AZ-400 Configure processes and communications Practice Question
Your team uses Azure Boards with a Kanban board. You want to limit the number of work items in the 'In Progress' column to prevent bottlenecks. What should you configure?
⚠ Common exam trap
Watch out — candidates often confuse process configuration (column limits) with code governance (branch policies) or automation (work item rules), leading candidates to select options that manage code or workflows rather than direct board constraints.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
Column limits on the Kanban board
Column limits on the Kanban board directly enforce work-in-progress (WIP) constraints by capping the number of work items allowed in a specific column, such as 'In Progress'. This prevents bottlenecks by signaling the team to complete existing work before pulling new items, aligning with Lean and Kanban principles. Azure Boards supports this configuration through the board settings, where you can set a maximum limit per column.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✓
Column limits on the Kanban board
Why this is correct
Column limits on the Kanban board cap the number of work items allowed in each column at a time, enforcing WIP limits and exposing bottlenecks so the team can swarm and balance flow. This is the correct mechanism for preventing overloading a stage in the process.
- ✗
Branch policies
Why it's wrong here
Branch policies govern pull request requirements such as reviewer counts and build validation in Azure Repos; they do not constrain the number of work items on a Kanban board, so they are irrelevant to limiting board columns and cannot help with WIP management.
- ✗
Backlog level settings
Why it's wrong here
Backlog level settings define the product backlog hierarchy (e.g., epics, features, user stories) and which work item types appear at each level; they do not impose column limits or WIP constraints on the Kanban board, so they cannot prevent bottlenecks in individual board columns.
- ✗
Work item rules
Why it's wrong here
Work item rules in Azure Boards are process rules that trigger actions like setting fields or requiring values when work items change state; they cannot restrict the number of items in a board column, so they do not implement WIP limits or column-level flow controls.
Go deeper
Related to this question
Learn chapter
Introduction to DevOps and Azure DevOps
Key term
Board
In Azure DevOps, a Board is a visual tool that helps teams plan, track, and manage work items through different stages of a development process.
Key term
Azure Boards
Azure Boards is a work tracking and project management service from Microsoft that helps teams plan, track, and discuss work across the software development lifecycle using Kanban boards, backlogs, and dashboards.
About these practice questions
Courseiva writes every AZ-400 question from scratch — 823 in total, each with an explanation and a wrong-answer breakdown. None are copied from real exams or dumps. Learn why practice questions differ from exam dumps →
JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This AZ-400 practice question is part of Courseiva's free Microsoft certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the AZ-400 exam.