DASSM Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) Exam Questions and Answers

The least suitable way to adopt Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) is touse any of the prescribed methods and follow to the letter. DAD emphasizes flexibility and the need to adapt practices to the specific context of the team or organization. Blindly following a method without considering the unique needs, challenges, and goals of the team contradicts the adaptive and context-sensitive nature of Disciplined Agile. Options B, C, and D (taking advice from "Choose Your WoW", starting with DAD, or working with an experienced coach) are all suitable ways to adopt DAD, as they involve guidance, adaptation, and learning.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The process goal most likely to offer potential techniques to address concerns that the development team does not understand the overall business process isExplore Scope. In Disciplined Agile, "Explore Scope" focuses on defining and understanding the scope of the project, including the business processes that are relevant to the product being developed. It involves techniques such as creating process maps, using business process modeling, or conducting domain workshops to help the team understand the overall business context and requirements. This ensures that the development team has a comprehensive understanding of the customer requirements and the broader business environment in which the product will be used.

Disciplined Agile (DA) is best described as aprocess-decision toolkit. Unlike a prescriptive methodology or framework, DA provides a flexible toolkit that helps teams and organizations make informed decisions about their way of working based on their unique context. It offers guidance on various agile, lean, and traditional practices, and helps teams choose the most effective strategies for their situation. DA focuses on pragmatism and context-driven choice, encouraging teams to adopt and adapt practices that suit their specific needs rather than following a one-size-fits-all approach.

The Disciplined Agile principles that best address the need to consider the bigger picture areEnterprise AwarenessandContext Counts.

Enterprise Awarenessensures that teams understand how their work fits within the broader organizational context, including alignment with corporate objectives, policies, and other teams. This principle encourages teams to think beyond their immediate tasks and consider the overall goals and constraints of the organization.

Context Countsemphasizes that the approach to work should be tailored to the specific situation and environment. It promotes the idea that different contexts require different strategies, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Both principles encourage a holistic view that considers the larger organizational and environmental factors influencing team decisions.

In the Disciplined Agile (DA) toolkit, "process blades" represent different areas of an organization's processes that need to be addressed for effective agile implementation. The process blades are grouped into three primary categories:

Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD):This category focuses on end-to-end delivery processes that bring a product or solution from idea to implementation, incorporating agile and lean approaches.

Disciplined DevOps:This category deals with practices that facilitate efficient development and operations, ensuring continuous delivery, integration, and deployment of software.

Disciplined Project Management Office (PMO):This process blade relates to the governance and oversight of agile initiatives, aligning them with organizational strategies and goals.

These categories provide a structured way to organize process-related activities and ensure a holistic approach to agile adoption, covering various facets from development to operations and governance.References:

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI, Scott Ambler & Mark Lines.

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

The purpose of an iteration retrospective in Disciplined Agile (DA) is to reflect on the recent iteration and identify areas of improvement, successes, and challenges. The retrospective allows the team to transfer knowledge, insights, and process improvements to subsequent iterations, fostering continuous improvement. This helps the team become more effective and efficient over time.

Option B relates to a daily stand-up, Option C involves iteration planning, and Option D pertains to an iteration review or demo, not a retrospective.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

In the "Team Estimation" technique, you know you are finished estimating user stories whenthere are no more user stories left to estimate, and no team member wishes to move a card. This method relies on a collaborative, consensus-based approach where team members discuss and move cards (representing user stories) until everyone agrees on their relative sizes or effort. Onceall user stories are estimated and no further adjustments are proposed, the estimation process is considered complete. Time spent or product owner involvement is secondary to achieving team consensus on the estimates.

Minimum Business Increments (MBIs) and Minimum Viable Products (MVPs) have different intentions. An MVP is designed to test a new product idea quickly and cost-effectively, with minimal functionality, to learn from customer feedback. An MBI, on the other hand, represents the smallest piece of business functionality that can deliver value to customers and stakeholders while aligning with strategic goals. While both aim to deliver value quickly, the MBI focuses on delivering tangible business value, whereas the MVP is more about validating product-market fit.

The Continuous Delivery Lean life cycle is suitable when there is an experienced team working on a product or service where the requirements change frequently, potentially daily. This life cycle supports frequent deployments and quick feedback loops, making it ideal for environments where requirements are dynamic and evolve rapidly. Options A, D, and E do not align with the conditions that necessitate a Continuous Delivery Lean approach, as they involve either less experienced teams or slower-evolving requirements.

The principle "Organize around products/services" meansbuilding dedicated cross-functional teams focused on customer offerings. This approach ensures that teams are aligned directly with the delivery of customer value, with all the necessary skills to deliver a complete product or service. This organization enhances focus, collaboration, and efficiency, driving greater value delivery to customers.

Option A (asking customers to pick from available products) does not reflect this principle, and Option C (project teams being best equipped) does not align with the DA emphasis on long-standing, product-focused teams over temporary project teams.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The eight principles of Disciplined Agile are:

Delight Customers: Focus on providing exceptional value to customers.

Be Awesome: Foster an environment where team members feel motivated and supported.

Pragmatism: Make practical decisions based on context, rather than blindly following a methodology.

Context Counts: Recognize that every team and organization operates in a unique context.

Choice is Good: Encourage flexibility by providing multiple options to solve problems.

Optimize Flow: Improve efficiency and effectiveness by focusing on smooth workflow.

Enterprise Awareness: Ensure alignment with organizational goals and strategies.

Organize Around Products/Services: Form teams based on delivering complete products or services, rather than around specialized functions.

These principles promote a flexible, customer-centric, and context-sensitive approach to Agile delivery.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

Enforcing adherence to organizational standards is an important aspect of Lean governance in the Disciplined Agile framework. Lean governance involves ensuring that teams follow defined policies, procedures, and standards to align with the organization's goals while allowing for flexibility and responsiveness. It balances the need for governance with the principles of Lean, ensuring that teams work within the boundaries of organizational standards while continuously improving their processes.

Estimating in hours instead of pointsmay not help in improving predictabilitybecause time-based estimates can often be inaccurate and can vary widely based on individual productivity and context. Using story points allows teams to focus on relative size and complexity, making it easier to compare work items and plan iterations more predictably.

Options B (reducing technical debt), C (reducing feedback cycles), D (respecting WIP limits), and E (adopting a test-first approach) all contribute to improving predictability by promoting consistent, high-quality delivery.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

True: On an Agile team, the Product Owner is the go-to person for business domain information. The Product Owner is responsible for defining the product vision, managing the product backlog, and acting as the primary liaison between the development team and stakeholders. They provide clarity on business requirements, priorities, and customer needs, ensuring that the team understands what is needed to deliver value. The Product Owner's deep knowledge of the business domain makes them the authoritative source for business-related questions and guidance.

If the frequency of changes to requirements is very high (almost daily), the Continuous Delivery Agile lifecycle model makes the most sense. This model is designed to handle frequent changes by integrating and delivering work continuously, ensuring that new requirements are incorporated quickly and effectively. Options A (Scrum) and D (Agile) provide iterative approaches, but they may not handle daily changes as efficiently as a continuous delivery model. Option B (Lean) focuses on optimizing flow and reducing waste but does not specifically address handling frequent requirement changes.

The primary role of the Product Owner in Disciplined Agile is to ensure that the team builds the right product. This includes defining and prioritizing the product backlog, making decisions on behalf of stakeholders, and ensuring that the team understands the product vision and customer needs. Options A (coordinate the product), B (organize the product team), and C (inspect the product) are aspects of the Product Owner's responsibilities, but they do not capture the overarching goal of delivering the right product to meet customer needs.

DevOpsis a key competency in Disciplined Agile, aiming to create a smooth flow of work from development through to operations. This involves practices such as continuous integration, continuous delivery, and automated deployment, which help to reduce cycle time, improve feedback loops, and ensure the product is always in a deployable state. The focus is on integrating development and operations to deliver value to customers more rapidly and reliably.

Options B (using developers for operations), C (automating testing), and D (involving operational teams in development) are components of DevOps practices, but the primary goal is to establish a seamless workflow.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The Minimum Business Increment (MBI) is a tool used in Disciplined Agile to sequence work in a way that delivers value quickly. An MBI represents the smallest piece of functionality that delivers business value to customers or stakeholders, and it is fully usable upon release. By focusing on MBIs, teams can prioritize work that maximizes the delivery of value, ensures faster feedback, and enables quicker realization of benefits.

Options A (Planning Poker) and C (Minimum Viable Product, MVP) are related to estimation and product development strategies, while Option C (WIP limits) focuses on managing workflow efficiency rather than directly sequencing work for quick value delivery.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

In Disciplined Agile, teams avoid spending a considerable amount of time at the beginning to lock down the architecture and design of the product. Instead, DA promotes an iterative and incremental approach, where architecture and design evolve as the team gains more understanding of the project requirements and constraints. This adaptive approach reduces the risks associated with upfront design and supports flexibility and responsiveness to change. Therefore, the correct answer is "False" because DA does not advocate for a long, upfront architecture and design phase.

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Disciplined Agile (DA) is an agnostic hybrid approach that draws upon various ideas, principles, and practices from multiple agile and lean methodologies, including Scrum, Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), Lean, and others. It does not adhere strictly to one methodology but instead provides a toolkit that allows teams to tailor their ways of working based on their specific context, objectives, and constraints. Options B (Agile), C (Iterative), and D (Lean) are more specific frameworks or approaches, whereas Disciplined Agile explicitly combines multiple methodologies in an agnostic manner.

Disciplined Agile provides a solid foundation for business agility by (A) creating awesome teams that foster joy and (D) describing the trade-offs associated with a range of options. Creating awesome teams involves building a positive and productive team environment where team members are engaged, motivated, and empowered. Describing trade-offs allows teams to make informed decisions by understanding the implications of different practices and approaches. While "enforcing adherence to organizational standards" (C) and "defining a framework for agility at scale" (B) are part of Disciplined Agile, they are not specifically highlighted as primary ways DA fosters business agility.

The primary advantage of using design thinking, according to DA guidelines, is that it promotes customer empathy and appropriate solutions. Design thinking focuses on understanding the user's needs and creating solutions that are tailored to those needs. Options A, C, and D are not accurate descriptions of design thinking's primary benefit; rather, they reflect misconceptions or partial truths.

False: Fulfilling the requirements does not necessarily mean that the customer is delighted. In Disciplined Agile and other Agile frameworks, delighting customers goes beyond merely meeting the stated requirements. It involves exceeding customer expectations, delivering unexpected value, and providing a positive user experience. A product or service may fulfill the technical or functional requirements but fail to delight if it does not provide an exceptional user experience, is not easy to use, or does not address the underlying needs or desires of the customer comprehensively. The goal is to deliver true value, which often means going beyond the baseline requirements.

The Retrospective is an important agile ceremony because it provides a dedicated time for the team to reflect on their performance and processes, discuss what went well, what didn’t, and how they can improve moving forward. This continuous improvement mindset is central to agile methodologies, including Disciplined Agile (DA). It helps build a culture of transparency, trust, and learning. Option B is incorrect because the Product Owner is not the focus of the Retrospective. Options C and D do not describe the purpose of a Retrospective in agile practices.

In the context of Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD), the three common phases across project life cycles are Inception, Construction, and Transition. "Inception" involves initial planning and setup; "Construction" is where the product or solution is developed iteratively; and "Transition" focuses on deploying the solution to the stakeholders or end users. Options A (Inspiration) and D (Modulation) are not standard phases in the DA or agile frameworks.

According to Disciplined Agile (DA) principles, the maximum frequency of delivering a valuable solution is "several times a day." This reflects a highly agile and responsive way of working, where teams aim to continuously integrate, test, and deliver small increments of value as quickly as possible. Options B, C, and D suggest less frequent delivery, which would not align with DA’s emphasis on maximizing the flow of value delivery to customers.

TheProduct Backlogis the artifact that collects all the work flowing to the team in Agile practices, including Disciplined Agile (DA). It is an ordered list of everything that might be needed in the product, serving as the single source of work undertaken by the team. This backlog includes user stories, features, enhancements, bug fixes, and technical tasks. It is prioritized by the Product Owner to ensure that the team works on the most valuable items first.

Options B (Business backlog) is not a standard Agile artifact. Option C (Iteration backlog) is a subset of the Product Backlog, containing items chosen for the current iteration. Option D (Release roadmap) is a higher-level plan for future releases, not a collection of all work items.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and a Minimum Business Increment (MBI) serve different purposes in the Disciplined Agile framework. An MVP (Option C) represents the smallest version of a product that can be released to customers to provide feedback and validate assumptions, whereas an MBI (Option D) is a small, deployable unit of value that builds upon an existing product and is designed to deliver business value incrementally. Option D is correct because an MBI is generally built incrementally on top of an existing product to enhance or add new capabilities. The other options do not correctly describe the relationship or distinction between MVP and MBI in the DA framework.

In the Disciplined Agile (DA) approach, the role of a team lead, such as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach, includes supporting team members and helping them overcome obstacles. Option B reflects this mindset: having a conversation with the team member to understand the root causes of their struggle and collaboratively seeking solutions. This approach aligns with agile principles of servant leadership, empathy, and collaboration. It encourages open communication, trust-building, and personal development, which are core to maintaining a high-performing and motivated team.

Providing time management training (Option A), holding a one-on-one meeting focused on failures (Option C), or redistributing work without addressing underlying issues (Option D) are less aligned with the values of Disciplined Agile, as they do not directly address the specific impediments faced by the team member or promote a supportive and growth-oriented team culture.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI

The primary benefit of DevOps, within the context of Disciplined Agile, isreduced cost of deployments. DevOps is a set of practices that aims to shorten the systems development life cycle and provide continuous delivery with high software quality. In DA, DevOps practices facilitate seamless integration and continuous delivery of code changes, enabling more frequent and reliable releases to production.

By automating and streamlining deployment processes, DevOps reduces the manual effort, time, and errors associated with deployments, which, in turn, lowers the overall cost. This aligns with the Disciplined Agile principle of "optimize flow across the entire value stream," which emphasizes efficient and cost-effective delivery of value.

Additionally, reducing the cost of deployments leads to other secondary benefits such as improved quality (due to more frequent testing and feedback loops) and greater agility (by enabling quicker response to changing market or customer needs). Therefore, while other options may seem beneficial, the most direct and primary benefit associated with DevOps is indeed the reduced cost of deployments.

The Exploratory Life Cycle is adopted when there is a need to bring a new product or service to market, and the customer requirements are uncertain. This life cycle is characterized by a high degree of exploration and experimentation, where the team continuously learns and adapts based on customer feedback and market conditions. Options A and B are incorrect because they refer to evolving an existing product or service rather than bringing a new one to market. Option E is also incorrect because it assumes the requirements are well understood, which would not necessitate an exploratory approach.

In Disciplined Agile, the amount of work to be completed during an iteration is defined by the team members themselves, based on their understanding of their current capacity and velocity. The team collaboratively estimates what they can achieve and commits to completing that work. Option A (the Product Owner) is responsible for prioritizing the backlog but does not dictate the amount of work. Option B (the team lead) facilitates the process but does not decide the work. Option D (the quality tester) is involved in testing completed work but does not determine the iteration's workload.

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The "Program" life-cycle model is the most suitable for running large product development efforts requiring a team-of-teams approach. The Program life cycle in Disciplined Agile (DA) is specifically designed to handle complex projects that require multiple teams working together in a coordinated manner. It focuses on collaboration, synchronization, and scaling across teams to deliver a large-scale solution effectively. Other options like Exploratory (A), Kanban (C), Agile (D), Scrum (E), and Lean (F) do not specifically address the need for coordinating multiple teams on a large product development effort.

A Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is a product with the minimum set of features needed to satisfy early customers and gather feedback for future development. The primary purpose of an MVP is to validate product assumptions, understand user needs, and guide subsequent iterations based on real user feedback. This iterative approach helps in aligning the product with customer expectations and reducing the risk of failure.

Options A (last iteration of development), B (not yet ready to be sold), and C (used for demonstration only) do not accurately reflect the primary purpose of an MVP in Disciplined Agile.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The responsibility for choosing the team's lifecycle in Disciplined Agile (DA)depends on the context. DA promotes a context-driven approach where decisions are made based on the specific needs, objectives, and constraints of the team and the organization. In some cases, the team itself may choose the lifecycle that best fits its way of working. In other scenarios, the decision could be influenced by an Agile coach, team manager, or organizational guidelines. Therefore, it is not a one-size-fits-all answer, and the context determines who is best suited to make this decision.

In the context of Disciplined Agile (DA), an Epic is a large user story that represents a significant piece of work that usually requires substantial effort and may span multiple iterations or sprints to complete. Epics are often too large to be completed in a single iteration and are typically broken down into smaller, more manageable user stories. Option A (a collection of smaller user stories) is partially correct because epics are often decomposed into smaller user stories, but option B provides a more precise definition as it emphasizes the size and effort required for completion. Options C and D are not correct in the DA context; they describe different types of analysis tools or techniques.

Guided continuous improvement is not limited to using a prescriptive framework or model. In Disciplined Agile (DA), guided continuous improvement can be achieved by using principles, guidelines, and practices that are adaptable to various contexts. It emphasizes learning and improving based on feedback, rather than following a strictly defined process.

In Disciplined Agile, process goals are not meant to prescribe how to achieve a particular objective but rather to provide guidance and flexibility. They offer a range of potential options and strategies that a team can choose from to achieve their objectives, allowing the team to tailor its approach based on its specific context and needs. Thus, the correct answer is "False," as process goals are intended to guide rather than dictate a specific way of achieving objectives.

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A well-written user story in the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework describes the product requirements from the customer's perspective. In DA, a user story is a short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, typically a user or customer of the system. The primary purpose of a user story is to articulate how a piece of work will deliver a particular value back to the customer.

A user story should focus on what the customer needs and wants, rather than a fixed outcome (A), the needs of all users (B), or merely the expectations of the product owner (C). It shouldcapture the customer's perspective (D) to ensure the team understands who the end-user is, what they need, and why they need it. This customer-centric approach helps the team create value-driven features and maintain alignment with customer expectations.

Disciplined Agile emphasizes that user stories are part of a collaborative conversation with the stakeholders, which allows the team to explore and understand the customers' needs effectively. The DA framework encourages iterative development based on customer feedback, ensuring that each user story is aligned with delivering maximum customer value.

In the Disciplined Agile framework, the principle of "Context Counts" emphasizes the importance of tailoring practices to fit the specific situation or context of the team. In this scenario,the team decided to skip the daily standup meetings because they were co-located, and the meetings were not adding value. This is an example of making a context-specific decision based on the team's unique circumstances, which aligns with the DA principle of "Context Counts." Options A (Being awesome), B (Enterprise awareness), and D (Choice is good) do not accurately capture the rationale behind the decision to modify the practice based on context.

If a team completes the work in their iteration backlog earlier than expected, the best course of action is to work with the product owner to pull more work from the product backlog into their iteration backlog. This approach keeps the team productive and focused on delivering value, rather than waiting or working on non-critical tasks. Option A suggests working on non-critical tasks, which does not maximize value delivery. Option B (waiting for other groups) is not a productive use of time. Option D (reporting differences in completion time) is helpful for future planning but does not address the immediate need to keep the team engaged.

The Disciplined Agile (DA) principle of "Accelerate value delivery" reflects the importance of minimizing the cost of delay. Cost of delay measures the impact of time on the value delivery, emphasizing the need to deliver valuable work quickly to maximize its benefits. While Option D (Optimize flow) is related to managing work effectively, it does not specifically highlight the urgency of reducing the cost of delay. Options A (Keep workloads within capacity) and C (Collaborate proactively) are important DA principles but do not directly address this concept.

Pushis when work isgiven to people. In a "push" system, tasks or work items are assigned to individuals or teams regardless of their current capacity or workload. This can lead to overburdening, inefficiencies, and bottlenecks. In contrast, a "pull" system allows team members to take on new work only when they have the capacity to do so, promoting smoother flow and reducing waste. Agile methodologies generally favor a pull approach to optimize flow and enhance team autonomy and efficiency.

In a program team within the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, each sub-team does not need to have the same Way of Working (WoW). DA promotes flexibility and recognizes that different teams may choose different WoWs that best fit their specific context, goals, and constraints. This approach allows each sub-team to optimize its process for maximum effectiveness, even if that means adopting different methodologies or practices.

When tailoring an agile strategy within the Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, the two process goals that require the most effort are"Align with Enterprise Direction"and"Explore Scope."These goals are critical because they provide a foundational understanding and alignment with both the organization's strategic objectives and the specific scope of the project or product being developed.

Align with Enterprise Direction:

Effort Required: Tailoring an agile strategy requires significant effort to ensure alignment with the overall enterprise direction, including strategic goals, corporate culture, compliance requirements, and governance policies. This involves understanding and integrating the broader organizational objectives into the team’s way of working (WoW).

Why It Is Important: Ensuring alignment with the enterprise direction is vital for maintaining consistency across different teams and departments and for achieving long-term organizational goals. It helps in leveraging shared resources, standards, and practices, reducing risks, and fostering collaboration.

Disciplined Agile Context: In the DA toolkit, "Align with Enterprise Direction" ensures that teams are not working in silos but are contributing to the broader organizational strategy and that their actions support the enterprise’s vision and values.

Explore Scope:

Effort Required: Exploring the scope involves understanding the breadth and depth of the problem space, gathering requirements, and defining what needs to be built. This can be a complex and time-consuming effort because it requires collaboration with multiple stakeholders, eliciting requirements, and managing changes.

Why It Is Important: This process goal helps ensure that the team understands the scope of the work to be done and aligns its efforts accordingly. It involves prioritizing features, defining acceptance criteria, and creating a shared understanding among all stakeholders.

Disciplined Agile Context: "Explore Scope" in the DA framework is critical because it lays the foundation for what the team will work on. It helps manage stakeholder expectations, prioritize work, and align deliverables with customer needs and organizational objectives.

Contrasting Incorrect Options:

A. Improve Quality: While improving quality is essential in any agile strategy, it typically involves applying established practices such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration (CI), and automated testing, which may not require as much initial effort compared to aligning with enterprise direction or exploring scope.

D. Address Changing Stakeholder Needs: Addressing changing stakeholder needs is part of the agile process, but the effort involved depends on how frequently and significantly those needs change. This goal is more of an ongoing activity rather than an initial effort required for tailoring an agile strategy.

In Disciplined Agile, the role of a DevOps Engineer is not necessarily filled by an operations person assigned to an Agile or Lean team. The DevOps role can be filled by individuals from either the development or operations side, or even someone with cross-functional expertise. The focus of the DevOps role is to foster collaboration between development and operations to enable continuous integration, delivery, and deployment. It is not limited to being an "operations person," but rather emphasizes the integration and collaboration needed to improve the flow from development to operations.

Performingsystem integration testingmore frequently helps identify integration issues early, reducing the cost and time associated with fixing problems discovered later in the development cycle. Continuous integration testing is a core practice in Agile and Disciplined Agile that ensures changes are regularly validated, promoting a smoother integration process. Conducting integration tests more often allows the team to catch defects early and maintain a stable and reliable build.

Options B (adding team members) and C (testing only at the end) are not best practices as they do not address the root cause of the problem. Option D (finding a way to do less integration testing) contradicts Agile principles, which emphasize frequent testing.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

Disciplined Agile (DA) provides a robust foundation for business agility by offering a flexible and comprehensive toolkit that allows organizations to tailor their Agile practices to their specific context. Two key ways DA achieves this are:

Provides guidance to streamline processes in a context-sensitive manner:DA emphasizes tailoring Agile practices to the organization's unique context, recognizing that one size does not fit all. It provides guidance on how to optimize processes based on specific needs and constraints.

Describes the trade-offs associated with a range of options:DA offers a variety of strategies and practices for teams to choose from and provides insights into the trade-offs of each choice. This enables teams to make informed decisions that best suit their goals and organizational context.

Options A, C, and E do not directly describe how DA provides a foundation for business agility. While DA encourages adherence to standards and fostering team joy, its core contribution lies in its flexibility and practical guidance.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The Disciplined Agile (DA) mindset consists of several principles that guide agile practices within an organization. Three of these key principles are:

Delight customers:This principle emphasizes that the primary goal is to meet or exceed customer expectations by delivering value early and often.

Enterprise awareness:This principle promotes awareness of the larger organizational context, encouraging teams to make decisions that align with enterprise goals, values, and governance.

Be pragmatic:This principle encourages practical, context-specific solutions over rigid adherence to one methodology, allowing teams to use practices that are most effective for their situation.

Option B, "Be a servant leader," is a practice or behavior expected from team leaders, not a core principle of the DA mindset itself. Option D, "Accelerate delivery," is an outcome of effective agile practices, but not one of the principles guiding the DA approach.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The "Marketing" process blade in the Disciplined Agile framework provides strategies to ensure successful interactions with the external world about your organization, products, and offerings. Marketing focuses on understanding customer needs, communicating the value proposition of products and services, and engaging effectively with potential and current customers to build brand awareness and drive sales. Other options like Portfolio Management (A), Product Management (B), Sales (C), and Business Operations (D) have different focuses and do not specifically cover the broad external communication strategy and positioning that Marketing does.

Reducing work-in-progress (WIP)is intended to increase focus, reduce lead time, and create a greater incentive to prioritize. It helps teams deliver value more quickly and efficiently by concentrating on fewer items at a time, minimizing context-switching, and reducing the chances of burnout.Option A isnota benefit of reducing WIP, as reducing WIP discourages multi-tasking between many high-priority items. In fact, reducing WIP aims to prevent multi-tasking, which is often counterproductive.

References:

PMI’s Disciplined Agile Senior Scrum Master (DASSM) curriculum materials.

"Choose Your WoW! A Disciplined Agile Delivery Handbook for Optimizing Your Way of Working (WoW)", PMI.

The desire of senior management to evolve an organization to be more responsive to changes in the marketplace or environment is best captured by the concept ofBusiness Agility. Business agility refers to the ability of an organization to adapt quickly and effectively to market changes, customer demands, and emerging opportunities, all while maintaining a focus on delivering value. Disciplined Agile promotes business agility by providing a toolkit that helps organizations navigate their unique challenges and choose the best practices to enhance responsiveness and adaptability across all levels of the organization.

The Architecture Owner is a primary role on a Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) team. This role is responsible for guiding the team in making architectural decisions and ensuring the architectural integrity of the solution. The Architecture Owner works closely with the team to balance the need for emergent design and intentional architecture. The other options (Domain Expert, Specialist, and Integrator) are roles that can exist on an agile team but are not primary roles defined within the DAD framework.

The three categories of process blades in Disciplined Agile (DA) are:

Disciplined DevOps:Focuses on integrating development and operations to streamline workflows, reduce bottlenecks, and ensure continuous delivery and deployment.

Disciplined Agile IT:Encompasses practices that support IT functions, such as Enterprise Architecture, Data Management, IT Governance, and IT Operations.

Disciplined Project Management Office (PMO):Provides strategic alignment, governance, and guidance to ensure that projects and initiatives align with organizational goals and deliver value.

Disciplined Agile Delivery (C) is a process blade itself, not a category, and Disciplined Kanban (D) is not a recognized process blade in DA.