Project Management Professional (PMP) Agile and Adaptive Approaches Syllabus

What are the Developers accountable for in Scrum?

Creating a usable Increment each Sprint. They create the Sprint Backlog plan, instill quality by adhering to the Definition of Done, adapt their plan daily toward the Sprint Goal, and hold each other accountable as professionals.

List the five Scrum events.

The Sprint (the container event), Sprint Planning, Daily Scrum, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective.

What is a Sprint, and what is its maximum length?

A Sprint is the fixed time-box (one month or less) that contains all other events; a new Sprint starts immediately after the previous one ends. During a Sprint, no changes are made that endanger the Sprint Goal, quality does not decrease, and scope may be clarified/renegotiated with the PO.

What happens during Sprint Planning, and what three topics does it address?

The team plans the work for the Sprint (time-boxed to 8 hours for a one-month Sprint). Topic 1: Why is this Sprint valuable? (Sprint Goal). Topic 2: What can be Done this Sprint? (select backlog items). Topic 3: How will the chosen work get done? (the plan/Sprint Backlog).

What is the Daily Scrum—its purpose and time-box?

A 15-minute event for the Developers, held same time/place each working day of the Sprint, to inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal and adapt the Sprint Backlog/plan. It is for the Developers; they may select any structure they want.

What is the purpose and time-box of the Sprint Review?

To inspect the outcome of the Sprint and determine future adaptations; the team and stakeholders review what was accomplished and what changed, and collaborate on what to do next. Time-boxed to a maximum of 4 hours for a one-month Sprint. It is a working session, not just a demo.

What is the purpose and time-box of the Sprint Retrospective?

To plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness; the team inspects how the last Sprint went regarding individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and Definition of Done, and identifies improvements. Time-boxed to a maximum of 3 hours for a one-month Sprint; it concludes the Sprint.

What are the three Scrum artifacts, and what commitment is attached to each?

Product Backlog (commitment: Product Goal); Sprint Backlog (commitment: Sprint Goal); Increment (commitment: Definition of Done). Commitments reinforce empiricism and Scrum values.

What is the Definition of Done in Scrum?

A formal, shared description of the state an Increment must meet to be considered complete and releasable (quality measures). Work not meeting the DoD cannot be released or presented at the Sprint Review and returns to the Product Backlog.

What is the Product Goal versus the Sprint Goal?

Product Goal: the long-term objective for the Scrum Team, describing a future state of the product; it lives in the Product Backlog. Sprint Goal: the single objective for the Sprint that provides focus and coherence, created during Sprint Planning and committed to in the Sprint Backlog.

What is an Increment in Scrum?

A concrete stepping stone toward the Product Goal—each Increment is additive to prior ones and thoroughly verified to work together. It must meet the Definition of Done to be usable. Multiple Increments can be created within a single Sprint.

What is Kanban and what are its core practices?

A pull-based, flow method for visualizing and managing work. Core practices: visualize the workflow (Kanban board), limit Work In Progress (WIP), manage flow, make process policies explicit, implement feedback loops, and improve collaboratively/evolve experimentally.

What is a WIP limit in Kanban and why is it used?

A Work-In-Progress limit caps the number of items allowed in a workflow stage at once. It reduces multitasking, exposes bottlenecks, shortens cycle time, and improves flow by encouraging finishing work before starting new work.

Define lead time and cycle time in Kanban/flow metrics.

Lead time: total elapsed time from when a request enters the system (commitment) until it is delivered. Cycle time: the time from when work actually starts on an item until it is completed. Cycle time is a subset of lead time.

What is Little's Law and how is it applied to flow?

Little's Law: Average WIP = Average Throughput x Average Cycle Time. Rearranged, Average Cycle Time = WIP / Throughput. It shows that reducing WIP (or increasing throughput) reduces cycle time.

What is Extreme Programming (XP) and name several of its key practices.

An agile software-development framework focused on engineering excellence. Key practices: Pair programming, Test-Driven Development (TDD), Continuous Integration, Refactoring, Simple design, Collective code ownership, Small/frequent releases, Coding standards, Sustainable pace, On-site customer, and the Planning Game.

What is pair programming in XP?

Two programmers work together at one workstation: one (the driver) writes code while the other (the navigator) reviews and thinks ahead; they switch roles regularly. It improves quality, shares knowledge, and reduces defects.

What is SAFe and what problem does it address?

The Scaled Agile Framework—a knowledge base of patterns for applying Lean-Agile practices at enterprise scale across many teams. It addresses scaling agile beyond a single team via configurations (Essential, Large Solution, Portfolio, Full) and constructs like the Agile Release Train.

What is an Agile Release Train (ART) in SAFe?

A long-lived team of agile teams (typically 50-125 people) that plans, commits, and delivers value together on a common cadence (the Program Increment), aligning teams to a shared mission and roadmap.

Name common frameworks/approaches used for scaling agile across multiple teams.

SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework), LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum), Scrum of Scrums, Nexus, Disciplined Agile (DA), Spotify model, and Scrum@Scale.

What is a Scrum of Scrums?

A scaling technique where representatives (ambassadors) from multiple Scrum teams meet regularly (e.g., 2-3 times/week) to coordinate work, integrate, and surface/resolve cross-team dependencies and impediments.

What is a product vision and why does it matter?

A concise, aspirational statement of the future state and purpose of the product—who it's for, what need it meets, and why it's valuable. It provides direction and alignment, anchoring the roadmap, releases, and backlog priorities.

What is a product roadmap?

A high-level, time-oriented visual summary that communicates the product's direction, major features/themes, and goals over time. It connects the vision to release plans and helps stakeholders understand the sequence and rationale of value delivery.

What is release planning in agile?

Determining which features/backlog items will be delivered in upcoming releases and roughly when, based on priority, velocity, and scope. It maps backlog items to one or more iterations and balances scope, schedule, and the Minimum Viable/Marketable Product.

What is a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)?

The smallest releasable version of a product that delivers enough value to satisfy early customers and generate validated learning/feedback with the least effort, allowing the team to test assumptions before investing further.

What is a Product Backlog and what is backlog refinement (grooming)?

The Product Backlog is an ordered, emergent, single source of work for the product. Refinement is the ongoing activity of adding detail, estimates, and order to items—breaking large items down, clarifying acceptance criteria, and keeping upcoming items 'ready.'

What makes a good user story—what is the INVEST acronym?

Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable. INVEST is a checklist for well-formed user stories.

What is the common user story format?

"As a [role/persona], I want [goal/feature], so that [benefit/value]." Acceptance criteria define the conditions for the story to be accepted as done.

What are acceptance criteria, and what is an epic versus a user story?

Acceptance criteria are the conditions a story must satisfy to be accepted. An epic is a large body of work too big for one iteration that is decomposed into multiple user stories; a story is a small, deliverable increment of value.

What is the MoSCoW prioritization technique?

Categorizes requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have (this time). It separates non-negotiable needs from desirable and optional items to guide scope decisions.

What is the Kano model of prioritization?

Classifies features by their effect on customer satisfaction: Basic/Threshold (must-haves—absence dissatisfies), Performance (more is better—linear satisfaction), and Excitement/Delighters (unexpected, drive delight). Also includes Indifferent and Reverse categories.

What is WSJF (Weighted Shortest Job First) and how is it calculated?

A SAFe prioritization model that sequences jobs to maximize economic value. WSJF = Cost of Delay / Job Size (Job Duration). Cost of Delay = User-Business Value + Time Criticality + Risk Reduction/Opportunity Enablement. Highest WSJF is done first.

What is velocity in agile, and how is it used?

Velocity is the amount of work (e.g., story points) a team completes in an iteration. Averaged over several iterations, it is an empirical measure used to forecast how much scope future iterations/releases can deliver. It is team-specific and should not be compared across teams.

What is story-point estimation and what tools/scales are used?

Relative sizing of effort/complexity/uncertainty rather than absolute time. Common tools: Planning Poker using a modified Fibonacci scale (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100) and T-shirt sizes (XS, S, M, L, XL). Affinity estimating groups items by relative size.

What is capacity planning in iteration execution?

Determining how much work a team can realistically take into an iteration based on available hours/people, accounting for time off, meetings, and other commitments (focus factor). It complements velocity to set a sustainable iteration commitment.

What is a burndown chart?

A chart showing remaining work (story points or hours) on the vertical axis versus time on the horizontal axis. The line trends downward toward zero; comparing actual to the ideal line shows whether the team is on track to finish the Sprint/release.

What is a burnup chart and how does it differ from a burndown chart?

A burnup chart plots completed work over time against a total-scope line. Unlike a burndown, it shows scope changes explicitly (the scope line moves), making added/removed scope visible while still tracking progress toward completion.

What is a cumulative flow diagram (CFD) and what does it reveal?

A stacked area chart showing the number of work items in each workflow state over time. Band widths reveal WIP, bottlenecks (widening bands), throughput (top line slope), and approximate lead/cycle time (horizontal distance between bands).

What are value-based metrics, and name key examples like ROI, NPV, IRR, and payback period.

Metrics measuring delivered business value/financial return. ROI: return on investment (net benefit/cost). NPV: present value of future cash flows minus investment—higher is better. IRR: discount rate making NPV zero—higher is better. Payback period: time to recover the investment—shorter is better.

What are Earned Value-style and agile value metrics such as ROI, EMV, and Net Promoter Score used for?

They quantify value and risk for decision-making. EMV (Expected Monetary Value) = Probability x Impact, used in risk analysis. NPS (Net Promoter Score) gauges customer loyalty/satisfaction (% promoters minus % detractors). These help prioritize for maximum value.

What is continuous improvement (Kaizen) in agile?

An ongoing mindset of making small, incremental improvements to processes, products, and teamwork. In Scrum it is institutionalized through the Sprint Retrospective and the inspect-and-adapt cycle; the team continually experiments to raise effectiveness and quality.

What is the PDCA (Deming) cycle?

Plan-Do-Check-Act: a four-step iterative cycle for continuous improvement. Plan a change, Do (implement on a small scale), Check the results, and Act to standardize or adjust—then repeat.

Name common retrospective techniques/formats.

Start-Stop-Continue; Glad-Sad-Mad (or Mad-Sad-Glad); 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed for); Sailboat (anchors/wind/rocks); What went well / What didn't / Improvements; Timeline; and Dot voting to prioritize improvement actions.

What is the typical structure/five stages of an effective retrospective?

1) Set the stage; 2) Gather data; 3) Generate insights; 4) Decide what to do (action items); 5) Close the retrospective. (From Derby & Larsen's 'Agile Retrospectives.')

What is technical debt?

The implied future cost of rework caused by choosing an easy/quick solution now instead of a better approach that would take longer. Like financial debt, it accrues 'interest'—slowing future development and increasing defects until it is repaid (refactored).

How do agile teams manage and reduce technical debt?

Make it visible (track in the backlog), allocate capacity each iteration to address it, enforce a strong Definition of Done, refactor continuously, use automated testing and continuous integration, and balance new feature work against debt paydown to keep velocity sustainable.

What practices help maintain quality in agile development?

Test-Driven Development (TDD), Acceptance Test-Driven Development (ATDD/BDD), continuous integration, automated testing, pair programming and peer reviews, frequent refactoring, a clear Definition of Done, and building quality in continuously rather than inspecting it at the end.

What is Test-Driven Development (TDD) and its red-green-refactor cycle?

Write an automated test before the code. Red: write a failing test for the desired behavior. Green: write the minimum code to make it pass. Refactor: clean up the code while keeping tests passing. Repeat. It drives design and builds a regression safety net.

What is a spike in agile?

A time-boxed research or experimentation task used to reduce uncertainty—answering a technical or functional question, exploring a design, or estimating effort—before committing to building a feature. It produces knowledge rather than shippable product.

What is a servant leader, the leadership style expected of an agile project lead/Scrum Master?

A leader who focuses on the needs and growth of the team—removing impediments, facilitating, coaching, shielding the team from distractions, and empowering self-organization—rather than commanding and controlling. The team's success is the leader's measure of success.