Head First Agile Full Exam Answers
1. Answer: B
This is a case where the product owner is right, and the team member is doing something
that is potentially dangerous.
The reason that Scrum teams have a product owner role is so that someone can stay on top
of all stakeholder communications. There’s nothing wrong with team members working
directly with stakeholders, but they should never
cut the product owner out of the discussion
Hint:
Did it bother you that “scrum master” was not capitalized in the
exam question? Get used to it! Questions on the actual exam might
not have capitaliztion that matches your expectations.
2. Answer: C
Usability testing is an important way that teams can test their software to make sure it is
easy to use, and agile teams conduct frequent reviews by testing the software and
incorporating the improvements back into the deliverables. A very common way to perform
usability testing is to observe users while they interact with early versions of the software.
Hint:
Capturing user interface requirements and using wireframes to plan the user interface
are both valuable ways to improve the usability of the software, and agile teams use both
of them. But agile teams also value working software over comprehensive documentation,
so they typically opt for usability testing over UI requirements and wireframes.
3. Answer: B
When problems occur, agile teams work closely with their stakeholders to understand
acceptable trade-offs. On a Scrum team, the product owner is responsible for interacting
with the stakeholders to help them understand how the project is going. So when a problem
happens on a Scrum project that will impact what the team delivers, the product
owner needs to meet with the stakeholder and discuss exactly how the team will proceed.
Agile teams work with their stakeholders to maintain a shared understanding of important
trade-offs that affect delivery, which helps build a mutual trust between them.
Hint:
A spike solution doesn’t make sense here, because the question didn’t mention anything
about exploring a potential technical solution.
4. Answer: D
When teams use a kanban board to visualize their workflow, they use columns to represent
workflow steps, and typically use sticky notes or index cards to show individual work items
flowing through the process. If items tend to accumulate in one column, it tells the team
that step is a potential root cause for the process flow slowing down. The way to fix it
is to work with the stakeholders to impose a work in progress (WIP) limit, usually by writing
the maximum allowable number of work items for that step.
Hint:
The stakeholders need to be involved because the team will need to change their behavior
when the WIP limit for the step is reached—and that often affects the stakeholders. This
helps everyone get to the root cause of the flow problem more quickly
1. Answer: B
This is a case where the product owner is right, and the team member is doing something
that is potentially dangerous.
The reason that Scrum teams have a product owner role is so that someone can stay on top
of all stakeholder communications. There’s nothing wrong with team members working
directly with stakeholders, but they should never
cut the product owner out of the discussion
Hint:
Did it bother you that “scrum master” was not capitalized in the
exam question? Get used to it! Questions on the actual exam might
not have capitaliztion that matches your expectations.
2. Answer: C
Usability testing is an important way that teams can test their software to make sure it is
easy to use, and agile teams conduct frequent reviews by testing the software and
incorporating the improvements back into the deliverables. A very common way to perform
usability testing is to observe users while they interact with early versions of the software.
Hint:
Capturing user interface requirements and using wireframes to plan the user interface
are both valuable ways to improve the usability of the software, and agile teams use both
of them. But agile teams also value working software over comprehensive documentation,
so they typically opt for usability testing over UI requirements and wireframes.
3. Answer: B
When problems occur, agile teams work closely with their stakeholders to understand
acceptable trade-offs. On a Scrum team, the product owner is responsible for interacting
with the stakeholders to help them understand how the project is going. So when a problem
happens on a Scrum project that will impact what the team delivers, the product
owner needs to meet with the stakeholder and discuss exactly how the team will proceed.
Agile teams work with their stakeholders to maintain a shared understanding of important
trade-offs that affect delivery, which helps build a mutual trust between them.
Hint:
A spike solution doesn’t make sense here, because the question didn’t mention anything
about exploring a potential technical solution.
4. Answer: D
When teams use a kanban board to visualize their workflow, they use columns to represent
workflow steps, and typically use sticky notes or index cards to show individual work items
flowing through the process. If items tend to accumulate in one column, it tells the team
that step is a potential root cause for the process flow slowing down. The way to fix it
is to work with the stakeholders to impose a work in progress (WIP) limit, usually by writing
the maximum allowable number of work items for that step.
Hint:
The stakeholders need to be involved because the team will need to change their behavior
when the WIP limit for the step is reached—and that often affects the stakeholders. This
helps everyone get to the root cause of the flow problem more quickly
