DAF Practice Test 5 — 10 Questions

Question 1

Which layer of the DA framework is responsible for aligning team efforts with the overall enterprise strategy?

Accepted Answer

Portfolio Management. In the Disciplined Agile framework, Portfolio Management is the layer that connects enterprise strategy to the work of delivery teams by selecting, prioritising, and funding initiatives. It ensures that team efforts roll up to strategic goals rather than operating in isolation. The other layers address team-level or awareness concerns, not strategic alignment.

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Team Level

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Enterprise Awareness

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Governance

Question 2

A team is transitioning from a traditional project management approach to Disciplined Agile. Which mindset shift is most critical for the team to embrace during their first iteration?

Accepted Answer

Focusing on delivering high-value, working software early and often. The core of Disciplined Agile is the pragmatic shift towards value delivery over rigid adherence to process, emphasizing a 'choose your way of working' approach.

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Eliminating all documentation throughout the lifecycle

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Strict adherence to the project charter

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Reducing the team size to improve velocity

Question 3

A team is working on a complex project with multiple dependencies. Which process goal is most relevant for managing these?

Accepted Answer

Coordinate Activities.. The 'Coordinate Activities' process goal is specifically designed to address the coordination of work across teams, dependencies, and shared resources. In a complex project with multiple dependencies, this goal ensures that activities are aligned, dependencies are managed, and communication flows effectively. It provides the practices and guidance needed to synchronize work across team boundaries.

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Grow Team Members.

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Improve Team Velocity.

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Produce Potentially Consumable Solution.

Question 4

A team is having trouble delivering value because they lack clear roles. Which DA process goal addresses role definition?

Accepted Answer

Form Team. In Disciplined Agile, the 'Form Team' process goal explicitly addresses establishing the team's structure, including defining roles, responsibilities, and working agreements. When a team lacks clear roles, the Form Team goal is the correct DA process goal because it covers team formation activities such as identifying needed skills, assigning roles, and establishing how the team will operate. This is distinct from coordination, risk, or scope goals.

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Coordinate Activities

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Address Risk

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Explore Initial Scope

Question 5

When two team members disagree on the 'best' practice, how should the team resolve it according to DA?

Accepted Answer

Try one, then the other, and see which works better in their context.. Disciplined Agile advocates for an empirical, context-driven approach to resolving disagreements. Rather than defaulting to authority or seniority, the team should try one practice, then the other, and evaluate which works better in their specific context. This aligns with DA's principle of 'Choice is Good' and its emphasis on guided continuous improvement through experimentation and feedback.

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Avoid both and do nothing.

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The project manager decides.

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Follow the most senior person's suggestion.

Question 6

Which TWO are common 'Agile' ceremonies?

Accepted Answer

Retrospective. Retrospective (A) is a core Agile ceremony held at the end of each iteration/sprint, where the team inspects how it worked and identifies improvements to apply in the next sprint. Sprint Planning (E) is also a standard Scrum/Agile ceremony that occurs at the start of every sprint to define the sprint goal and select the backlog items the team will deliver. Both are recurring, team-level events that support iterative delivery and continuous improvement. In contrast, budget approval (B) and weekly executive status reporting (D) are governance/reporting activities rather than Agile ceremonies, and a one-time project planning meeting at the start (C) reflects a traditional waterfall approach, not the recurring planning cadence of Agile.

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Budget approval meeting

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Project planning meeting (held once at the start)

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Weekly status report to executives

Question 7

A stakeholder wants to change the scope mid-iteration. How should the team respond?

Accepted Answer

Discuss the impact and decide whether to incorporate it now or later. In agile/iterative delivery, scope changes mid-iteration are handled through collaborative impact assessment rather than unilateral action. The team should evaluate the change's effect on the iteration goal, capacity, and commitments, then decide with the product owner whether to incorporate it now (swapping equivalent work) or defer it to the backlog for a future iteration. This preserves the iteration's integrity while remaining responsive to stakeholder needs, which is the core of agile's 'welcome changing requirements' principle.

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Accept the change and immediately stop current work

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Refuse the change immediately

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Ignore the stakeholder and finish the original work

Question 8

Your team is experiencing 'context switching' due to frequent interruptions. Which Lean-inspired action is most appropriate?

Accepted Answer

Implement 'focus time' where interruptions are restricted.. Context switching from frequent interruptions destroys flow and increases cycle time, a form of Lean waste (muda). Implementing protected 'focus time' where interruptions are restricted directly addresses the root cause by allowing uninterrupted work, consistent with Lean's respect for people and flow efficiency. This is a low-cost, team-driven countermeasure.

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Ask the team to work longer hours.

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Require team members to answer emails immediately.

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Increase the number of daily meetings.

Question 9

A team has a very high lead time. They notice that work sits in a 'Pending Approval' state for 80% of the total time. What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Implement automated approvals for low-risk changes.. The bottleneck is the approval wait state, which consumes 80% of lead time — a classic queue/wait problem, not a capacity problem. Automating approvals for low-risk changes removes the human queue entirely for a defined class of work, directly shrinking the largest contributor to lead time. This aligns with DevOps/DORA guidance: reduce batch size and manual gates, and reserve human approval for changes that genuinely carry risk.

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Report the delay to management.

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Conduct more frequent approval meetings.

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Increase the number of approvers to speed up the process.

Question 10

During a project, the team realizes the initial plan is no longer viable due to market changes. What should they do?

Accepted Answer

Update the plan and pivot the strategy accordingly. Agile teams embrace change and pivot based on empirical evidence and feedback.

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Wait for the end of the year to reassess

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Ask the stakeholders to force the team to continue

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Stick to the original plan to show commitment