Project Management Professional (PMP) Agile and Adaptive Approaches Flashcards

24 sample cards from the Agile and Adaptive Approaches deck

Sampled from the end of the deck, so these are different cards from the ones shown on the syllabus page.

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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).

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.')

19. 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).

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

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