Practices and Governance Quiz

16 questions covering XP practices, DSDM and MoSCoW, scaling and choosing a methodology.

XP practices

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Why must a TDD test be observed failing before the code is written?

Because the build system requires a failing state to record coverage

Because refactoring is only legal after a failure

A test that has never failed may pass for reasons unrelated to the code it claims to cover

Correct. The red step is the only evidence that the test actually exercises the new behavior.

Because it produces a more accurate estimate for the item

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Which best describes the cost of pair programming?

Two people for twice as long, so four times the cost

Two people on one task, offset by continuous review, faster defect detection and wider knowledge

Correct. The comparison to make is against solo work plus a separate review cycle, not against solo work with no review at all.

No cost, since paired work is always twice as fast

It cannot be measured, so it is adopted on faith

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A team adopts collective code ownership without continuous integration or tests. What happens?

Changes break code elsewhere with nothing to catch it, since no automated check runs on every integration

Correct. XP's practices are mutually supporting, and removing one takes away the safety net another depends on.

Ownership disputes increase between developers

Nothing, the practices are independent

Refactoring becomes impossible to schedule

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Long-lived feature branches are, in Lean terms, what?

Extra processing

Motion

Over-production

Inventory, since divergence accumulates until merging becomes its own project

Correct. Continuous integration exists specifically to keep this queue near zero.

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In XP's planning game, which side decides estimates?

The customer, who owns the budget

The coach, who balances the two sides

The developers, while the customer decides scope and priority

Correct. Separating the two authorities is what prevents both imposed deadlines and developer-driven gold-plating.

Both jointly, by consensus vote

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XP treats sustained overtime as what?

Evidence of team commitment

A planning defect, because tired developers produce defects costing more than the hours gained

Correct. Sustainable pace is a hard rule in XP rather than an aspiration, which is Agile principle 8 applied at team level.

A normal part of the release cycle

A trade-off the customer may purchase

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Which XP rule set describes simple design?

Passes all tests, reveals intention, no duplication, fewest elements, in that order

Correct. Ordering matters. A design is not permitted to become clearer by breaking tests.

Fewest classes, fewest methods, fewest lines, in that order

Documented, layered, decoupled, and covered by tests

Configurable, extensible, reusable, and abstract

DSDM

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DSDM fixes time, cost and quality. What flexes?

Team size, which scales to protect the date

Quality, through a reduced testing standard late in the timebox

The delivery date, which moves only with sponsor approval

Scope, managed with MoSCoW so the trade-off is explicit and agreed in advance

Correct. Something always flexes, and DSDM's contribution is naming which one and governing it formally.

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What is the purpose of the Foundations phase?

To produce a complete detailed specification before development begins

To build the first working increment for the sponsor

To baseline scope at a high level, plus architecture and delivery approach, so that a fixed date is credible without pretending detail is knowable early

Correct. It is the compromise that lets DSDM fix time and cost while leaving detail to emerge in the timeboxes.

To appoint every named role in the project

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Which question correctly tests whether a requirement is a Must have?

Is it valuable to the customer?

Would we cancel the release rather than ship without it?

Correct. Must have is about viability of the delivery, not importance or effort, which almost everything scores highly on.

Would it be expensive to add later?

Did a senior stakeholder request it?

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Why does MoSCoW cap Must haves at around 60% of a timebox's effort?

The Should and Could haves are the contingency that absorbs estimation error, which is what makes a fixed date achievable

Correct. With 100% Must haves there is nothing to drop, so any surprise moves the date, and the technique stops informing anything.

Because teams are productive for only 60% of their time

Because the remaining 40% is reserved for testing and documentation

Because sponsors will only approve 60% of requested scope

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Which DSDM role corresponds most closely to XP's on-site customer?

Business Sponsor

Technical Coordinator

Team Leader

Business Ambassador

Correct. A real user embedded in the team day to day, whose availability the method assumes rather than hopes for.

Scaling and choosing

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What should an organization address before adopting any scaling framework?

Standardizing story point scales across teams

Synchronizing every team to the same Sprint length

Cross-team dependencies and manual delivery, since most scaling pain is coordination created by them

Correct. A framework laid over tangled architecture and risky releases scales the coordination overhead rather than the delivery.

Appointing a central release manager

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How do LeSS and SAFe differ most fundamentally?

LeSS uses flow-based delivery while SAFe uses timeboxes

LeSS scales by removing structure and keeping one Product Owner and one backlog, while SAFe adds prescribed roles, layers and a planning cadence

Correct. They sit at opposite ends of the prescriptiveness axis, which is the real decision an organization is making.

LeSS suits regulated industries and SAFe does not

LeSS applies only to two teams, SAFe to more

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A team can only reach real users every six months because releases are manual and risky. What should change first?

The delivery pipeline, since no methodology produces agility when the feedback loop is six months long

Correct. Sprints inside a six-month release cycle produce ceremony without the adaptation that gives the ceremony its value.

Adopt Scrum with two-week Sprints

Introduce velocity tracking to improve forecasts

Adopt a scaling framework to coordinate the release

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A regulated organization runs agile delivery inside a plan-driven governance wrapper. Is this viable?

No, governance and agility are fundamentally incompatible

Yes, but only with a relaxed Definition of Done

No, unless the entire organization adopts SAFe

Yes, provided the wrapper does not force a full specification phase in front of every increment

Correct. Governance and short feedback loops coexist fine. What kills the benefit is reintroducing a big up-front phase per increment.

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