phase gate
- Requirements traceability matrices updated weekly
Correct answer: Product backlog items (user stories) that are progressively elaborated
In agile projects, requirements are captured as user stories in a product backlog and are elaborated just-in-time as the team prepares to implement them.
Question 2: Which technique helps a BA identify the root cause of a business problem by iteratively asking 'why' until the fundamental cause is found?
- Fishbone Diagram
- Five Whys (Correct answer)
- Pareto Analysis
- Context Diagram
Correct answer: Five Whys
The Five Whys technique repeatedly asks 'why' to drill past symptoms to the fundamental root cause of a problem.
Question 3: A business analyst needs to ensure all approved requirements are included in the final solution. Which process does this activity belong to?
- Elicitation and Collaboration
- Needs Assessment
- Traceability and Monitoring (Correct answer)
- Solution Evaluation
Correct answer: Traceability and Monitoring
Traceability and Monitoring ensures that approved requirements are tracked through design, development, and testing so none are omitted from the final solution.
Question 4: When writing acceptance criteria for a user story, a BA should ensure the criteria are:
- Defined after development is complete to avoid constraining the team
- Testable, specific, and agreed upon before development begins (Correct answer)
- Written exclusively by the QA team
- Identical to the functional requirements
Correct answer: Testable, specific, and agreed upon before development begins
Acceptance criteria must be testable and specific so the team knows exactly when a story is done, and must be agreed upon before development starts to prevent rework.
Question 5: A BA is facilitating a requirements workshop and one dominant stakeholder is steering all decisions. Which facilitation technique should the BA use?
- Allow the stakeholder to lead since they have the most authority
- Use round-robin or silent brainstorming to solicit input from all participants equally (Correct answer)
- Cancel the workshop and conduct individual interviews instead
- Document only the dominant stakeholder's input
Correct answer: Use round-robin or silent brainstorming to solicit input from all participants equally
Round-robin contributions or silent brainstorming (such as nominal group technique) ensure all participants can contribute without being overshadowed by dominant voices.
Question 6: Which type of requirement specifies how well the system must perform a function, such as response time or throughput?
- Functional requirement
- Transition requirement
- Non-functional (quality of service) requirement (Correct answer)
- Business requirement
Correct answer: Non-functional (quality of service) requirement
Non-functional (quality of service) requirements define performance characteristics such as speed, scalability, security, and reliability rather than specific behaviors.
Question 7: During solution evaluation, a BA discovers that a newly deployed system meets all specified requirements but stakeholders are dissatisfied. What is the most likely cause?
- The development team made unauthorized changes
- Requirements were incomplete or did not fully capture stakeholder needs (Correct answer)
- The project manager failed to communicate the go-live date
- Testing was conducted with insufficient test cases
Correct answer: Requirements were incomplete or did not fully capture stakeholder needs
When a solution meets stated requirements yet stakeholders are dissatisfied, the root cause is typically that requirements were incomplete and failed to capture the true underlying needs.
PMI PBA Certification PMI-PBA Certification General 4
In an adaptive (agile) project, how are requirements typically represented and managed?