DAF Practice Test 7 — 10 Questions

Question 1

A team is using a basic Kanban approach and wants to improve their throughput. Which step is most aligned with the DA toolkit?

Accepted Answer

Review their current process goals and experiment with a practice that limits WIP.. The DA (Disciplined Agile) toolkit emphasizes empirical process improvement through inspecting current goals and experimenting with practices. Limiting WIP is a core Lean/Kanban practice that directly improves flow and throughput by reducing multitasking and bottlenecks. Reviewing process goals and experimenting aligns with DA's guided continuous improvement philosophy.

Answer

Increase team member hours.

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Ignore the bottleneck and work faster.

Answer

Switch to a full Scrum implementation.

Question 2

A team has decided to use the 'Scrum' lifecycle. According to DA, what is the next step after selecting the lifecycle?

Accepted Answer

Identify and address the process goals within the lifecycle.. In Disciplined Agile (DA), after selecting a lifecycle (such as Scrum), the team must identify and address the process goals that are relevant to that lifecycle. Process goals are the foundational activities that guide how the team will work, and they must be tailored to the team's context. This step ensures that the team doesn't just adopt a superficial set of ceremonies but instead focuses on the underlying goals that drive success. Only after addressing these goals can the team effectively start executing the lifecycle.

Answer

Report the choice to the executive sponsor.

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Start the first sprint immediately.

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Hire a Scrum expert to manage the team.

Question 3

What is the role of the 'Definition of Done' (DoD) in an agile project?

Accepted Answer

To create a clear, shared understanding of what constitutes a completed work item. The DoD provides a shared understanding of quality and completeness for an increment.

Answer

To replace the need for project manager oversight

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To tell the team how long a task should take

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To act as a contract for external vendors

Question 4

In the DA framework, what is the 'Transition' phase primarily focused on?

Accepted Answer

Deployment and release. In Disciplined Agile, the Transition phase focuses on deploying the solution to production and releasing it to stakeholders. It covers activities like release planning, deployment, and operational readiness, ensuring the solution is delivered and supported. This phase follows Construction and precedes ongoing operations and continuous improvement.

Answer

Continuous improvement

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Requirement gathering

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Team building

Question 5

Which THREE of the following represent ways to reduce handoffs?

Accepted Answer

Automating the delivery pipeline to minimize manual intervention.. Option A is correct because automating the delivery pipeline (e.g., CI/CD with automated build, test, and deploy stages) removes the manual handoffs between development, QA, and operations that occur when artifacts are passed between people or teams. Option B is correct because co-locating team members who need to collaborate frequently replaces formal, asynchronous handoffs with direct, high-bandwidth communication, reducing the transfer of work between separate locations or groups. Option C is correct because cross-functional teams that own features end-to-end keep the skills needed for the whole value stream (dev, test, ops) within one team, eliminating the sequential handoffs to external specialist teams. Option D does not belong because outsourcing to a vendor creates additional organizational boundaries and handoffs rather than reducing them. Option E does not belong because adding a management layer to monitor transfers adds coordination overhead and does not remove the handoffs themselves.

Answer

Outsourcing non-core tasks to a specialized vendor.

Answer

Adding an extra layer of management to monitor transfers.

Question 6

What is the primary benefit of the 'Process Goal' structure in the DA toolkit?

Accepted Answer

It provides a clear way to navigate and choose practices.. The 'Process Goal' structure in the DA toolkit provides a clear way to navigate and choose practices by organizing them around what the team wants to achieve rather than prescribing a fixed set of steps. Each process goal describes a desired outcome and offers a range of practices that can be selected based on context. This structure supports the 'Choose Your WoW' philosophy by making it easier to identify relevant practices.

Answer

It replaces the need for a Project Manager.

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It ensures that teams only use Lean practices.

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It forces teams to adopt a specific lifecycle.

Question 7

Which THREE of the following factors would influence your choice of lifecycle within the DA toolkit?

Accepted Answer

The regulatory compliance requirements.. Option A (regulatory compliance requirements) is correct because the DA (Disciplined Agile) toolkit requires lifecycle selection to account for governance and compliance obligations; highly regulated environments favor more predictive, phase-gated lifecycles with documented control points, while low-regulation contexts can safely use agile or lean approaches. Option C (the maturity of the team) is correct because team capability and experience directly shape which lifecycle is viable: a less experienced or newly formed team typically needs the structure and guidance of a predictive or hybrid lifecycle, whereas a mature, self-organizing team can operate effectively with a continuous delivery or lean lifecycle. Option E (the duration of the project) is correct because project length influences lifecycle fit: short, well-bounded efforts suit agile or lean continuous approaches, while long, complex initiatives with evolving scope often benefit from hybrid or predictive lifecycles with staged governance. Options B (office wall color) and D (team member salaries) are incorrect because they are irrelevant environmental or compensation details that have no bearing on the factors DA uses to guide lifecycle selection, such as compliance, team maturity, project duration, delivery cadence, and solution complexity.

Answer

The color of the team's office walls.

Answer

The salary of the team members.

Question 8

What is the role of 'Enterprise Awareness' in the DA toolkit?

Accepted Answer

To encourage team members to act in the best interest of the organization. Enterprise Awareness in DA is a guiding principle that encourages individuals and teams to consider the whole organisation when making decisions, rather than optimising only for their local team. It pushes teams to act in the best interest of the enterprise, even when that means accepting a locally suboptimal outcome. This is distinct from standardisation or reporting mandates.

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To ensure everyone works the same way

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To report all team activities to management

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To limit the team to internal tasks

Question 9

If you have a 'bottleneck', how does increasing local efficiency at a non-bottleneck step affect the system?

Accepted Answer

It increases the pile-up at the bottleneck.. Increasing speed at a non-bottleneck simply pushes more work to the bottleneck, increasing the pile-up without increasing system throughput.

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It reduces the cycle time of the entire system.

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It has no effect on the system.

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It improves the total throughput of the system.

Question 10

Which THREE of the following actions support the Lean principle 'Build Quality In'?

Accepted Answer

Using automated regression testing.. Option C (Using automated regression testing) is correct because it embeds quality checks into the delivery pipeline, catching defects immediately after each change rather than letting them accumulate, which directly supports building quality in at the source. Option D (Performing continuous integration) is correct because CI automatically builds and tests every commit, providing fast feedback and preventing integration defects from compounding, which is a core mechanism for building quality into the product. Option E (Implementing Test-Driven Development (TDD)) is correct because writing tests before code forces quality requirements into the design and implementation from the start, eliminating defects at the earliest possible point. Option A (Deferring testing until the end of the project) is not correct because late-stage testing allows defects to accumulate and violates the build-quality-in principle of early detection. Option B (Relying on manual testing by an external team) is not correct because outsourcing manual testing creates delayed, non-continuous feedback and does not embed quality into the development process itself.

Answer

Deferring testing until the end of the project.

Answer

Relying on manual testing by an external team.