ITIL4-CDS Create, Deliver and Support Practice Question
A team uses a 'Kanban' board to manage their workflow. They notice a large number of cards sitting in the 'Testing' column. What does this indicate according to ITIL 4 CDS?
⚠ Common exam trap
Students often misinterpret a buildup of work as a sign of high team productivity or efficiency, rather than correctly identifying it as a operational bottleneck.
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
✓
The testing column has become a bottleneck.
A high number of cards in the 'Testing' column indicates a bottleneck. In Kanban, limiting Work in Progress (WIP) is essential to identify these constraints. This buildup suggests that the testing phase is unable to keep up with the incoming demand, requiring the team to address the constraint to restore flow and improve delivery speed, which is a core objective of effective work management.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
The team is successfully managing their work-in-progress.
Why it's wrong here
A buildup of cards indicates that work is entering the 'Testing' column faster than it is leaving. This is the definition of a bottleneck, not successful management. Effective WIP management aims to keep the flow consistent across all columns, preventing any single phase from becoming overloaded.
- ✓
The testing column has become a bottleneck.
Why this is correct
A high concentration of items in a specific column on a Kanban board clearly signals a bottleneck. The team must investigate why testing is slow—such as a lack of resources, complex processes, or poor quality—and implement improvements to restore the smooth flow of value through the system.
- ✗
The development team is working too slowly.
Why it's wrong here
The accumulation in the 'Testing' column implies that developers are pushing work through to testing faster than testers can process it. While development speed might be high, the problem lies within the testing capacity, not necessarily the development effort itself, making this an inaccurate assessment of the bottleneck.
- ✗
The team needs to add more columns to the board.
Why it's wrong here
Adding more columns does not address the underlying flow issue. A bottleneck is a capacity or process constraint. Simply changing the visual representation of the work does nothing to fix the actual backlog of tasks waiting to be processed within the testing stage of the value stream.
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JA
Written and reviewed by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
Last reviewed September 2026 · checked against the official PeopleCert/AXELOS exam blueprint
This ITIL4-CDS practice question is part of Courseiva's free PeopleCert/AXELOS 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 ITIL4-CDS exam.