Question 1

A3 Problem Solving

Accepted Answer

A3 problem-solving is a structured approach to problem solving. A3 problem-solving involves finding the root cause of a problem, developing a plan of action, and ensuring the plan is actioned.

Presented on a A3 size paper, the A3 process promotes simple structure, logical thinking, effective collaboration, and active communication. A3 thinking promotes a responsibility focused conversation about What is the right thing to do.

A3 Template / Report may have below areas:

Background
Current conditions
Goals/Targets
Analysis
Proposed Countermeasures
Plan
Follow Up

The aim with A3 is to not fix the symption, but to go to the root-cause of the problems and eliminate the problem efficiently in a way that's strategically aligned with the organizational goals.

Question 2

Acceptance Criteria

Accepted Answer

Acceptance criteria (AC) is the set of criteria that define / limit the functional scope of a Product Backlog Item. It guides how a particular feature may be used from an end user’s perspective. If the implementation of a functionality meets the Acceptance Criteria the Product Backlog Item (PBI) or a User Story would be accepted by the user, the customer, or the Product Owner.

Acceptance critieria for each PBI would be different and unique as it relates to the functional scope of that PBI.

Acceptance criteria is different from Definition of Done which focuses on Quality and Completeness. DoD is common across the PBIs and is consistent for the Product.

Refer for More: Tips to Write Effective Acceptance Criteria

Question 3

Agile Coaching

Accepted Answer

A coaching intervention that is focused on helping teams, leaders and organizations to improve their ability to gracefully change / adapt to changing needs, may be identified as Agile Coaching.

Question 4

Agile Manifesto

Accepted Answer

The Manifesto for Agile Software DevelopmentEstablished in 2001, also referred as Agile Manifesto comprises of four Values and twelve Principles that 17 manifesto authors agreed on to be essential to be adaptable for a team or an organization.

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

Principles behind the Agile Manifesto

We follow these principles:

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
Working software is the primary measure of progress.
Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

Manifesto Authors: Kent Beck, Mike Beedle, Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, Dave Thomas

Refer: Manifesto for Agile Software Development

Question 5

Agile Mindset

Accepted Answer

Mindset is a reflection of our assumptions, biases, way of thinking, and beliefs that is visible in our choices, decisions and behavior.

An Agile mindset characterizes flexibility and willingness to adapt to changes and unforeseen circumstances.

A person / team having an Agile mindset is:

Curious to learn,
Continuously trying to improve,
Willing to experiment new ideas,
Not hesitant to take risks,
Not running away from challenges,
like growing a muscle,

so that when needs / circumstances change, they are ready to adapt to it.

An Agile Mindset underpins the work of successful agile teams.

On the other hand, someone having a Fixed Mindset would be relatively less flexible, thinks that they know it all, assumes there will be no changes, is not open to learning / feedback, avoid trying new ideas etc.

'Mindset' by Carol Dweck introduced a comparision between a Growth Mindset and a Fixed Mindset and how one can inculcate a Growth Mindset.

https://malcolm-en-gb.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/instances/iBXIwUgCog/resources/lwCXqAgZas/Mindsets.jpg (Mindsets.jpg)

Also Refer: Agile Mindset by Kamlesh Ravlani

Question 6

Agile Software Development

Accepted Answer

The [Agile Manifesto] (https://agilemanifesto.org) first coined the term 'Agile Software Development'. It refers to the way of developing Software (or Products / Services / Value) that is responsive to the customer's changing needs.

It is also referred as 'Agile Development' to refer to much broader applications outside the field of Software Development.

Question 7

Agility

Accepted Answer

Agility is an ability to gracefully adapt to changing needs.

In a dynamic and changing environment many variable such as: Customer's Needs, Technology, Market Conditions, Competition may change requiring a team / product / organization respond to these changes to stay relevant in the market.

Question 8

Antifragile

Accepted Answer

When exposed to volatility and shocks, Fragile things break, Robust things resist it, Antifragile things benefit from it.

Antifragile systems thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, risk and uncertainty instead of breaking under their pressure.

In his book Antifragile, author Nassim Nicholas Taleb describes Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.

Nassim proposes rules for moving from the fragile toward the antifragile, through reduction of fragility or harnessing antifragility.

Antifragility (and fragility) can almost always be detected using a simple test of asymmetry: anything that has more upside than downside from random events (or certain shocks) is antifragile; the reverse is fragile.

Lessons to be antifragile:

Fragile items break under stress, antifragile items get better from it.
In order for a system to be antifragile, most of its parts must be fragile.
Antifragile systems work, because they build extra capacity when put under stress.

Question 9

Antipattern

Accepted Answer

An antipattern is solution applied to a particular problem that is considered harmful or undesirable, but is used on a regular basis.

An antipattern can be applied to a process, product design, company policy of an org, etc. A key characteristic of antipatterns is that they are used in situations where other, better, alternatives exist.

Antipatterns can include such practices as over-engineering, reinventing the wheel, establishing too many dependencies, overcomplicating the situation and adding more complexity to a situation.

Question 10

Beyond Budgeting

Accepted Answer

Beyond Budgeting is a management philosophy that replaces traditional, rigid annual budgeting with flexible, adaptive, and decentralized processes. Key principles include:

Customer Focus: Aligning all processes and decisions with delivering customer value.
Decentralization: Empowering frontline teams to make decisions.
Adaptive Processes: Using fluid planning and forecasting to quickly respond to market changes.
Performance Evaluation: Shifting from fixed targets to relative performance metrics.
Dynamic Resource Allocation: Allocating resources based on current needs and strategic priorities, rather than fixed annual budgets.
Transparency and Trust: Promoting open information sharing and decision-making trust.

This approach aims to enhance organizational agility, employee engagement, and overall performance in dynamic business environments.

Question 11

Blocker

Accepted Answer

Blocker is anything that blocks the team from making progress.

Please also see Impediment.

Question 12

Burn Down Chart

Accepted Answer

A burn down chart is a graphical representation of the work left to do versus the time.

If a burn down chart is created at for a two week Sprint having 8 Product Backlog Items (work) in the Sprint Backlog, the X-Axis will have 0 - 10 days and the Y-Axis will show 0 - 8 PBIs.

As the days pass and the work remaining reduces, the graph from the top left will gradually trend (burn) down towards bottom right.

The developers may (choose to) create and update the Sprint burn-down chart to graphically track the progress during the sprint.

The Scrum Master should neither create, nor update the Burn-Down chart, to ensure that the Developers retain the ownership of tracking and monitoring the progress of their Sprint work.

Also see: Burn Up Chart, Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)

Question 13

Burn Up Chart

Accepted Answer

A Burn Up Chart is a graphical representation used to track how much work has been completed against the time passed.

The graph starts at 0-0 at the beginning of the Sprint and will tend (Burn) up towards Right as the days pass and top as the work is completed.

A Burn Down Chart is a more effective tracking approach compared to the Burn Up Chart.

Also see: Burn Down Chart, Comulative Flow Diagram (CFD)

Question 14

Business Agility

Accepted Answer

Business agility is the capability to quickly change or adapt to changes in a business. Building Business Agility is an ongoing process and not a one-time event. Business agility can also be referred to as organizational agility, or adaptive business.

Business agility is the ability of a company to adjust to changes quickly. In business, agility involves the ability to change one’s strategy, operational model, and operating processes in response to internal and external changes.

This changes can be external, such as changing market conditions or government regulations. Internal changes can also have a big impact on business agility, such as disrupting the company culture or stakeholder loyalties, swiftly reacting to customer demands and quickly launching new products.

Organizations that have a high level of business agility will be better suited to take advantage of emerging opportunities, that will allow them to grow and overcome competition.

Question 15

Coaching

Accepted Answer

Coaching is a form of development intervention in which a coach, supports a learner or a coachee in achieving a specific personal or professional goal.

The coach provides a structure, accountability and space within which the coachee's wisdom emerges and capability grows to:

clarify a problem they like to solve/address,
identify possible solutions to try, and
take action to address the matter.

Providing answers, opinions, and telling others what to do is NOT coaching.

Unlike a mentor, a coach doesn't need to be an expert in the field in which a coachee aims to excel.

See also: The Scrum Master as a Coach

Question 16

Collective Ownership

Accepted Answer

The practice of Collective Ownership of a Product / Code / Solution means the entire team collectively owns building of the solution / product and that every member has a responsibility to contribute to it.

It taps in to collective intelligence of the team members and reduces risk.

In Scrum the developers have collective ownership of the product being built.

Question 17

Complex System

Accepted Answer

A complex system is a collection of interdependent parts, modules, and/or variables. A perfect understanding of individual parts does not automatically convey a perfect understanding of the whole system's behaviour.

The state of a complex system can't be predicted due to the reason that it's parts dynamically change and every change influences the state of other parts and the overall system.

Is your work environment Obvious, Complicated, Complex or Chaotic?

Please analyze your current work environment, and identify which of these variables change in your work environment?

Customer Needs
Technology
Talent/People
Competition
Organizational Goals
Marketplace
Government Regulation
All of the Above

If you answered All of the above (or many of the above) your work environment is Complex.

Question 18

Continuous Delivery

Accepted Answer

Continuous Delivery is the practice of delivering small changes to software quickly, frequently and continually.

With a Continuous Delivery system, software builds are checked regularly using automated tests for quality and deployed to test and then to production environments as soon as they pass. Due to automation it is often possible to release multiple changes to the software per day.

This approach often accelerates software release cycles and minimizes the amount of time between when code is developed and released, shortening feedback cycle and improving adaptability.

Question 19

Continuous Deployment

Accepted Answer

The continuous deployment strategy involves automatically releasing every code change (commit) into the production environment after it is (automatically) built, integrated and has passed the automated testing. This makes changes immediately visible to the software's users.

Continuous deployment can help reduce the risk of errors in live software by eliminating the need for manual approval of code changes.

To be effective, continuous deployment must be used in conjunction with other production-ready development practices. Practices such as rigorous automated testing and real-time monitoring of production environment. This will allow any issues with new releases to be detected quickly and efficiently.

The need for continuous delivery can be traced back to the first principle of the Agile Manifesto (origin Feb, 2001):

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Also see: Continuous Delivery, Continuous Integration

Question 20

Continuous Integration

Accepted Answer

Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice where developers integrate their work frequently during the day and automatically, rather than waiting for the end of every development cycle.

Continuous integration is a continuous, automated, and integrated software build and test cycle that merges source code from participating programmers to produce an executable that is ready to be tested.

Question 21

Conway's Law

Accepted Answer

“Organizations who design systems are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structure of these organizations.” Melvin Conway

Meaning, the organizational silos and departmental boundaries will eventually reflect in the design of the product / system they build.

To avoid such results, organizations must rethink on the structures and communications in place.

One solution to that challenge is to create Feature Teams.

Please refer: Feature Teams

Question 22

Cost of Delay

Accepted Answer

Cost of Delay (COD) is a decision making / prioritization framework that helps a Product Owner quantify the economic value impact of building a feature or completing an initiative sooner as opposed to later.

The cost of delay is an efficient decision-making tool that can completely transform the mindset of an organization and resulting ROI. It does so by putting a value lens over the conversation of costs and deadlines, offering full-scenario visualizations of what the most critical tasks really are.

Question 23

Cross-Functional Team

Accepted Answer

A Cross-Functional team comprises of people with all the needed functional skills needed to translate the work planned for a sprint in to a Done Increment without being dependent on people outside this team.

While experts at their primary skill, members of a cross-functional team may also develop competence at a secondary skill (not necessarily all the skills) to become more valuable for the team.

Also Refer: Scrum Team

Question 24

Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)

Accepted Answer

A Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) is a graph to visualize the flow of value through a system. A CFD is a valuable tool to Inspect - visually, the value delivered, work in progress and the amount of work in the backlog.

The X-axis represents Time / Timeline.

The Y-axis could represent multiple variables simultanously such as - Number of Work Items Completed, Work-In-Progress and the amount of work in the backlog.

These different variables are represented using different colors in a graph that either goes up or stays stable throughout the duration for which the graph is plotted.

It helps to visually 'inspect' inconsistencies in the workflow / process, built up of work in the backlog, and to help adapt processes.

The CFD helps identify the:

Cycle time
Throughput and
Work in Progress.

The CFD may also be used as a complimentary practice for Scrum Teams to reveal their planning, execution and value delivery cadence.

Also see: Burn Down Chart, Burn Up Chart

Question 25

Customer Persona

Accepted Answer

A customer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal prospect (or customer) based on market research and actual data about your present customers. It includes demographic data, behavior patterns, motivations, life-style, behaviors, pain points and objectives.

Customer personas are used to segment your customers into groups, identify their different needs, and tailor your product features or service to each group.

Organizations create customer personas for their product / business to make their offering relevant to their customer needs.