Along-standing teamis best suited for a long-term project with the potential for significant budgeting and tracking overhead. In Disciplined Agile (DA), a long-standing team is a stable, cross-functional team that remains intact over time and works on various projects or continuous delivery of value. This type of team reduces overhead associated with forming and disbanding teams and allows for more consistent tracking, budgeting, and management of resources. Additionally, long-standing teams develop stronger team dynamics and improve performance over time due to their stability.
* B. A project teamis typically temporary and disbanded once the project ends.
* C. A cross-functional teamis a characteristic of many Agile teams but does not specifically address the need for long-term stability.
* D. A shared services teamsupports other teams by providing specialized skills but is not focused on long-term projects with budgeting needs.

* Address Changing Stakeholder Needs:This process goal involves actively engaging with stakeholders to understand and respond to their evolving requirements, preferences, and concerns throughout the project’s life cycle. This goal is dynamic and requires significant effort because stakeholder needs and priorities can change frequently, requiring continuous adjustment of the Agile strategy. Tailoring your strategy to effectively address these needs involves multiple activities, such as conducting frequentreviews, reprioritizing the backlog, aligning deliverables with stakeholder expectations, and incorporating feedback into the development process.
* Why It Requires the Most Effort:
* Dynamic Nature of Stakeholder Needs:Stakeholders’ needs are often unpredictable and can change rapidly due to market shifts, regulatory changes, or new business priorities. This requires Agile teams to be highly adaptive and frequently recalibrate their strategies.
* Continuous Engagement and Communication:Maintaining an ongoing dialogue with stakeholders, gathering feedback, and negotiating trade-offs consume considerable time and resources.
* Alignment and Consensus Building:Repeated effort is needed to ensure that all stakeholders are aligned and that there is a consensus on the direction and scope of the project.
Incorrect Options:
* A. Improve Quality:While improving quality is a significant goal in any Agile strategy, it is more focused on refining existing processes, techniques, and tools rather than continuously adapting to external changes. Thus, it may not require as much continuous effort in tailoring the Agile strategy.
* C. Align with Enterprise Direction:This goal involves ensuring that the team’s work aligns with the broader organizational objectives. While important, it is generally a less dynamic activity compared to addressing changing stakeholder needs and may not require as frequent adjustments once alignment is initially achieved.
* D. Explore Scope:Exploring the scope is an initial activity in an Agile project where the team works to understand the project’s boundaries and deliverables. Although this requires effort at the beginning of the project, it is not a continuous effort throughout the project life cycle like addressing changing stakeholder needs.
Therefore,”Address Changing Stakeholder Needs”is the process goal that requires the most effort due to its dynamic nature and the continuous engagement required to adapt the Agile strategy to evolving conditions.

TheKaizen feedback loopis commonly summarized asPlan, Do, Study, Act (PDSA). This cycle is used for continuous improvement and problem-solving, where:
* Plan: Identify a goal or process and plan a change.
* Do: Implement the change on a small scale.
* Study: Observe and analyze the results of the change.
* Act: Decide on necessary adjustments and standardize the successful changes.
Other options do not correctly capture the Kaizen loop:
* A. Plan, Do, Monitor, Studyincorrectly places “Monitor”.
* B. Plat, Implement Demo, Studymixes unrelated steps.
* D. Study, Act, React, Demodoes not follow the correct logical order of the Kaizen feedback loop.
Thus, the correct answer isC. Plan, Do, Study, Act.

A well-written user story in agile practices, including Disciplined Agile, describesthe customer’s perspective
. User stories are short, simple descriptions of a feature or requirement from the point of view of the end user or customer. They are intended to capture the “who, what, and why” of a requirement, focusing on the value it delivers to the customer. This perspective ensures that the development team understands the real-world needs and motivations behind the features they are building, allowing them to create solutions that truly meet user needs.

In Disciplined Agile (DA),Minimum Business Increment (MBI)(A) is a key tool used to sequence work in order to deliver value quickly. An MBI is the smallest piece of functionality that can deliver recognizable value to the business and its stakeholders. By focusing on delivering MBIs, teams can prioritize andsequence their work to release incremental value to customers in a timely manner, reducing time-to-market and allowing for early feedback.
Here’s a breakdown of whyMBIis the correct answer:
* MBI (A)is specifically designed to deliverreal business valuewith the minimum amount of effort, ensuring that development work is focused on the most impactful features first. It’s not just about delivering a working product, but rather delivering thesmallest set of functionalitiesthat provide business value, which can be immediately utilized by the organization or customers.
The other options have important roles in Agile but are not directly related to sequencing work to deliver value quickly:
* Minimum Viable Product (MVP) (B): While MVP is crucial for early market testing, it is a broader concept compared to MBI. MVP aims to test the product’s viability, but MBI is more focused on delivering incremental business value.
* Planning Poker (C): A tool for estimating work efforts in Agile but not used for sequencing work.
* Work in Process (WIP) Limits (D): This technique is related to managing workflow, typically in Kanban, by limiting the number of tasks in progress to avoid overloading the team. While it improves flow, it does not directly prioritize or sequence work based on business value.
Therefore,MBI (A)is the most effective technique for sequencing work to deliver value quickly in the DA framework.

In PMI’s Disciplined Agile (DA) framework, process blades refer to modular, process decision-making tools that help organizations optimize their way of working (WoW). They are categorized into three primary areas:
Disciplined DevOps (A) – This blade focuses on streamlining and integrating development and operations activities, with a focus on continuous delivery and automation practices. It encompasses activities such as IT operations, quality assurance, data management, and release management to improve flow and operational efficiency.
Disciplined Project Management Office (PMO) (B) – The Disciplined Agile PMO is designed to oversee and provide governance to an organization’s project and product delivery processes. It facilitates strategic alignment and value delivery across teams, ensuring that agile principles are applied at a broader organizational level, and that governance and funding models are adaptable.
Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) (E) – Disciplined Agile Delivery is a hybrid agile approach focused on the delivery of software-based solutions. It combines strategies from Agile, Lean, Scrum, and other methodologies to create a flexible and scalable approach to delivery. DAD provides guidance across all stages of solution delivery, from concept to deployment.
These three categories help organizations leverage Disciplined Agile principles by enabling flexible, scalable solutions that can be customized based on their specific context and needs.

The concept ofLeanwas developed around eliminating the three types of deviations that show inefficient allocation ofresources: Muda (waste), Mura (unevenness), and Muri (overburden). Lean principles focus on maximizing value by minimizing waste and optimizing the use of resources, such as time, effort, and materials. By identifying and eliminating these inefficiencies,organizations can ensure that resources are allocated effectively, reducing costs, improving quality, and increasing customer satisfaction.

Disciplined Agile (DA)is defined as aprocess-decision toolkitthat offers a broad range of guidance to help individuals, teams, and organizations streamline their processes in a way that makes sense given their unique context. DA is not a specific methodology; instead, it provides a toolkit that integrates various agile, lean, and traditional strategies, allowing teams to choose the best approach for their situation.
* A. An agile set of practices promoting autonomy within a PMOis not accurate, as DA is broader than just a PMO.
* C. An approach that frequently assesses changeis not the specific purpose of DA.
* D. A methodology exploring various agile and waterfall practicesdoes not accurately represent DA’s comprehensive and context-sensitive nature.
Therefore, the correct answer isB. It is a process-decision toolkit that provides straightforward guidance to help people, teams, and organizations to streamline their processes in a context-sensitive manner.

Thecoordination meeting(often referred to as the daily stand-up or daily coordination meeting in Agile practices) is crucial for a project team becauseit provides an opportunity for the team to help itself stay in sync. This meeting is typically held daily and allows team members to communicate their progress, discuss any challenges or impediments, and align their activities with the project’s goals.
In Disciplined Agile, such meetings are vital for fostering collaboration and ensuring that everyone on the team is aware of what others are doing, which helps avoid misunderstandings, duplicate work, and potential blockers. The purpose is not to report to a manager but for the team to coordinate, plan, and adjust their work dynamically to ensure continuous alignment and effective progress towards the team’s objectives.

The purpose of aniteration retrospectivein the Disciplined Agile framework is to reflect on the team’s process and performance during the previous iteration to identify what went well and what can be improved.
The primary goal is to continuously improve by transferring the lessons learned, knowledge, and potential improvements to the next iteration. This aligns with Disciplined Agile’s emphasis on continuous improvement and learning, which is critical to the team’s effectiveness and efficiency.
The other options are not the primary focus of an iteration retrospective:
* A. To showcase what the team accomplished in an iterationis the purpose of an iteration review or demo, not a retrospective.
* C. To prioritize stories and concrete tasks for the next iterationis typically part of iteration planning.
* D. To identify progress and to note encountered impedimentsis also part of other ceremonies like daily standups but not the main focus of a retrospective.
Thus, the correct answer isB. To transfer knowledge and improvements to the next iteration, aligning with the Disciplined Agile framework’s purpose for iteration retrospectives.

The three phases of Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD)’s delivery life cycle are:
* Inception: This phase focuses on getting the project off the ground. It includes identifying stakeholders, understanding the vision, defining the initial scope, and planning for the necessary resources and timeline.
* Construction: This phase involves building the solution incrementally and iteratively, with continuous delivery of working software and regular stakeholder feedback.
* Transition: This phase prepares the solution for release into production or the marketplace. It includes final validation, user training, deployment planning, and release management.
Other options are incorrect:
* A. Commencement, Creation, Evolutionare not standard DAD phases.
* B. Initiation, Foundation, Conversiondo not match DAD terminology.
* C. Introduction, Substance, Alterationare not relevant to DAD.
Therefore, the correct answer isD. Inception, Construction, Transitions.

In Disciplined Agile, theConstructionphase of the project life cycle is responsible for developing a consumable solution in a collaborative and incremental manner. During this phase, the team iteratively builds the solution, working closely with stakeholders to ensure that the product or service being developed meets their needs and expectations. The Construction phase emphasizes agility, collaboration, and incremental development, where the solution evolves through repeated iterations, incorporating feedback and improvements at each step. This approach helps to minimize risks, adapt to changes, and deliver value more frequently.

Aniteration backlog(or sprint backlog) is createdat the beginning of each sprintduring the iteration planning meeting. This backlog consists of the tasks and user stories that the team commits to completing during the iteration. The process involves selecting the highest-priority items from the product backlog and breaking them down into smaller tasks that can be completed within the sprint timeframe.
* A. Planning the Kanban boarddoes not typically use an iteration backlog as Kanban is flow-based, not iteration-based.
* B. At the beginning of each projectis incorrect because the backlog is created for each sprint, not the entire project.
* C. When defining the MBI (Minimum Business Increment)is related to identifying the smallest unit of value delivery but is not when an iteration backlog is created.

The Disciplined Agile mindset includes principles that guide individuals and teams in making decisions and taking actions that align with Agile values and the specific context of their organization. Three principles of the Disciplined Agile mindset are:
* B. Enterprise awareness: Encourages teams to work with an understanding of their organization’s goals, strategies, and needs, ensuring alignment and collaboration across teams and departments.
* C. Delight customers: Focuses on delivering high value and exceptional service to customers, ensuring that their needs are met or exceeded.
* E. Be pragmatic: Involves taking a practical and context-sensitive approach, applying tools and practices that best fit the situation rather than adhering strictly to a particular methodology.
Other options likeA. Accelerate deliveryandD. Be a servant leaderare relevant to Agile practices but are not explicitly stated as Disciplined Agile mindset principles.
Thus, the correct answers areB. Enterprise awareness,C. Delight customers, andE. Be pragmatic.

In Disciplined Agile, theArchitecture Owneris responsible formitigating key technical risks. This role focuses on overseeing the architectural integrity of the solution being developed, ensuring that the team makes sound technical decisions that align with the desired architecture and quality attributes of the project. The Architecture Owner helps in identifying and addressing potential technical risks early in the project life cycle, collaborating with the team to adapt the architecture as necessary to mitigate these risks.
This individual works closely with the team to guide architectural considerations, ensures compliance with the chosen architectural strategies, and maintains the overall technical direction of the project. Although they are involved in other cross-functional activities, their primary responsibility is to foresee and address technical challenges that could jeopardize the success of the project.

In Agile and Disciplined Agile practices, iterations are plannedat the beginning of each iterationduring an iteration planning meeting. The team, along with the product owner, pulls the highest-priority items from the product backlog that they believe can be completed within the iteration. This ensures that the work is well- defined, understood, and aligned with the current goals and priorities.
* A. Retrospective meetingsfocus on reflecting on the past iteration to identify improvements, not planning the next iteration.
* B. Using iteration reviewsimproves quality but is not about planning.
* D. Iteratively planning by the product owneralone does not ensure team alignment or collaboration, which is essential in Agile.
Therefore, the correct answer isC. At the beginning of each iteration by pulling from the product backlog.

Disciplined Agile (DA) provides a solid foundation for business agility through multiple mechanisms, including:
* B. Defining a framework for agility at scale: DA offers a comprehensive toolkit that supports scaling agile practices across an organization, integrating principles from various agile methodologies to ensure coherence and alignment.
* D. Providing guidance to streamline processes in a context-sensitive manner: DA emphasizes tailoring processes to the specific context of the organization, project, or team, rather than applying a one-size- fits-all approach. This flexibility allows organizations to adapt more effectively to change and improve their agility.
* A. Enforcing adherence to organizational standardscontradicts the DA principle of pragmatism and flexibility.
* C. Creating awesome teams that foster joyis beneficial but is not specifically cited as foundational for business agility.
* E. Describing trade-offsis part of DA’s decision-making framework but not directly a way of providing a foundation for business agility.
Thus, the correct answers areB. Defines a framework for agility at scaleandD. Provides guidance to streamline processes in a context-sensitive manner.