DASM Questions and Answers

The Disciplined Agile (DA) principle of being pragmatic is characterized by the focus on "being as effective as you can and continuously improving." According to PMI's Disciplined Agile Toolkit, being pragmatic means applying an agile mindset that is not constrained by a rigid set of rules or practices. Instead, it emphasizes being practical and outcome-focused, aiming for the best results in each unique context while continually seeking opportunities for improvement.

Disciplined Agile promotes pragmatic decision-making by suggesting that teams should balance their approach by being both goal-driven and situation-aware. This means that instead of strictly adhering to a single agile framework or methodology, teams should assess their situation, leverage their experience, and apply the most suitable tools and techniques available. Furthermore, continuous improvement (Kaizen) is a fundamental aspect, meaning teams should regularly reflect on their practices and make iterative enhancements to achieve effectiveness.

This principle also aligns with DA's guidance to "Optimize Flow" and "Be Awesome," as it encourages teams to deliver value while recognizing that every situation might require different tools, techniques, and practices. Thus, "D. Being as effective as you can and continuously improving" best captures the essence of DA’s pragmatic approach.

In Disciplined Agile,the team membersare responsible for defining the amount of work to be completed during an iteration based on their understanding of the team's current capacity. This is aligned with Agile principles that promote self-organizing teams and emphasize the importance of team members making commitments based on their realistic assessment of what they can achieve. This collaborative decision-making process helps to ensure that the team is neither over-committing nor under-utilizing its capacity, leading to sustainable delivery and higher quality outcomes.

The Disciplined Agile mindset includes principles that guide individuals and teams in making decisions and taking actions that align with Agile values and the specific context of their organization. Three principles of the Disciplined Agile mindset are:

B. Enterprise awareness: Encourages teams to work with an understanding of their organization’s goals, strategies, and needs, ensuring alignment and collaboration across teams and departments.

C. Delight customers: Focuses on delivering high value and exceptional service to customers, ensuring that their needs are met or exceeded.

E. Be pragmatic: Involves taking a practical and context-sensitive approach, applying tools and practices that best fit the situation rather than adhering strictly to a particular methodology.

Other options likeA. Accelerate deliveryandD. Be a servant leaderare relevant to Agile practices but are not explicitly stated as Disciplined Agile mindset principles.

Thus, the correct answers areB. Enterprise awareness,C. Delight customers, andE. Be pragmatic.

In Disciplined Agile (DA), aSpecialistis considered a supporting role. Specialists are individuals with deep expertise in a specific area, such as a database administrator, security expert, or a user experience (UX) designer. They are not necessarily core members of the delivery team but can be brought in as needed to provide specific skills or knowledge that the team requires at various points throughout the project. The focus of supporting roles like Specialists is to supplement the team's capabilities and help address specific technical challenges.

In Disciplined Agile, theArchitecture Owneris responsible formitigating key technical risks. This role focuses on overseeing the architectural integrity of the solution being developed, ensuring that the team makes sound technical decisions that align with the desired architecture and quality attributes of the project. The Architecture Owner helps in identifying and addressing potential technical risks early in the project life cycle, collaborating with the team to adapt the architecture as necessary to mitigate these risks.

This individual works closely with the team to guide architectural considerations, ensures compliance with the chosen architectural strategies, and maintains the overall technical direction of the project. Although they are involved in other cross-functional activities, their primary responsibility is to foresee and address technical challenges that could jeopardize the success of the project.

In Disciplined Agile (DA), the three common phases across project life cycles areInception, Construction,andTransition. These phases reflect the iterative and incremental approach of agile methodologies tailored to suit varying contexts.

Inception: This phase is about getting things started properly. It includes initial planning activities such as defining the vision, developing a preliminary project plan, identifying stakeholders, securing funding, and setting up the initial environment.

Construction: This phase focuses on developing a consumable solution in a series of iterations. The team builds, enhances, and evolves the solution to ensure that it meets stakeholders' needs while remaining aligned with the overarching vision and goals.

Transition: The transition phase ensures that the solution is ready for delivery to the end-users or stakeholders. This includes final validation and verification activities, user training, deployment, and addressing any remaining issues.

These phases are common in the DA life cycles, reflecting the disciplined approach to managing complexity in various types of projects, from straightforward to highly complex, while supporting adaptability and continuous improvement.

When a team completes their iteration backlog earlier than expected, the recommended approach in Disciplined Agile is to collaborate with the product owner to pull additional work from the product backlog into the iteration backlog. This approach maintains momentum and ensures that the team continues delivering value without waiting for the next iteration. It promotes agility and maximizes productivity by utilizing any remaining time effectively.

A. Working on non-critical tasksorD. waiting for other groupsare not effective uses of the team’s time and do not align with agile principles of continuous value delivery.

C. Reporting differences in completion timehelps with future planning but does not address the immediate need to continue productive work.

Thus, the correct answer isB. Work with the product owner to pull more work from the product backlog into their iteration backlog.

The role of theProduct Ownerin Agile and Disciplined Agile frameworks is to ensure the team isbuilding the right productthat aligns with stakeholder needs and provides maximum value tothe customer. The Product Owner achieves this by managing and prioritizing the product backlog, defining user stories, clarifying requirements, and making decisions on behalf of the stakeholders.

A. Coordinate the productis not a primary function of the Product Owner.

B. Inspect the productmay be a part of their responsibilities, but the focus is on guiding the product's development.

D. Organize the product teamis more aligned with the Scrum Master's role.

In Agile, and specifically within the Disciplined Agile framework, theretrospectiveis a crucial ceremony where the team reflects on their past iteration to identify areas of improvement. The main purpose is to foster continuous improvement by focusing on how the team can better work together moving forward. It encourages open communication, self-reflection, and team accountability, aligning with the agile principles of continuous learning and adaptation.

The other options are incorrect because:

B. Organizing the product backlogis typically done during backlog refinement sessions, not retrospectives.

C. Prohibiting stakeholders from making requestsis not the purpose of a retrospective; stakeholder feedback is valuable and is usually gathered during review sessions.

D. Providing the product owner with insights into team dynamicsmay occur, but it is not the primary goal of the retrospective.

Therefore, the correct answer isA. It allows the team time to focus on how they can better work together moving forward, as it aligns with the continuous improvement objective central to Agile and Disciplined Agile practices.

Acomplex adaptive systemis characterized by the idea that understanding the individual components does not necessarily provide a clear understanding of the system's overall behavior. These systems are composed of interacting agents that adapt and learn from their experiences, leading to emergent behavior that cannot be easily predicted from the properties of the individual components. This concept is critical in Agile and Disciplined Agile practices, where teams and organizations are viewed as complex adaptive systems that evolve and adapt over time in response to their environment.