ISTQB - Agile Ext. - Quiz: Chapter 1

Kanban is a visual management tool that helps teams visualize their workflow and track the progress of tasks. In Kanban, the value chain is visualized by using columns to represent different stages of the process. Each column represents a set of related activities, and tickets or cards are used to symbolize the items or tasks that need to be completed. These tickets move from left to right as they progress through the different stages, providing a clear visual representation of the workflow. Therefore, the statement "True" is correct.

Agile development emphasizes the importance of adapting to changes rather than rigidly adhering to a predetermined plan. It recognizes that requirements and priorities can evolve throughout the development process, and encourages continuous collaboration and feedback from stakeholders. This approach allows for greater flexibility, faster delivery of value, and the ability to quickly respond to customer needs and market demands. Therefore, the statement that "Agile development is about responding to change over following a plan" is true.

The person who represents the customer and is responsible for generating, maintaining, and prioritizing the product backlog in Scrum is the Product Owner. They act as a liaison between the development team and the stakeholders, ensuring that the product meets the customer's needs and expectations. The Product Owner is not the team lead, as their role focuses on the product vision and backlog management rather than leading the development team.

This answer is correct because it accurately describes XP (Extreme Programming), which is an agile approach that emphasizes five core values: communication, simplicity, feedback, courage, and respect. XP encourages the entire team to take responsibility for the quality of the software being developed. This approach promotes effective collaboration and ensures that all team members are actively involved in maintaining and improving the quality of the product.

A retrospective is a meeting held at the end of each iteration to reflect on what went well, what could be improved, and how to incorporate those improvements in future iterations. This meeting allows the team to discuss and learn from their experiences, identify areas of improvement, and make adjustments to their processes or practices. It helps the team to continuously improve and adapt their approach, leading to better outcomes in future iterations.

Agile development emphasizes the importance of individuals and their collaboration, as well as the interactions between team members, rather than relying solely on processes and tools. This approach recognizes that effective communication and collaboration among team members are essential for the success of a project. By prioritizing individuals and their interactions, Agile development aims to create a more flexible and adaptive environment that can respond to changing requirements and deliver high-quality results.

INVEST is a user story creation technique that stands for independent, negotiable, valuable, estimable, small, and testable. This technique helps in creating user stories that are independent of each other, negotiable to allow flexibility, valuable to the end user, estimable in terms of effort, small enough to be completed within a sprint, and testable to ensure quality. By following the INVEST principles, teams can create user stories that are well-defined and can be easily implemented and tested.

The given correct answer, "Working software," is more useful than detailed documentation. This implies that having a functional and operational software product is more valuable and beneficial than having extensive and comprehensive documentation. While documentation is important, it is the actual software that delivers value to the customer and allows for collaboration and feedback. Ultimately, the focus should be on producing working software rather than getting caught up in excessive planning and documentation.

Timeboxing is a key principle in Scrum, which means allocating a fixed amount of time to complete a specific task or activity. It helps teams to stay focused and avoid unnecessary distractions. In the context of Scrum, timeboxing ensures that the team only works on tasks, requirements, and features that are part of the sprint backlog, which is a prioritized list of items to be completed during the sprint. Therefore, the given statement is correct, stating that timeboxing in Scrum is the discipline required to only focus on tasks, requirements, and features that are part of the sprint backlog.

Continuous integration is a practice in software development where developers regularly merge their code changes into a central repository. This allows the code to be built and tested automatically, ensuring that any issues or bugs are identified early on. By doing so, it enables testers to provide quick feedback to the developers on the quality of the code. This feedback loop helps in improving the overall quality of the software and allows for faster identification and resolution of any defects or issues.

Customer Collaboration (over) means that collaborating directly with customers improves the likelihood of understanding exactly what the customer requires. In contrast, Contract Negotiation refers to the traditional approach of negotiating and defining requirements through formal contracts. The agile value emphasizes the importance of direct collaboration with customers, rather than relying solely on formal contracts, to ensure a better understanding of customer needs and deliver a successful product.

A sprint backlog is a set of highest priority items that will be addressed during a specific sprint. It includes the tasks and deliverables that the team commits to completing within the sprint timeframe. The sprint backlog helps to prioritize the work and provides a clear focus for the team during the sprint. It is a key tool in Scrum methodology to ensure that the team stays on track and delivers value incrementally.

The given answer, "The whole team responsible for quality," best describes the concept mentioned in the question. It suggests that in order to achieve project success, role barriers are eliminated, and all team members contribute based on their unique skills and perspectives. This implies that every member of the team takes responsibility for the quality of the project, rather than it being solely the responsibility of a specific role or individual. This approach promotes collaboration, open communication, and a shared commitment to delivering a high-quality end product.

The 3C concept refers to the three elements that make up a user story: card, conversation, and confirmation. The card is a physical media that describes the user story, the conversation is a detailed description of how the software will be used, and the confirmation includes the acceptance criteria for the user story. This concept helps to ensure that the user story is well-defined and understood by the development team.

Backlog refinement is the process in Scrum where the product backlog is continuously reviewed and updated from sprint to sprint. During this process, the team and product owner collaborate to add, remove, or prioritize items in the backlog based on the feedback received and the changing requirements. This helps in ensuring that the backlog remains relevant, well-groomed, and ready for future sprints. It allows the team to have a clear understanding of the upcoming work and helps in maintaining a smooth flow of development throughout the project.

In iteration planning, the tester's role is to participate in risk analysis of user stories, determine the testability of user stories, create acceptance tests for user stories, break down user stories into testing tasks, estimate effort for testing tasks, identify functional and non-functional aspects of the system to be tested, and support and participate in test automation at multiple levels of testing. This ensures that the testing activities are properly planned and integrated into the overall iteration plan, allowing for effective and efficient testing of the developed features.

The term "Station" is used to represent a column on a Kanban Board that corresponds to a specific set of related activities. Each column on the board represents a stage or phase in the workflow, such as development or testing. The station column is where tasks or sticky notes are placed to indicate the progress of work in that particular stage. The station column helps to visually organize and track the flow of work in the Kanban system.

The correct answer is 'The Power of Three' in terms of the Whole-Team Approach. This answer accurately describes the essence of the whole-team approach, which is the collaboration and involvement of testers, developers, and business representatives throughout the development process. The term 'The Power of Three' emphasizes the importance of these three roles working together to ensure the success of the project.

Timeboxing is the discipline required to only focus on tasks, requirements, and features that are part of the sprint backlog. It involves setting a fixed time period, known as a timebox, during which the team works on specific items from the backlog. This helps to ensure that the team stays focused and does not get distracted by other tasks or features that are not part of the current sprint. By strictly adhering to the timebox, the team can effectively manage their time and deliver the planned work within the sprint.

The correct answer is "Transparency." The explanation for this answer is that the daily scrum meeting, where the team reports their status on the sprint, promotes transparency within the team. By sharing their progress and challenges, team members can stay informed about the current status of the sprint and make necessary adjustments. This transparency helps to foster collaboration and accountability among team members, leading to more effective and efficient project management.

One of the 12 Principles captured in the Agile Manifesto is "Customer satisfaction is the highest priority." This principle emphasizes the importance of understanding and meeting the needs of the customer throughout the development process. It promotes the idea of continuous collaboration with the customer to ensure that the end product meets their expectations and provides value to them. This principle also highlights the importance of customer feedback and adapting the software accordingly to ensure customer satisfaction.